request for comments/advices about mapping PetscCookie -> Python Type

[Matthew Knepley]

That approach sounds fine. I think that initializing the COOKIEs was not
liked by some compilers. Ugh.

   Matt

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 1:31 PM, Lisandro Dalcin <dalcinl at gmail.com> wrote:
> In petsc4py, I've just implemented support for compose()/query() in my
> base Object class. However, I wanted to implement query() in such a
> way that 'dynamic_cast' (in the C++ sense, i.e, downcast) the composed
> PETSc object and return to Python code an instance of the appropriate
> Python type. Then, if you compose() a Mat, then query() will return a
> Mat.
>
> I manages all this inside a private python dictionary mapping
> PetscCookie -> Python type. Of course, this required to make sure that
> ALL PetscXXXInitializePackage() have been called before adding stuff
> to my dict. All is working fine; moreover, this machinery is also
> being used in slepc4py and tao4py (yes, I have those...), then after
> importing slepc4py or tao4py, the dictionary is populated as
> appropriate.
>
> Then, the question are: Do this approach sound good enough? Is it too
> much hackery? Can I relly in the long future that this approach will
> always work?
>
> BTW, now I have a clear use case for initalizing all the XXX_COOKIE's
> to 0 in core PETSc. This will really help me to spot package
> initialization problems. In fact, I had to manage some of those
> problems in petsc-2.3.2, petsc-2.3.3 and tao-1.9 .
>
> PS: The renaming DA_COOKIE -> DM_COOKIE does not play well with all
> this, but I do not care about it right now.
>
>
> --
> Lisandro Dalcín
> ---------------
> Centro Internacional de Métodos Computacionales en Ingeniería (CIMEC)
> Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química (INTEC)
> Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
> PTLC - Güemes 3450, (3000) Santa Fe, Argentina
> Tel/Fax: +54-(0)342-451.1594
>
>



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What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
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