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1.7 Extracting Parameters in Extension Functions

The `PyArg_ParseTuple()` function is declared as follows:

    int PyArg_ParseTuple(PyObject *arg, char *format, ...);

The arg argument must be a tuple object containing an argument list passed from Python to a C function. The format argument must be a format string, whose syntax is explained in ``Parsing arguments and building values'' in the Python/C API Reference Manual. The remaining arguments must be addresses of variables whose type is determined by the format string.

Note that while `PyArg_ParseTuple()` checks that the Python arguments have the required types, it cannot check the validity of the addresses of C variables passed to the call: if you make mistakes there, your code will probably crash or at least overwrite random bits in memory. So be careful!

Note that any Python object references which are provided to the caller are borrowed references; do not decrement their reference count!

Some example calls:

        int ok;
        int i, j;
        long k, l;
        char *s;
        int size;

        ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, ""); /* No arguments */
            /* Python call: f() */

        ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s", &s); /* A string */
            /* Possible Python call: f('whoops!') */

        ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "lls", &k, &l, &s); /* Two longs and a string */
            /* Possible Python call: f(1, 2, 'three') */

        ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "(ii)s#", &i, &j, &s, &size);
            /* A pair of ints and a string, whose size is also returned */
            /* Possible Python call: f((1, 2), 'three') */

        {
            char *file;
            char *mode = "r";
            int bufsize = 0;
            ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s|si", &file, &mode, &bufsize);
            /* A string, and optionally another string and an integer */
            /* Possible Python calls:
               f('spam')
               f('spam', 'w')
               f('spam', 'wb', 100000) */
        }

        {
            int left, top, right, bottom, h, v;
            ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "((ii)(ii))(ii)",
                     &left, &top, &right, &bottom, &h, &v);
            /* A rectangle and a point */
            /* Possible Python call:
               f(((0, 0), (400, 300)), (10, 10)) */
        }

        {
            Py_complex c;
            ok = PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "D:myfunction", &c);
            /* a complex, also providing a function name for errors */
            /* Possible Python call: myfunction(1+2j) */
        }