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authorNick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com>2013-03-07 13:14:44 (GMT)
committerNick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com>2013-03-07 13:14:44 (GMT)
commit7d82c8621bb72035b2e36388d616533dacfc2e43 (patch)
tree2a2e8012534e21bdafeb4e8a369f0d1f25195a65 /Doc/c-api/stable.rst
parent4f1974496a2c718dfd8f5f5f332d24856dbce4ea (diff)
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Close #15465: Document C API version macros
Mostly moving the existing macro docs over from the standard library docs to the C API docs where they belong. Patch by Kushal Das.
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/c-api/stable.rst')
-rw-r--r--Doc/c-api/stable.rst20
1 files changed, 11 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/c-api/stable.rst b/Doc/c-api/stable.rst
index 2688c1c..a7c9ef9 100644
--- a/Doc/c-api/stable.rst
+++ b/Doc/c-api/stable.rst
@@ -2,9 +2,9 @@
.. _stable:
-**********************************
-Stable Appliction Binary Interface
-**********************************
+***********************************
+Stable Application Binary Interface
+***********************************
Traditionally, the C API of Python will change with every release.
Most changes will be source-compatible, typically by only adding API,
@@ -23,13 +23,15 @@ need to be recompiled to link with a newer one.
Since Python 3.2, a subset of the API has been declared to guarantee
a stable ABI. Extension modules wishing to use this API need to define
-Py_LIMITED_API. A number of interpreter details then become hidden
+``Py_LIMITED_API``. A number of interpreter details then become hidden
from the extension module; in return, a module is built that works
-on any 3.x version (x>=2) without recompilation. In some cases, the
-stable ABI needs to be extended with new functions. Extensions modules
-wishing to use these new APIs need to set Py_LIMITED_API to the
-PY_VERSION_HEX value of the minimum Python version they want to
-support (e.g. 0x03030000 for Python 3.3). Such modules will work
+on any 3.x version (x>=2) without recompilation.
+
+In some cases, the stable ABI needs to be extended with new functions.
+Extension modules wishing to use these new APIs need to set
+``Py_LIMITED_API`` to the ``PY_VERSION_HEX`` value (see
+:ref:`apiabiversion`) of the minimum Python version they want to
+support (e.g. ``0x03030000`` for Python 3.3). Such modules will work
on all subsequent Python releases, but fail to load (because of
missing symbols) on the older releases.