Common Object Structures

There are a large number of structures which are used in the definition of object types for Python. This section describes these structures and how they are used.

Base object types and macros

All Python objects ultimately share a small number of fields at the beginning of the object’s representation in memory. These are represented by the PyObject and PyVarObject types, which are defined, in turn, by the expansions of some macros also used, whether directly or indirectly, in the definition of all other Python objects.

PyObject: All object types are extensions of this type. This is a type which contains the information Python needs to treat a pointer to an object as an object. In a normal “release” build, it contains only the object’s reference count and a pointer to the corresponding type object. Nothing is actually declared to be a PyObject, but every pointer to a Python object can be cast to a PyObject*. Access to the members must be done by using the macros Py_REFCNT and Py_TYPE.

PyVarObject: This is an extension of PyObject that adds the ob_size field. This is only used for objects that have some notion of length. This type does not often appear in the Python/C API. Access to the members must be done by using the macros Py_REFCNT, Py_TYPE, and Py_SIZE.

PyObject_HEAD

This is a macro used when declaring new types which represent objects without a varying length. The PyObject_HEAD macro expands to:

PyObject ob_base;

See documentation of PyObject above.

PyObject_VAR_HEAD

This is a macro used when declaring new types which represent objects with a length that varies from instance to instance. The PyObject_VAR_HEAD macro expands to:

PyVarObject ob_base;

See documentation of PyVarObject above.

Py_TYPE(o)

This macro is used to access the ob_type member of a Python object. It expands to:

(((PyObject*)(o))->ob_type)

int Py_IS_TYPE(PyObject *o, PyTypeObject *type): Return non-zero if the object o type is type. Return zero otherwise. Equivalent to: Py_TYPE(o) == type.

New in version 3.9.

void Py_SET_TYPE(PyObject *o, PyTypeObject *type): Set the object o type to type.

New in version 3.9.

Py_REFCNT(o)

This macro is used to access the ob_refcnt member of a Python object. It expands to:

(((PyObject*)(o))->ob_refcnt)

void Py_SET_REFCNT(PyObject *o, Py_ssize_t refcnt): Set the object o reference counter to refcnt.

New in version 3.9.

Py_SIZE(o)

This macro is used to access the ob_size member of a Python object. It expands to:

(((PyVarObject*)(o))->ob_size)

void Py_SET_SIZE(PyVarObject *o, Py_ssize_t size): Set the object o size to size.

New in version 3.9.

PyObject_HEAD_INIT(type)

This is a macro which expands to initialization values for a new PyObject type. This macro expands to:

_PyObject_EXTRA_INIT
1, type,

PyVarObject_HEAD_INIT(type, size)

This is a macro which expands to initialization values for a new PyVarObject type, including the ob_size field. This macro expands to:

_PyObject_EXTRA_INIT
1, type, size,

Implementing functions and methods

PyCFunction

Type of the functions used to implement most Python callables in C. Functions of this type take two PyObject* parameters and return one such value. If the return value is NULL, an exception shall have been set. If not NULL, the return value is interpreted as the return value of the function as exposed in Python. The function must return a new reference.

The function signature is:

PyObject *PyCFunction(PyObject *self,
                      PyObject *args);

PyCFunctionWithKeywords

Type of the functions used to implement Python callables in C with signature METH_VARARGS | METH_KEYWORDS. The function signature is:

PyObject *PyCFunctionWithKeywords(PyObject *self,
                                  PyObject *args,
                                  PyObject *kwargs);

_PyCFunctionFast

Type of the functions used to implement Python callables in C with signature METH_FASTCALL. The function signature is:

PyObject *_PyCFunctionFast(PyObject *self,
                           PyObject *const *args,
                           Py_ssize_t nargs);

_PyCFunctionFastWithKeywords

Type of the functions used to implement Python callables in C with signature METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS. The function signature is:

PyObject *_PyCFunctionFastWithKeywords(PyObject *self,
                                       PyObject *const *args,
                                       Py_ssize_t nargs,
                                       PyObject *kwnames);

PyCMethod

Type of the functions used to implement Python callables in C with signature METH_METHOD | METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS. The function signature is:

PyObject *PyCMethod(PyObject *self,
                    PyTypeObject *defining_class,
                    PyObject *const *args,
                    Py_ssize_t nargs,
                    PyObject *kwnames)

New in version 3.9.

PyMethodDef

Structure used to describe a method of an extension type. This structure has four fields:

Field	C Type	Meaning
`ml_name`	const char *	name of the method
`ml_meth`	PyCFunction	pointer to the C implementation
`ml_flags`	int	flag bits indicating how the call should be constructed
`ml_doc`	const char *	points to the contents of the docstring

The ml_meth is a C function pointer. The functions may be of different types, but they always return PyObject*. If the function is not of the PyCFunction, the compiler will require a cast in the method table. Even though PyCFunction defines the first parameter as PyObject*, it is common that the method implementation uses the specific C type of the self object.

The ml_flags field is a bitfield which can include the following flags. The individual flags indicate either a calling convention or a binding convention.

There are these calling conventions:

METH_VARARGS: This is the typical calling convention, where the methods have the type PyCFunction. The function expects two PyObject* values. The first one is the self object for methods; for module functions, it is the module object. The second parameter (often called args) is a tuple object representing all arguments. This parameter is typically processed using PyArg_ParseTuple() or PyArg_UnpackTuple().

METH_VARARGS | METH_KEYWORDS: Methods with these flags must be of type PyCFunctionWithKeywords. The function expects three parameters: self, args, kwargs where kwargs is a dictionary of all the keyword arguments or possibly NULL if there are no keyword arguments. The parameters are typically processed using PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords().

