pocketpy

Quick Start

You have two options to integrate pkpy into your project.

Use the single header file

Download the pocketpy.h on our GitHub Release page. And #include it in your project. The header can only be included once.

Use CMake

Clone the whole repository as a submodule into your project, In your CMakelists.txt, add the following lines:

add_subdirectory(pocketpy)
target_link_libraries(<your_target> pocketpy)

if(EMSCRIPTEN)
    # exceptions must be enabled for emscripten
    set(CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS "${CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS} -fexceptions")
endif()

See CMakeLists.txt for details.

It is safe to use main branch in production if CI badge is green.

Compile Flags

To compile it with your project, these flags must be set:

• --std=c++17 flag must be set
• RTTI must be enabled
• Exception must be enabled
• For MSVC, /utf-8 flag must be set

For development build, use this snippet.

# prerequisites
pip install cmake
# build the repo
python cmake_build.py
# unittest
python scripts/run_tests.py

Example

#include <pybind11/pybind11.h>

namespace py = pybind11;

int main() {
    // Start the interpreter
    py::scoped_interpreter guard{};

    // Hello world!
    py::exec("print('Hello world!')");

    // Create a list
    py::exec("a = [1, 2, 3]");

    // Eval the sum of the list
    auto result = py::eval("sum(a)");
    std::cout << "Sum of the list: " << result.cast<int>() << std::endl;  // 6

    // Bindings
    auto m = py::module_::__main__();
    m.def("add", [](int a, int b) {
        return a + b;
    });

    // Call the function
    std::cout << "Sum of 2 variables: " << m.attr("add")(1, 2).cast<int>() << std::endl;  // 10

    return 0;
}

Performance

Currently, pkpy is as fast as cpython 3.9. Performance results for cpython 3.9 are applicable to for pkpy.

See https://pocketpy.dev/performance/ for details.

And these are the results of the primes benchmark on Intel i5-12400F, WSL (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS), which roughly reflects the performance among c++, lua, pkpy and cpython.

name	version	time	file
c++	gnu++11	0.104s ■□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□	benchmarks/primes.cpp
lua	5.3.3	1.576s ■■■■■■■■■□□□□□□□	benchmarks/primes.lua
pkpy	1.2.7	2.385s ■■■■■■■■■■■■■□□□	benchmarks/primes.py
cpython	3.8.10	2.871s ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■	benchmarks/primes.py

Used By

	Description
TIC-80	TIC-80 is a fantasy computer for making, playing and sharing tiny games.
MiniPythonIDE	A python ide base on pocketpy
py-js	Python3 externals for Max / MSP
crescent	Crescent is a cross-platform 2D fighting and beat-em-up game engine.

Submit a pull request to add your project here.

Contribution

All kinds of contributions are welcome.

• Submit a Pull Request
  • fix a bug
  • add a new feature
• Open an Issue
  • any suggestions
  • any questions

If you find pkpy useful, consider star this repository (●’◡’●)

Sponsor this project

You can sponsor this project via these ways.

• Github Sponsors
• Buy me a coffee

Your sponsorship will help us develop pkpy continuously.

Reference

• cpython

The official implementation of Python programming language.

• byterun

An excellent learning material. It illustrates how Python’s virtual machine works.

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