Calling FORTAN dll functions from Python

Does anyone know how to call functions from FORTRAN dlls in Python? Is it even possible? I browsed the documentation for Python 2.6.1 and the Python/C API comes close to what I would like to do but it is strictly limited to C.

Unfortunately the passing of arguments in C and FORTRAN is very different, not to mention the differences with strings where FORTRAN expects a hidden length argument. It could call the FORTRAN dll from C and call the C functions from Python but is that my only option?

For reference: I am using Python 2.6.1 FORTRAN powerstation 4.0. It is not an option to translate the FORTRAN code to C (using f2c) as the source code is the official ASME version of calculating steam tables.

I am interested in a solution that will work on Windows (XP and Vista) as well as Linux (Ubuntu 10.4) although the latter would not use dlls but code resources.

I am a beginner in Python. The fact that I still use and can use FORTRAN gives away my age. Mixed language programming is not an issue for me (C/VB, VB/FORTRAN, C/FORTRAN) but Python is new. Just pointing me to relevant documentation would be helpful in its own right.

Thank you in advance,
Alex van der Spek

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