python: ctypes, read POINTER(c_char) in python

Question

I have a ctypes field that is a POINTER(c_char) (it had to be, per the documentation, c_char_p didn\'t work for my application: https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/

Answer 1

If you truly have a POINTER(c_char) type, it is subscriptable. In the future provide code that reproduces your issue:

>>> p = cast(create_string_buffer(b'Hello, world!'),POINTER(c_char))
>>> p

>>> p[0]
b'H'
>>> p[:14]
b'Hello, world!\x00'
>>> cast(p,c_char_p).value  # only if known to be nul-terminated
b'Hello, world!'