Executing C code from Python on Linux (Petalinux) on ZCU102

In this simple demo, I will be showing how to configure the Petalinux to enable Python and the ctypes and cffi python packages and testing a simple demo.

Creating the Petalinux Image:

petalinux

petalinux-create -t project -s <path to bsp>.bsp

Open the project-spec\meta-user\recipes-core\images\petalinux-image.bbappend and add the Python packages below:

packages

IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " python-cffi"
IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " python-pycparser"
IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " libffi"

Next, return to the console and add the python packages to the rootfs:

rootfs

cd <plnx proj>
petalinux-config -c rootfs
Filesystem Packages -> devel -> python -> python -> [*] python
													[*] python-shell
                                                    [*] python-io
                                                    [*] python-distutils
                                                    [*] python-ctypes
user packages -> [*] python-cffi
                 [*] python-pycparser
                 [*] libffi

Finally, to build:

build

petalinux-build
cd images/linux
petalinux-package --boot --fpga system.bit --u-boot

Building C code shared object:

First, we need to create a shared library (.so) file. Here, I have a simple function that I used:

fib

int fib(int a) {
	if(a <= 0)
		return -1;
	else if (a == 1)
		return 0;
	else if ((a==2) || (a==3))
		return 1;
	else
		return fib(a-2) + fib(a-1);
}

Compile:

compile

aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc -c -fPIC fib.c
aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc -shared -o libfib.so fib.o

Next, create the Simple Python script utilizing the ctypes to call this shared library:

ctypes

import ctypes
libfib=ctypes.CDLL('./libfib.so')

fib = libfib.fib(10)

print "Fib: ", fib

Note: the script here assumes that the libfib.so is in the same directory as the python script. In relaity this would be in /usr/lib

Test on Hardware:

Boot the board, and setup the LAN:

ifconfig

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2

ctypes:

Then run the ctypes_fib.py script:

cffi:

Next, create the Simple Python script utilizing the cffi to call this shared library:

cffi

from cffi import FFI

ffi = FFI()
ffi.cdef("""int fib(int n);""")
libfib = ffi.dlopen("./libfib.so")
print libfib.fib(10)

Copy this to the board, and execute: