Re: [Chicken-users] New "easy" FFI

[felix]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 14:42:30 -0700, Miles Egan <address@hidden> wrote:

> felix wrote:
>
> > Hiya!
> >
> > Chicken got a new FFI interface (informally called the "easy" FFI).
> > It parses a subset of C and generates procedure and variable bindings
> > from declarations, like this:
> >
> > #>! #include <math.h>
> >
> > #define my_pi 3.14
> >
> > int var = 99;
> > extern double sin(double);
> > <#
> >
> > (print (sin my_pi))
> > (print (var))
> > (var 123)
> > (print (var)) ; now 123
> >
> > The parser does basic macro substitution, handles simple macros,
> > enums, typedefs, variable declarations and function prototypes.
> > Most preprocessor commands are implemented.
>
> Pretty cool.
>
> Why did you decide to treat C variables (var in the above) as scheme 
> functions instead of scheme variables?

If you treat them as normal variables, then they're only available in
the current compilation unit - it's currently not possible to
"export" foreign variable bindings. But perhaps I should make
this optional? We could add optional processing instructions
after the "#>[!?]" to fine-tune the parsing process.
Any suggestions welcome!


cheers,
felix