Re: [OATH-Toolkit-help] Python Bindings

[Yclept Nemo]

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 1:35 AM, Yclept Nemo <address@hidden> wrote:
> 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

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thank you,
Yclept Nemo