Pythran
What is it?
Pythran is an ahead of time compiler for a subset of the Python language, with a
focus on scientific computing. It takes a Python module annotated with a few
interface description and turns it into a native Python module with the same
interface, but (hopefully) faster.
It is meant to efficiently compile scientific programs, and takes advantage
of multi-cores and SIMD instruction units.
Until 0.9.5 (included), Pythran was supporting Python 3 and Python 2.7.
It now only supports Python 3.
Installation
Debian/Ubuntu
Using pip
Gather dependencies:
Pythran depends on a few Python modules and several C++ libraries. On a debian-like platform, run:
$> sudo apt-get install libatlas-base-dev
$> sudo apt-get install python-dev python-ply python-networkx python-numpy
Use easy_install or pip:
$> pip install pythran
Using conda
Install conda, following the instruction given in
conda user guide.
Run:
$> conda install -c conda-forge pythran
Mac OSX
$> easy_install pip
$> pip install pythran
$> brew install openblas
$> printf '[compiler]\nblas=openblas\ninclude_dirs=/usr/local/opt/openblas/include\nlibrary_dirs=/usr/local/opt/openblas/lib' > ~/.pythranrc
Depending on your setup, you may need to add the following to your ~/.pythranrc file:
[compiler]
CXX=g++-4.9
CC=gcc-4.9
ArchLinux
Using any working AUR helper, say yay:
$> yay -S python-pythran
Fedora
Using dnf:
$> dnf install pythran
Windows
Windows support is on going and only targets Python 3.5+ with either Visual Studio 2017 or, better, clang-cl:
$> pip install pythran
If you plan to use clang-cl, also add the following to %HOMEPATH%/.pythranrc:
[compiler]
CC=clang-cl.exe
CXX=clang-cl.exe
Other Platform
See MANUAL file.
Basic Usage
A simple pythran input could be dprod.py
"""
Naive dotproduct! Pythran supports numpy.dot
"""
#pythran export dprod(int list, int list)
def dprod(l0,l1):
"""WoW, generator expression, zip and sum."""
return sum(x * y for x, y in zip(l0, l1))
To turn it into a native module, run:
$> pythran dprod.py
That will generate a native dprod.so that can be imported just like the former
module:
$> python -c 'import dprod' # this imports the native module instead
Documentation
The user documentation is available in the MANUAL file from the doc directory.
The developer documentation is available in the DEVGUIDE file from the doc
directory. There is also a TUTORIAL file for those who don't like reading
documentation.
The CLI documentation is available from the pythran help command:
$> pythran --help
Some extra developer documentation is also available using pydoc. Beware, this
is the computer science incarnation for the famous Where's Waldo? game:
$> pydoc pythran
$> pydoc pythran.typing
$> pydoc -b # in the browser
Examples
See the pythran/tests/cases/ directory from the sources.
Contact
Praise, flame and cookies:
The mailing list archive is available at http://www.freelists.org/archive/pythran/.
Citing
If you need to cite a Pythran paper, feel free to use
@article{guelton2015pythran,
title={Pythran: Enabling static optimization of scientific python programs},
author={Guelton, Serge and Brunet, Pierrick and Amini, Mehdi and Merlini,
Adrien and Corbillon, Xavier and Raynaud, Alan},
journal={Computational Science \& Discovery},
volume={8},
number={1},
pages={014001},
year={2015},
publisher={IOP Publishing}
}
Authors
See AUTHORS file.
License
See LICENSE file.