cython Getting started with cython Hello World

Example

A Cython pyx file needs to be translated to C code (cythonized) and compiled before it can be used from Python. A common approach is to create an extension module which is then imported in a Python program.

Code

For this example we create three files:

• hello.pyx contains the Cython code.
• test.py is a Python script that uses the hello extension.
• setup.py is used to compile the Cython code.

hello.pyx

from libc.math cimport pow

cdef double square_and_add (double x):
    """Compute x^2 + x as double.

    This is a cdef function that can be called from within
    a Cython program, but not from Python.
    """
    return pow(x, 2.0) + x

cpdef print_result (double x):
    """This is a cpdef function that can be called from Python."""
    print("({} ^ 2) + {} = {}".format(x, x, square_and_add(x)))

test.py

# Import the extension module hello.
import hello

# Call the print_result method 
hello.print_result(23.0)

setup.py

from distutils.core import Extension, setup
from Cython.Build import cythonize

# define an extension that will be cythonized and compiled
ext = Extension(name="hello", sources=["hello.pyx"])
setup(ext_modules=cythonize(ext))

Compiling

This can be done by, using cython hello.pyx to translate the code to C and then compile it using gcc. An easier way is to let distutils handle this:

$ ls
hello.pyx  setup.py  test.py
$ python setup.py build_ext --inplace
$ ls
build  hello.c  hello.cpython-34m.so  hello.pyx  setup.py  test.py

The shared object (.so) file can be imported and used from Python, so now we can run the test.py:

$ python test.py
(23.0 ^ 2) + 23.0 = 552.0