Portable Python 3.x Interpreter in Modern C for Game Scripting
Portable Python 3.x Interpreter in Modern C for Game Scripting
pocketpy is a portable Python 3.x interpreter, written in C11. It aims to be an alternative to Lua for game scripting, with elegant syntax, powerful features and competitive performance. pocketpy has no dependencies other than the C standard library, which can be easily integrated into your C/C++ project. Developers are able to write Python bindings via C-API or pybind11 compatible interfaces.
Please see https://pocketpy.dev for details and try the following resources.
pkpy should work on any platform with a C11 compiler. These platforms are officially tested.
On Windows platform, only MSVC compiler is officially supported.
You have two options to integrate pkpy into your project.
Clone the whole repository as a submodule into your project, In your CMakelists.txt, add the following lines:
add_subdirectory(pocketpy)
target_link_libraries(<your_target> pocketpy)See CMakeLists.txt for details.
It is safe to use main branch in production if CI badge is green.
Download the pocketpy.h and pocketpy.c on our GitHub Release page.
And #include it in your project.
To compile it with your project, these flags must be set:
--std=c11 flag must be set/utf-8 and /experimental:c11atomics flag must be setNDEBUG macro should be defined for release build, or you will get poor performanceFor amalgamated build, run python amalgamate.py to generate pocketpy.c and pocketpy.h in amalgamated/ directory.
…| Name | Example | Supported |
|---|---|---|
| If Else | if..else..elif |
✅ |
| Loop | for/while/break/continue |
✅ |
| Function | def f(x,*args,y=1): |
✅ |
| Subclass | class A(B): |
✅ |
| List | [1, 2, 'a'] |
✅ |
| ListComp | [i for i in range(5)] |
✅ |
| Slice | a[1:2], a[:2], a[1:] |
✅ |
| Tuple | (1, 2, 'a') |
✅ |
| Dict | {'a': 1, 'b': 2} |
✅ |
| F-String | f'value is {x}' |
✅ |
| Unpacking | a, b = 1, 2 |
✅ |
| Star Unpacking | a, *b = [1, 2, 3] |
✅ |
| Exception | raise/try..except.. |
✅ |
| Dynamic Code | eval()/exec() |
✅ |
| Reflection | hasattr()/getattr()/setattr() |
✅ |
| Import | import/from..import |
✅ |
| Context Block | with <expr> as <id>: |
✅ |
| Type Annotation | def f(a:int, b:float=1) |
✅ |
| Generator | yield i |
✅ |
| Decorator | @cache |
✅ |
| Match Case | match code: case 200: |
✅ |
Currently, pkpy is as fast as cpython 3.9. Performance results for cpython 3.9 are applicable to for pkpy.
See https://pocketpy.dev/performance/ for details.
And these are the results of the primes benchmark on Intel i5-12400F, WSL (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS), which roughly reflects the performance among c++, lua, pkpy and cpython.
| name | version | time | file |
|---|---|---|---|
| c++ | gnu++11 | 0.104s ■□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ |
benchmarks/primes.cpp |
| lua | 5.3.3 | 1.576s ■■■■■■■■■□□□□□□□ |
benchmarks/primes.lua |
| pkpy | 1.2.7 | 2.385s ■■■■■■■■■■■■■□□□ |
benchmarks/primes.py |
| cpython | 3.8.10 | 2.871s ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ |
benchmarks/primes.py |
| Description | |
|---|---|
| Tesselmax.EM | Distributed electromagnetic field simulator for silicon photonics and RF/interconnect design. |
| godot-pocketpy | Godot extension for using pocketpy in Godot Engine. |
| TIC-80 | TIC-80 is a fantasy computer for making, playing and sharing tiny games. |
| py-js | Python3 externals for Max / MSP. |
| crescent | Crescent is a cross-platform 2D fighting and beat-em-up game engine. |
| orxpy | Python extension for orx engine. |
| CANopenTerm | Open-source software tool for CANopen CC networks and devices. |
Submit a pull request to add your project here.
All kinds of contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, build, testing, and PR guidance.
If you find pkpy useful, consider star this repository.
You can sponsor this project via these ways.
Your sponsorship will help us develop pkpy continuously.
Special thanks to our premium supporter, Tesselmax, for sponsoring the development of pocketpy.
Tesselmax builds Tesselmax.EM, a distributed electromagnetic field simulator for silicon photonics and RF/interconnect design (FDTD, FDFD, and mode solving across GPU clusters). Tesselmax embeds pocketpy as the scripting engine in our simulation console, so user scripts drive geometry, materials, sources, and post-processing.
Website: https://fdtd.io
The official implementation of Python programming language.
An excellent learning material. It illustrates how Python's virtual machine works.
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