One of the features of Python that makes it so powerful is the ability to take existing libraries, written in C or C++, and make them available as Python extension modules. Such extension modules are often called bindings for the library.
SIP is a tool that makes it very easy to create Python bindings for C and C++ libraries. Python-SIP was originally developed to create PyQt, the Python bindings for the Qt toolkit, but can be used to create bindings for any C or C++ library.
SIP comprises a code generator and a Python module. The code generator processes a set of specification files and generates C or C++ code which is then compiled to create the bindings extension module. The SIP Python module provides support functions to the automatically generated code.
The specification files contains a description of the interface of the C or C++ library, i.e. the classes, methods, functions and variables. The format of a specification file is almost identical to a C or C++ header file, so much so that the easiest way of creating a specification file is to edit the corresponding header file.
SIP makes it easy to exploit existing C or C++ libraries in a productive interpretive programming environment. SIP also makes it easy to take a Python application (maybe a prototype) and selectively implement parts of the application (maybe for performance reasons) in C or C++.
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