what does the last argument to SWIG_NewPointerObj mean?

Question

I have a compatibility library that uses SWIG to access a C++ library. I would find it useful to be able to create a SWIG-wrapped Python object inside this layer (as opposed to

Answer 1

When you create new pointer objects with SWIG_NewPointerObj, you may pass the following flags:

SWIG_POINTER_OWN
SWIG_POINTER_NOSHADOW

If SWIG_POINTER_OWN is set, the destructor of the underlying C++ class will be called when the Python pointer is finalized. By default, the destructor will not be called. See Memory Management

For your use case, you don't need to set any flags at all.

From what I can see in the sources, if SWIG_POINTER_NOSHADOW is set, then a basic wrapped pointer is returned. You will not be able to access member variables in Python. All you'll have is an opaque pointer.

Reference: /usr/share/swig/2.0.7/python/pyrun.swg