pocketpy/docs/quick-start.md

---

icon: rocket order: 20

label: Quick Start

You have two options to integrate pkpy into your project.

Use the single header file

Download the pocketpy.h and pocketpy.c on our GitHub Release page. And #include it in your project.

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)

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=c11 flag must be set
• For MSVC, /utf-8 flag must be set
• NDEBUG macro should be defined for release build, or you will get poor performance

Get prebuilt binaries

We have prebuilt binaries, check them out on our GitHub Actions.

You can download an artifact there which contains the following files.

├── android
│   ├── arm64-v8a
│   │   └── libpocketpy.so
│   ├── armeabi-v7a
│   │   └── libpocketpy.so
│   └── x86_64
│       └── libpocketpy.so
├── ios
│   └── libpocketpy.a
├── linux
│   └── x86_64
│       ├── libpocketpy.so
│       └── main
└── windows
    └── x86_64
        ├── main.exe
        └── pocketpy.dll

Example

#include "pocketpy.h"
#include <stdio.h>

static bool int_add(int argc, py_Ref argv) {
    PY_CHECK_ARGC(2);
    PY_CHECK_ARG_TYPE(0, tp_int);
    PY_CHECK_ARG_TYPE(1, tp_int);
    py_i64 a = py_toint(py_arg(0));
    py_i64 b = py_toint(py_arg(1));
    py_newint(py_retval(), a + b);
    return true;
}

int main() {
    // Initialize pocketpy
    py_initialize();

    // Hello world!
    bool ok = py_exec("print('Hello world!')", "<string>", EXEC_MODE, NULL);
    if(!ok) goto __ERROR;

    // Create a list: [1, 2, 3]
    py_Ref r0 = py_getreg(0);
    py_newlistn(r0, 3);
    py_newint(py_list_getitem(r0, 0), 1);
    py_newint(py_list_getitem(r0, 1), 2);
    py_newint(py_list_getitem(r0, 2), 3);

    // Eval the sum of the list
    py_Ref f_sum = py_getbuiltin(py_name("sum"));
    py_push(f_sum);
    py_pushnil();
    py_push(r0);
    ok = py_vectorcall(1, 0);
    if(!ok) goto __ERROR;

    printf("Sum of the list: %d\n", (int)py_toint(py_retval()));  // 6

    // Bind native `int_add` as a global variable
    py_newnativefunc(r0, int_add);
    py_setglobal(py_name("add"), r0);

    // Call `add` in python
    ok = py_exec("add(3, 7)", "<string>", EVAL_MODE, NULL);
    if(!ok) goto __ERROR;

    py_i64 res = py_toint(py_retval());
    printf("Sum of 2 variables: %d\n", (int)res);  // 10

    py_finalize();
    return 0;

__ERROR:
    py_printexc();
    py_finalize();
    return 1;
}