From: Marco Maggi <marco.maggi-ipsu@poste.it>
To: guile-user@gnu.org
Subject: on coding a portable R6RS package supporting Guile and its FFI
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:53:33 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87y5fsw05u.fsf@rapitore.luna> (raw)
Ciao,
in my latest package[1] I am using Guile 2.0.7 and its FFI
along with Mosh Scheme, Racket, Sagittarius Scheme, Vicare
Scheme, Ypsilon Scheme. I have the following observations:
* Guile does not come with the very simple SRFI 78:
lightweight testing. I had to include it[2][3].
* It appears that there is no facility to handle "output
arguments" from C functions; I mean the cases where a C
function accepts as argument a pointer to variable that
will be filled with some computed value. I am using a
WITH-LOCAL-STORAGE[4] macro which is maybe ugly, but
works.
Such arguments are common, and represent a nuisance to
handle. Racket has a sophisticated interface, complicated
to use when writing adapter code. Something simpler but
built in would be useful (this is the sort of thing a user
does not want to think about: it should be an already
solved problem).
* Whenever a callout to C accepts a pointer argument: a
bytevector argument is rejected. Is this not a useless
complication?
One can work around it by explicitly using
BYTEVECTOR->POINTER, so everything is ready in Guile. The
other Scheme implementations using a non-compacting
garbage collector already support this feature and I find
it truly convenient.
* There are no raw memory getters and setters[5]? The fact
that it is possible to create a wrapping bytevector is a
plus for sure, but I find it inconvenient to allocate a
bytevector when I do not need it (and raw getters and
setters are really small functions).
* The limit of 10 arguments for callouts to C is annoying.
It forced me to exclude some SOFA functions resulting in
amputated Guile support.
TIA
[1] <http://github.com/marcomaggi/r6rs-sofa/>
[2] <http://github.com/marcomaggi/r6rs-sofa/tree/master/lib/guile/srfi>
[3] <http://github.com/marcomaggi/vicare/blob/devel/doc/srfi-lightweight-testing.texi>
[4] <http://github.com/marcomaggi/r6rs-sofa/blob/master/lib/sofa/compat.guile.sls>
[5] <http://marcomaggi.github.com/docs/vicare.html/iklib-pointers.html>
--
Marco Maggi
next reply other threads:[~2013-01-17 10:53 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-01-17 10:53 Marco Maggi [this message]
2013-01-27 15:08 ` on coding a portable R6RS package supporting Guile and its FFI Ludovic Courtès
2013-01-28 3:00 ` Daniel Hartwig
2013-02-05 17:38 ` Andy Wingo
2013-02-05 19:29 ` Noah Lavine
2013-02-06 8:36 ` Andy Wingo
2013-02-06 13:25 ` Noah Lavine
2013-02-05 22:31 ` Ludovic Courtès
2013-02-06 10:57 ` Andy Wingo
2013-02-08 14:10 ` Ludovic Courtès
2013-02-08 14:37 ` Andy Wingo
2013-02-08 15:52 ` Ludovic Courtès
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