[epistasis]

Good idea, this definitely accomplishes the same functionality, but it's done at runtime, rather than the compiler knowing all the functions at compile time. Perhaps a minor difference for most cases, though...

I would still prefer a C extension... Perhaps I should just use Go these days, though ironically all these memory allocation policies are useless in a GC language.

[stormbrew]

You underestimate the compiler. This formulation might be tricky, but the version I just posted (adjacent to this post) definitely leaves the compiler knowing exactly what's going to be called when the function exits.