Originally, .methods was used for methods in a ROM class, and
locals_dict for methods in a user-created class. That distinction is
unnecessary, and we can use locals_dict for ROM classes now that we have
ROMable maps.
This removes an entry in the bloated mp_obj_type_t struct, saving a word
for each ROM object and each RAM object. ROM objects that have a
methods table (now a locals_dict) need an extra word in total (removed
the methods pointer (1 word), no longer need the sentinel (2 words), but
now need an mp_obj_dict_t wrapper (4 words)). But RAM objects save a
word because they never used the methods entry.
Overall the ROM usage is down by a few hundred bytes, and RAM usage is
down 1 word per user-defined type/class.
There is less code (no need to check 2 tables), and now consistent with
the way ROM modules have their tables initialised.
Efficiency is very close to equivaluent.
Each built-in exception is now a type, with base type BaseException.
C exceptions are created by passing a pointer to the exception type to
make an instance of. When raising an exception from the VM, an
instance is created automatically if an exception type is raised (as
opposed to an exception instance).
Exception matching (RT_BINARY_OP_EXCEPTION_MATCH) is now proper.
Handling of parse error changed to match new exceptions.
mp_const_type renamed to mp_type_type for consistency.
Foreign Function Interface module allows to load native dynamic libraries,
call functions and access variables in them. This makes possible to write
interface modules in pure Python.
This module provides thin wrapper around libffi. ctypes compatibility might
be possible to implement on top of this module (though ctypes allow to call
functions without prototypes, which is not supported by libffi (i.e.
implementation would be inefficient))).
Damien George
Paul Sokolovsky