Inline::C with multiple *.c

[gri6507]

Fellow Monks,

There has to be a better way to specify multiple C source files for use with Inline::C module. In my case, the C source files, header files, and the library are in the same directory as the Perl script. Here's what I am currently forced to do:

my $relSourcePath;
my $inlineCFile1;
my $inlineCFile2;
my $inlineBuildDir;
my $libDir;
my $incDir;
BEGIN {
    # this file is in the same directory as the rest of the sources
    $relSourcePath = File::Spec->rel2abs(dirname($0));
    die "\nInstall path must not have spaces.\n\n" if $relSourcePath =
+~ /\s/;

    # Need to build the path to the Inline C file here, so that we cou
+ld
    # reference it below
    my @dirs = ();
    push @dirs, $relSourcePath;
    $inlineCFile1 = File::Spec->catfile(@dirs, "file_a.c");
    $inlineCFile2 = File::Spec->catfile(@dirs, "file_b.c");
    push @dirs, ".Inline";
    $inlineBuildDir = File::Spec->catdir(@dirs);
    pop @dirs;
    $libDir = File::Spec->catdir(@dirs);
    $incDir = File::Spec->catdir(@dirs);
}

use Inline (
    C => Config => 
            LIBS      => "-L$libDir -lldv32",
            INC       => "-I$incDir",
            DIRECTORY => $inlineBuildDir,
);

use Inline C => "$inlineCFile1";
use Inline C => "$inlineCFile2";

Is there a better way?

[syphilis]

No problem for me with relative paths to 2 C files in the same directory:

C:\>type a.c

void foo() {
 printf("Hello from foo\n");
}


C:\>type b.c

void bar() {
 printf("Hello from bar\n");
}


C:\>type try.pl
use warnings;

use Inline C => "./a.c";
use Inline C => "./b.c";

foo();
bar();

C:\>perl try.pl
Hello from foo
Hello from bar

C:\>

It may well be that relative paths need to begin with "./".

For LIBS and INC I think you do need to specify an absolute path which, for the cwd, should just be File::Spec->rel2abs('.')
And, yes, that would need to be done in a BEGIN block.

To me, that doesn't seem so bad - I guess it could always be improved.

Cheers,
Rob

[Anonymous Monk]

Is there a better way?

Yes, chdir

#!/usr/bin/perl --
use Path::Class;
use constant THISFILE => "".file( __FILE__ )->absolute;
use constant THISDIR  => "".file( THISFILE )->dir;
BEGIN { chdir THISDIR or die $!; }
use Inline (
    C                 =>
    Config            =>
    LIBS              => "-Llib/relative -lrelative",
    INC               => "-Iinc/relative",
    BUILD_NOISY       => 1,
    CLEAN_AFTER_BUILD => 0,
    DIRECTORY         => 'RELATIVE', # INVALID VALUE?! IT MUST EXIST
);
use Inline C => file('a.c')->absolute, qw' NAME RelativeA ';
use Inline C => file('b.c')->absolute, qw' NAME RelativeB ';

use strict; use warnings;
...

See also swd, Toolkit, Syntax::Collector...

[gri6507]

Thanks, your syntax does seem much cleaner and more intuitive.

However, I just stumbled across another odd problem. I just changed my b.c so that it calls a function from a.c. Since a.c is built first, it generates a DLL (I'm doing this on Windows under Strawberry Perl). Next, when building b.c, it has to be linked against the first DLL. But I can't specify that in the config section above because it's common to all Inline::C files and clearly that DLL does not yet exist when compiling/linking a.c.

Any suggestions?

[Anonymous Monk]

Any suggestions?

You can use http://perldoc.perl.org/perlapi.html#Callback-Functions like call_pv to call the perl version of a function

It helps if you skip the script concept and create modules (namespace other than main ) -- see Inline#Writing Modules with Inline

Otherwise I think you'll have to create commonlib and link both a.c and b.c against it

IIRC it is possible to manually manipulate modname.def so that you can link with -lmodname and call the c versions, but not without modifying Inline::C -- this might help (never used it) Module::CAPIMaker - Provide a C API for your XS modules

Also curious Re: How to use C Libraries in Perl Script?, ExtUtils::Depends - Easily build XS extensions that depend on XS extensions, InlineX::XS - Auto-convert Inline::C based modules to XS, InlineX::C2XS