I would expect that the following code would give True as result:

>>> from ctypes import *
>>> libc = CDLL("libc.so.6")
>>> libc.time == libc['time']
False

Is it by design that libc['time'] always returns a different _FuncPtr object? It is a bit confusing when doing things like:

libc['time'].restype = ...
libc['time'].argtypes = [...]

# python --version
Python 2.7.2+

Ubunutu version 2.7.2-5ubuntu1.

This is intentional; the caching was removed in 214b28d7a999. Thomas, can you remember the rationale for this change?

The rationale was to allow different packages (for example) in the same process to have their own private instance of a foreign function, with possibly different definitions of restype, argtypes and/or errcheck.

Perhaps this behaviour should be documented somewhere (unless it already is)?

Item access is documented in this section: http://docs.python.org/library/ctypes#loading-shared-libraries (scroll a bit down looking for __getitem__); the wording about caching is ambiguous with respect to the current behavior.

Ah, I see. I modified the title to reflect this.

Perhaps adding this simple example as well can help people (e.g. me) see it?

>>> libc.time == libc.time
True
>>> libc['time'] == libc['time']
False

Document the difference between __getattr__ and __getitem__.

The general wording and example look good;  thanks.  I reworded things a little.  Updated patch attached.

Any comments on this one?  I plan on committing the changes tomorrow unless I hear something otherwise.

The issue14201-v2.patch patch looks good to me at least.

New changeset ae64614b66b7 by R David Murray in branch '2.7':
#14201: Update ctypes docs to match behavior changed from 214b28d7a999.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/ae64614b66b7

New changeset 5518aa0fbc06 by R David Murray in branch '3.4':
#14201: Update ctypes docs to match behavior changed from 214b28d7a999.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/5518aa0fbc06

New changeset dfdcc3fad3aa by R David Murray in branch 'default':
Merge: #14201: Update ctypes docs to match behavior changed from 214b28d7a999.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/dfdcc3fad3aa

Committed.  See also issue 22552.