Documentation

In ctypes documentation for 3.11 there was this excerpt in ctypes documentation:

ctypes can access values like this with the in_dll() class methods of the type. pythonapi is a predefined symbol giving access to the Python C api:

>>> opt_flag = c_int.in_dll(pythonapi, "Py_OptimizeFlag")
>>> print(opt_flag)
c_long(0)
>>>

If the interpreter would have been started with -O, the sample would have printed c_long(1), or c_long(2) if -OO would have been specified.

The example was rewritten for 3.12 to use the - probably more widely understood Py_Version instead:

ctypes can access values like this with the in_dll() class methods of the type. pythonapi is a predefined symbol giving access to the Python C api:

>>> version = ctypes.c_int.in_dll(ctypes.pythonapi, "Py_Version")
>>> print(hex(version.value))
0x30c00a0

However the last paragraph referring to the old example is still present:

If the interpreter would have been started with -O, the sample would have printed c_long(1), or c_long(2) if -OO would have been specified.

Linked PRs

• gh-115091: Remove a left-over sentence that refers to Py_OptimizeFlag from ctypes documentation #115092
• [3.12] gh-115091: Remove a left-over sentence that refers to Py_OptimizeFlag from ctypes documentation (GH-115092) #115936