Simple CTypes example and benchmark.

ctypes_benchmark.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""
This module could be used for benchmarking
ctypes. It is compared with math module.
"""

import ctypes
import sys
import math
import time
import random

def bench_ctypes(test_vector):
    """
    CTypes testing function
    """
    if sys.platform.startswith('linux'):
        libm = ctypes.CDLL('libm.so')
    else:
        return
    sin = getattr(libm, 'sin')
    sin.argtypes = [ctypes.c_double]
    sin.restype = ctypes.c_double
    # Compute values
    for val in test_vector:
        sin(val)

def bench_math(test_vector):
    """
    Math module testing unction
    """
    # Compute values
    for val in test_vector:
        math.sin(val)

def gen_test_vector(num):
    """
    This method generates vector with random numbers
    """
    vector = [None] * num
    while num > 0:
        vector[num - 1] = random.random()
        num -= 1
    return vector

def bench(num=1000000):
    """
    This function benchmarks computation using
    ctypes and math module
    """
    test_vector = gen_test_vector(num)

    start1 = time.time()
    bench_ctypes(test_vector)
    end1 = time.time()
    print('ctypes:', end1 - start1)

    start2 = time.time()
    bench_math(test_vector)
    end2 = time.time()
    print('math:', end2 - start2)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    bench()

ctypes_example.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""
This is simple example of using ctypes module
"""

import ctypes
import sys

def test_ctypes():
    """
    Main testing function
    """
    if sys.platform.startswith('linux'):
        libm = ctypes.CDLL('libm.so')
    else:
        return
    sin = getattr(libm, 'sin')
    sin.argtypes = [ctypes.c_double]
    sin.restype = ctypes.c_double
    val = sin(1.0)
    print(val)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    test_ctypes()

Results.md

Results of Benchmark

Python2.6         0.14
Python2.6 CTypes  0.71
Python2.7         0.15
Python2.7 CTypes  0.77
Python3.3         0.14
Python3.3 CTypes  0.71
PyPy              0.03
PyPy CTypes       0.22

Jython doesn't support ctypes module.

Current version works only at Linux, but it should be problem to port it for different platforms.