RE: [Caml-list] Foreign function interface generator with example s

RE: [Caml-list] Foreign function interface generator with example s

[Dave Berry]

Curiousity impels me to ask: How does David's system compare with CamlIDL?
Is there a need for an FFI interface at a lower-level than CamlIDL?  I'm
interested because I've worked on FFIs for ML in the past, and we gradually
moved more and more towards IDL-based solutions.  So I'd be interested to
hear what limitations people see with this approach (or with the particular
CamlIDL implementation, as I hope to use that some day).

Dave.


-----Original Message-----
From: jeanmarc.eber@lexifi.com [mailto:jeanmarc.eber@lexifi.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 10:37

I think that an *easy* FFI (you call it "out of the box") is one of the
most important stuff to do for Ocaml. Most of us know that there aren't
any *impossibilities* (more or less anything *can* be done, but you have
to use exactly the correct macros etc...), but its not .... yes, say
"out of the box".

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Re: [Caml-list] Foreign function interface generator with example s

[David Fox]

I was not aware of CamlIDL, or even of IDL itself until just now.  The
major difference I can see from a quick look at the docs is that the
IDL system converts ML data structures into C data structures and back
again for every function invocation.  Mine simply allocates a string
of the appropriate size for each structure and leaves it in there.

Dave Berry <dave@kal.com> writes:

> Curiousity impels me to ask: How does David's system compare with CamlIDL?
> Is there a need for an FFI interface at a lower-level than CamlIDL?  I'm
> interested because I've worked on FFIs for ML in the past, and we gradually
> moved more and more towards IDL-based solutions.  So I'd be interested to
> hear what limitations people see with this approach (or with the particular
> CamlIDL implementation, as I hope to use that some day).
> 
> Dave.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jeanmarc.eber@lexifi.com [mailto:jeanmarc.eber@lexifi.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 10:37
> 
> I think that an *easy* FFI (you call it "out of the box") is one of the
> most important stuff to do for Ocaml. Most of us know that there aren't
> any *impossibilities* (more or less anything *can* be done, but you have
> to use exactly the correct macros etc...), but its not .... yes, say
> "out of the box".
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