Add a ctypes.util function to list loaded shared libraries

[WardBrian]

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

When writing code which loads dynamic libraries, it is often very useful to be able to query which shared libraries are already in use by the current process. There are a few well-known tricks to do this, but they all end up being platform dependent.

For example, on Linux, you can use dl_iterate_phdr, and it seems that quite a bit of Python code does. This won’t work on macOS or Windows, which provide other functions for this same functionality.

Julia provides this function in the standard library under Libdl.dllist. A Python re-implementation of the same platform-specific code can be found at GitHub - WardBrian/dllist: List DLLs loaded by the current process . This essentially just wraps the platform specific code in an if-else based on the runtime platform

import dllist
print(dllist.dllist())
# ['linux-vdso.so.1', '/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0', '/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2', ...

I would like to take the next step toward adding a similar function to the standard library

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

I have already discussed this feature proposal on Discourse

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

https://discuss.python.org/t/a-ctypes-function-to-list-all-loaded-shared-libraries/36370

Linked PRs

• gh-122946

[WardBrian]

If anyone is subscribed to this issue, #122946 is still awaiting a review. I'd appreciate anyone taking a look!