METH_FASTCALL

Fast calling convention supporting only positional arguments. The methods have the type _PyCFunctionFast. The first parameter is self, the second parameter is a C array of PyObject* values indicating the arguments and the third parameter is the number of arguments (the length of the array).

This is not part of the limited API.

New in version 3.7.

METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS

Extension of METH_FASTCALL supporting also keyword arguments, with methods of type _PyCFunctionFastWithKeywords. Keyword arguments are passed the same way as in the vectorcall protocol: there is an additional fourth PyObject* parameter which is a tuple representing the names of the keyword arguments (which are guaranteed to be strings) or possibly NULL if there are no keywords. The values of the keyword arguments are stored in the args array, after the positional arguments.

This is not part of the limited API.

New in version 3.7.

METH_METHOD | METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS

Extension of METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS supporting the defining class, that is, the class that contains the method in question. The defining class might be a superclass of Py_TYPE(self).

The method needs to be of type PyCMethod, the same as for METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS with defining_class argument added after self.

New in version 3.9.

METH_NOARGS: Methods without parameters don’t need to check whether arguments are given if they are listed with the METH_NOARGS flag. They need to be of type PyCFunction. The first parameter is typically named self and will hold a reference to the module or object instance. In all cases the second parameter will be NULL.

METH_O: Methods with a single object argument can be listed with the METH_O flag, instead of invoking PyArg_ParseTuple() with a "O" argument. They have the type PyCFunction, with the self parameter, and a PyObject* parameter representing the single argument.

These two constants are not used to indicate the calling convention but the binding when use with methods of classes. These may not be used for functions defined for modules. At most one of these flags may be set for any given method.

METH_CLASS: The method will be passed the type object as the first parameter rather than an instance of the type. This is used to create class methods, similar to what is created when using the classmethod() built-in function.

METH_STATIC: The method will be passed NULL as the first parameter rather than an instance of the type. This is used to create static methods, similar to what is created when using the staticmethod() built-in function.

One other constant controls whether a method is loaded in place of another definition with the same method name.

METH_COEXIST: The method will be loaded in place of existing definitions. Without METH_COEXIST, the default is to skip repeated definitions. Since slot wrappers are loaded before the method table, the existence of a sq_contains slot, for example, would generate a wrapped method named __contains__() and preclude the loading of a corresponding PyCFunction with the same name. With the flag defined, the PyCFunction will be loaded in place of the wrapper object and will co-exist with the slot. This is helpful because calls to PyCFunctions are optimized more than wrapper object calls.

Accessing attributes of extension types

PyMemberDef

Structure which describes an attribute of a type which corresponds to a C struct member. Its fields are:

Field	C Type	Meaning
`name`	const char *	name of the member
`type`	int	the type of the member in the C struct
`offset`	Py_ssize_t	the offset in bytes that the member is located on the type’s object struct
`flags`	int	flag bits indicating if the field should be read-only or writable
`doc`	const char *	points to the contents of the docstring

type can be one of many T_ macros corresponding to various C types. When the member is accessed in Python, it will be converted to the equivalent Python type.

Macro name	C type
T_SHORT	short
T_INT	int
T_LONG	long
T_FLOAT	float
T_DOUBLE	double
T_STRING	const char *
T_OBJECT	PyObject *
T_OBJECT_EX	PyObject *
T_CHAR	char
T_BYTE	char
T_UBYTE	unsigned char
T_UINT	unsigned int
T_USHORT	unsigned short
T_ULONG	unsigned long
T_BOOL	char
T_LONGLONG	long long
T_ULONGLONG	unsigned long long
T_PYSSIZET	Py_ssize_t

T_OBJECT and T_OBJECT_EX differ in that T_OBJECT returns None if the member is NULL and T_OBJECT_EX raises an AttributeError. Try to use T_OBJECT_EX over T_OBJECT because T_OBJECT_EX handles use of the del statement on that attribute more correctly than T_OBJECT.

flags can be 0 for write and read access or READONLY for read-only access. Using T_STRING for type implies READONLY. T_STRING data is interpreted as UTF-8. Only T_OBJECT and T_OBJECT_EX members can be deleted. (They are set to NULL).

Heap allocated types (created using PyType_FromSpec() or similar), PyMemberDef may contain definitions for the special members __dictoffset__, __weaklistoffset__ and __vectorcalloffset__, corresponding to tp_dictoffset, tp_weaklistoffset and tp_vectorcall_offset in type objects. These must be defined with T_PYSSIZET and READONLY, for example:

static PyMemberDef spam_type_members[] = {
    {"__dictoffset__", T_PYSSIZET, offsetof(Spam_object, dict), READONLY},
    {NULL}  /* Sentinel */
};

PyGetSetDef

Structure to define property-like access for a type. See also description of the PyTypeObject.tp_getset slot.

Field	C Type	Meaning
name	const char *	attribute name
get	getter	C Function to get the attribute
set	setter	optional C function to set or delete the attribute, if omitted the attribute is readonly
doc	const char *	optional docstring
closure	void *	optional function pointer, providing additional data for getter and setter

The get function takes one PyObject* parameter (the instance) and a function pointer (the associated closure):

typedef PyObject *(*getter)(PyObject *, void *);

It should return a new reference on success or NULL with a set exception on failure.

set functions take two PyObject* parameters (the instance and the value to be set) and a function pointer (the associated closure):

typedef int (*setter)(PyObject *, PyObject *, void *);

In case the attribute should be deleted the second parameter is NULL. Should return 0 on success or -1 with a set exception on failure.