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pythonc++arrayscharswig

SWIG typemap 2d array to Python list


This is next level of this question. I need to cast 2d C char array to Python list.

Python side

device_info = getInfoFromCpp()
print(device_info.angles)
for angle in device_info.angles:
  print("Angel: " + angle)

Error

<Swig Object of type 'char (*)[MaxStringLength]' at 0x000000D8B2710330>
Execution error: 'SwigPyObject' object is not iterable

С++ header

struct DeviceInformation {
  static const int MaxStringLength= 200;
  static const int MaxNumberOfAngles= 5;

  char serialNumber[MaxStringLength];
  char angles[MaxNumberOfAngles][MaxStringLength];
};

Based on @MarkTolonen 's answer I try the following typemaps but no result.

// %typemap(out) char*[ANY] %{
// %typemap(out) char (*)[ANY] %{
%typemap(out) char [ANY][ANY] %{
    PyObject *pyArray = PyList_New(5);
    for (uint8_t i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {
        PyObject *pyString = PyString_FromString(reinterpret_cast<char*>($1[i]));
        PyList_SetItem(pyArray, i, pyString);
    }
    $result = pyArray;
%}

Solution

  • Your code as is worked for me, but here are some corrections as mentioned in the question comments and a working example:

    test.i

    %module test
    
    // This works for any size of 2d char array assuming it contains
    // UTF-8-encoded, null-terminated strings (no error checking!)
    %typemap(out) char [ANY][ANY] %{
        $result = PyList_New($1_dim0);
        for (Py_ssize_t i = 0; i < $1_dim0; ++i) {
            PyList_SET_ITEM($result, i, PyUnicode_FromString($1[i]));
        }
    %}
    
    %inline %{
    struct DeviceInformation {
      static const int MaxStringLength= 200;
      static const int MaxNumberOfAngles= 5;
    
      char serialNumber[MaxStringLength];
      char angles[MaxNumberOfAngles][MaxStringLength];
    };
    
    // test function
    DeviceInformation getInfoFromCpp() {
        return {"serialnumber",{"angle1","angle2","angle3","angle4","angle5"}};
    }
    %}
    

    Demo:

    >>> import test
    >>> x=test.getInfoFromCpp()
    >>> x.serialNumber
    'serialnumber'
    >>> x.angles
    ['angle1', 'angle2', 'angle3', 'angle4', 'angle5']