Re: [pygame] thinking of changing gfxdraw module...

[Lenard Lindstrom <len-l@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On 31/05/11 07:42 AM, René Dudfield wrote:
> Hi,
>
> after writing some docs for the gfxdraw module, I'm thinking perhaps 
> we could do some changes.
>
> The major change would be to make all the functions draw multiple 
> items.  So instead of line() we have lines() etc.
>
> This is nice because it can be way more efficient in python.  Firstly, 
> because there are less function calls, you can combine surface lock 
> and unlock calls.  Another reason is that you can combine GIL release 
> unrelease calls - which can be sort of expensive.  Finally it will let 
> people pass in arrays of data which can be much more space efficient 
> than lists of python objects.
>
> I'm thinking of removing the single calls, and only having multiple 
> ones available - to force people into using the more efficient methods.
>
>
> Cons, it breaks the API.  I could recreate the old functions with 
> wrappers easily enough though.  I'd mark them all obsolete and not 
> document them though.
>
> What do you think?
By passing in multiple items do you mean lines() would accept multiple 
line segment argument, or a sequence of line segments. Also, what format 
would an array of segments take? But yes, I agree that moving loops into 
C is more efficient, and makes for cleaner Python code.

Lenard Lindstrom