[OATH-Toolkit-help] Python Bindings

[Yclept Nemo]

I intend to wrap liboath for Python, using Cython. I have several questions:

1] The bindings would be very simple and short. I can send a patch for
incorporation into the liboath project.

2] Some C projects are conducive to object-oriented bindings using
classes and the like. However for liboath I simply intend to make the
functions in oath.h available to python (with more pythonic
signatures, of course). Do have any problems with this; possibly it
would confict with upcoming changes to liboath? I can't really
visualize exposing liboath as a class, but I would be interested in
any suggestions.

3] Libgcrypt manages it state via static variables - there can be only
one libgcrypt initialized for the entire program. I plan to initialize
libgcrypt (oath_init) upon loading the python module and I want to be
sure that liboath doesn't depend on the state of libgcrypt. For
example, I want to ensure that running several different operations
(possibly, generating OTPs from different secrets) by interleaving
function calls will not cause problems with libgcrypt's global state.
I doubt it would since the only libgcrypt function is "gc_hmac_sha1"
in oath_hotp_generate(), but I would like to be certain, especially
with regards to future changes in liboath.

4] Since python modules can't be unloaded, oath_done() will never be
used. Because libgcrypt uses a static state, I can only hope this
won't cause any problems when importing other python modules depending
on libgcrypt. I would be happy for suggestions on how to mitigate
conflicts like this.

5] Is liboath's usage of libgcrypt thread-safe? The python bindings
would make it possible to access liboath and thus libgcrypt in
parallel via python threads. Will this cause any problems and should I
take any preventative measures in the python binding of liboath?

sincerely,
Yclept Nemo