From 4eedfeb774ffa2a27bef059161fd25d9918fe3ab Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Axel Kohlmeyer <akohlmey@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2022 22:43:18 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] detect if LAMMPS library initialization failed and raise an
 exception

---
 python/lammps/core.py | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/python/lammps/core.py b/python/lammps/core.py
index d934ee1baa..23002b210c 100644
--- a/python/lammps/core.py
+++ b/python/lammps/core.py
@@ -410,6 +410,10 @@ class lammps(object):
         pythonapi.PyCObject_AsVoidPtr.argtypes = [py_object]
         self.lmp = c_void_p(pythonapi.PyCObject_AsVoidPtr(ptr))
 
+    # check if library initilialization failed
+    if not self.lmp:
+      raise(RuntimeError("Failed to initialize LAMMPS object"))
+
     # optional numpy support (lazy loading)
     self._numpy = None