• related file
• memory layout
• example
  • print
• fields in PyMethodDef
• free_list
• classmethod
• staticmethod

• cpython/Objects/methodobject.c
• cpython/Include/methodobject.h
• cpython/Python/bltinmodule.c
• cpython/Objects/call.c

There's a type named builtin_function_or_method in Python. As the type name describes, all built-in functions or methods defined at the C level belong to builtin_function_or_method

>>> print
<built-in function print>
>>> type(print)
<class 'builtin_function_or_method'>

Let's read a code snippet first

#define PyCFunction_Check(op) (Py_TYPE(op) == &PyCFunction_Type)

typedef PyObject *(*PyCFunction)(PyObject *, PyObject *);
typedef PyObject *(*_PyCFunctionFast) (PyObject *, PyObject *const *, Py_ssize_t);
typedef PyObject *(*PyCFunctionWithKeywords)(PyObject *, PyObject *,
                                             PyObject *);
typedef PyObject *(*_PyCFunctionFastWithKeywords) (PyObject *,
                                                   PyObject *const *, Py_ssize_t,
                                                   PyObject *);
typedef PyObject *(*PyNoArgsFunction)(PyObject *);

PyCFunction is a type in C. Any C function with the signature (accepting two PyObject* as parameters and returning a PyObject*) can be cast to type PyCFunction

// a c function named builtin_print
static PyObject *
builtin_print(PyObject *self, PyObject *const *args, Py_ssize_t nargs, PyObject *kwnames);

// name "print" is defined inside a c array named builtin_methods, and defined s type PyMethodDef
static PyMethodDef builtin_methods[] = {
...
{"print",           (PyCFunction)(void(*)(void))builtin_print,      METH_FASTCALL | METH_KEYWORDS, print_doc},
...
}

A PyMethodDef should be attached to a module object with a self argument, and then a PyCFunctionObject will be generated.

What the user actually interacts with is PyCFunctionObject

Let's check each field for more detail.

The type in the m_self field is module, and the type in the m_module field is str

As you can see in the above picture, the field ml_name is the name of the built-in method; it's a C-style null-terminated string "print"

The actual C function pointer that does the job

A bit flag that indicates how the C function behaves at the Python level.

The functions in call.c beginning with PyMethodDef will delegate work to the PyCFunction, but with different calling behavior according to different ml_flags

for more detail please refer to c-api Common Object Structures

static PyCFunctionObject *free_list = NULL;
static int numfree = 0;
#ifndef PyCFunction_MAXFREELIST
#define PyCFunction_MAXFREELIST 256
#endif

CPython uses a buffer pool with size 256 to reuse deallocated PyCFunctionObject objects. free_list is a singly linked list; all elements are chained by the m_self field.

A similar technique appears in float objects. Float objects are chained through the ob_type field. I will not draw again; users who need the graphical representation please click the link float(free_list)

They're more related to classobject. I will talk about them later in class object