[Ecls-list] Accessing C variables

[Dean O'Connor]

Bit long in coming, but thx alot Michael for your advice. Much appreciated.
I have made a fair bit of progress with things.
Still having a few issues, but here is an example of what worked for me.
If there is a better way, hit me with it :)

In my C++ app:

char *string_ptr = "hi there";
cl_object f_obj = ecl_make_foreign_data(make_simple_string("CSTRING"), 
strlen(string_ptr), (void*)&string_ptr);
cl_set(c_string_to_object("TEST"), f_obj);

// then load and execute below script.

In Lisp (interpreted):

;; This is how I cld see the string "hi there".
(deref-pointer test :cstring)

To be honest, this WAS working, then I did something (?:) and now it 
won't work (for now).
But when it was kicking over, I could create pointers to "int" or whatever.
The thing that threw me for a bit was that for c-strings, you had to 
feed cl_make_foreign_data a pointer to the char pointer.

I was still having probs when I was testing some of the our bizard 
variable/symbol names we need to use.
(i know it may seem wierd needing a symbol name like this :)
eg. "Trade->Party[0]->Name"

I could create and print these variables from the ecl prompt, but using 
the above method in C++, these symbols did not seem to be created or 
reference using deref-pointer.
Hopefully I will get to the bottom of it, but if anyone has any thoughts 
on the matter, any assistance would be welcome.

Cheers
Dean.

Goffioul Michael wrote:

Indeed, regarding my last mail, you should use def-foreign-var to access
C variables instead of ECL-specific ecl_make_foreign_data.

Michael.


Goffioul Michael wrote:

You can have a look into the /contrib/win32/ directory of the ECL source
tree. Using FFI, there are LISP functions that manipulate Windows structure.

One way to pass a C object/structure to LISP is using the ecl_make_foreign_data
function.

Michael.

Original email:

>>Hello,
>>
>>Forgive me if this has been asked before or is obvious but I 
>>cannot find 
>>any clear (to me :) information on this anywhere. Any pointers in the 
>>right direction would be appreciated.
>>(I've been doing a refresher in Lisp to get this working ... 
>>last time 
>>was in Uni .... a looooong time ago)
>>
>>We have a C++ application (for windows/linux) and we can boot ECL and 
>>run scripts just fine.
>>Our plan is use interpreted (prob not pre-compiled) Lisp scripts to 
>>analyse data in the C++ apps memory and return basic decisions. 
>>Basically rule scripts.
>>
>>The C++ datastructures can be quite large, so I am trying to avoid 
>>having to *copy* them into Lisp space.
>>
>>Is there a way to point/bind to the existing C++ data 
>>structures in Lisp 
>>interpreter real time? So the Lisp scripts can understand and 
>>read the data.
>>The C++ structures could be classes, or structs, but could be 
>>reduced to 
>>more basic data-types.
>>    
>>
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