Cython

Cython

File:Cython-logo.svg
Developer(s)	Robert Bradshaw, Stefan Behnel, et al.
Stable release	0.12.1 / February 2, 2010
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Programming language
Website	http://cython.org/

Cython is a programming language that simplifies the writing of C programming language extension modules for the CPython Python runtime. The language's syntax is almost identical (a super-set) to Python, but it supports calling C functions directly and declaring C types on variables and class attributes. It is translated into C code, which is ready to be compiled as Extension Module for Python, or as stand-alone program that embeds the CPython runtime.

The special advantage of this seamless Python/C intermix approach is that existing Python code can be tuned to almost the speed of C by just adding a few static type declarations and by making some adaptations in critical loops - without requiring complicated interface code. The coding speed and the readability of the code remains very Pythonic. The typical speed-up for numerical/array computations is about 100x-1000x [1]. In comparison, the typical speed-up with Psyco (Python JIT compiler) is about 4x-100x [2].

Cython is a derivative of the Pyrex programming language, and supports more features and optimizations than Pyrex.

The free software SAGE computer algebra system is partially written in Cython.

Cython is written in Python and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

See also

• Psyco
• Shed Skin

References

• Cython home page