RE: [Caml-list] Shared libraries with ocamlopt callable from C(without main())?

[<RABIH.ELCHAAR@sgam.com>]

The simplest way of achieving what you want might be the following:
1) Write the ocaml code you want to call.
2) register your caml functions via Callback.register
3) In your C code, define the callback values for each ocaml function, via a macro like
#define ACTION(actionname)               \
static value *actionname##_closure = NULL;
and fore each c function that wraps the caml call, call ACTION("camlfunctionname") before your c wrapping code.
4) define an initialization helper (to get the pointers to ocaml functions), something like
#define INITACTION(actionname)                             \
    actionname##_closure = caml_named_value(#actionname);
5) In your DLLMain function, you can have something like
BOOL APIENTRY DllMain(HANDLE module, DWORD reason, void *reserved)
{
  char * argv[2];
  switch (reason) {
  case DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH:
    argv[0] = "--";
    argv[1] = NULL;
    caml_startup(argv);
    INITACTION(analyze)
    INITACTION(updateBlob)
    .....
    break;
  }
  return TRUE;
} 

This handles the C functions:(C Wrapper | C API of OCaml ) -> OCaml defining a C dll with the needed entries.

You can use afterwards your langX -> ( C API of langX -> call above dll).
If your langX can call directly C functions without the need of type conversions, this can do.
If not, this approach might give you two dlls (langX -> C dll) and (C -> ocaml) dll.

If you want only one dll, I think this is only a linking issue, and can be solved by inputing the C->ocaml , compiled ocaml and langX->C together to the linker.

Hope this helps,

Sincerely,
Rabih Chaar

-----Message d'origine-----
De : caml-list-bounces@yquem.inria.fr [mailto:caml-list-bounces@yquem.inria.fr] De la part de Matthieu Dubuget
Envoyé : vendredi 9 janvier 2009 09:22
À : caml-list@inria.fr
Objet : Re: [Caml-list] Shared libraries with ocamlopt callable from C(without main())?

Ben Aurel a écrit :
> I'm thinking about the possibility to use OCaml as an extension
> language. If I wanted to call a OCaml function from langX I had to use
> a C wrapper.
>
>     langX -> ( C API of langX | C Wrapper | C API of OCaml ) -> OCaml
>   

Yes

> But could somebody tell me if ( and maybe how ) this can be done. I made some attempts, but
> there is always a main() function involved. But this C wrapper would be a shared library.
>   

Exactly. You can deliver your OCaml code as shared library, and then
call it from
any language that can call a shared library.

Could you point out what problem you faced?

Salutations

Matt


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