Importing C++ functions created with pybind11

Question

I am currently trying to create a C++ library with pybind11. My .cpp-file is a simple test and looks like this:

#include <pybind11/pybind11.h>

namespace py = pybind11;

std::string test()
{
    return "Test successful!";
}

PYBIND11_MODULE(TreeGenModule, m)
{
    m.def("test", &test);
}

Opening a Python interactive console I can import my compiled module and use the test-function.

However when importing the module from within a Blender-addon I'm trying to write, I can import the module itself but the interpreter cannot find any of the defined functions.

Any ideas why this error occurs?

---

EDIT:

Here's what happens if I navigate to the folder of my module and import the module using an interactive python session:

Python 3.7.9 (default, Nov 20 2020, 02:21:39) 
[GCC 10.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import TreeGenModule
>>> TreeGenModule.test()
'Test successful!'

However, if I try the same import from within my module and invoke TreeGenModule.test():

AttributeError: module 'TBO_Tree_Gen.cpp_bin.TreeGenModule' has no attribute 'test'

Answer 1

So after some digging I found out, that this was caused by importlib.reload.

Blenders Reload Scripts-command only reloads the addon if the main file (in my case __init__.py) has been changed. (Also discussed here)

Since my addon consists out of several .py-files and I wanted everything to be reloaded if I hit the command, I used importlib.reload to manually force reloading.

I also used this technique on my C++-module, which you're not supposed to do!

Reloading C++-modules with importlib is not supported and may result in errors, just like in my case.

After removing this reloading instruction my C++-module works just fine in Blender. The only downside is, that I'll have to restart Blender, whenever I change my C++-module and want to see these changes in effect.