[Botan-devel] Python wrapper

[Jack Lloyd]

Last night I finally found some time to continue working on the Python
wrapper for Botan, and I just synced those changes to the public
Monotone server. The wrappers have now reached the point where it is
useable in real programs, though there is still a great deal left to
be done (in particular, public key algorithms are not supported at all
right now - that is next on my list). Much of the certificate code has
been wrapped, as well as the Pipe/Filter system. As an initial proof
of concept, I reimplemented the NIST X.509 path validation test suite
in Python, which turned out great (and came out around a quarter as
long as the C++ version).

If anyone wants to check it out, the code is in misc/python. The
wrappings are done using Boost.Python (http://www.boost.org), and the
makefile assumes GCC, though hopefully it won't be terribly hard to
get everything working under MSVC at some point. Since I'm not very
experienced in Python, I'm don't how well the wrapped interfaces 'fit'
into the Python world, and I would really appreciate comments on
that. As well as any thoughts you may have about what is/is not useful
to wrap; I'm not planning on making the entire library visible to
Python, at least at first - it's basically going to be a demand-driven
process (and of course patches are most welcome).

Jack