This chapter describes SWIG support for Pike. As of this writing, the SWIG Pike module is still under development and is not considered ready for prime time. The Pike module is being developed against the Pike 7.4.10 release and may not be compatible with previous versions of Pike.
This chapter covers most SWIG features, but certain low-level details
are covered in less depth than in earlier chapters. At the very
least, make sure you read the "SWIG Basics"
chapter.
Suppose that you defined a SWIG module such as the following:
%module example
%{
#include "example.h"
%}
int fact(int n);
To build a C extension module for Pike, run SWIG using the -pike option :
$ swig -pike example.i
If you're building a C++ extension, be sure to add the -c++ option:
$ swig -c++ -pike example.i
This creates a single source file named example_wrap.c (or example_wrap.cxx, if you ran SWIG with the -c++ option). The SWIG-generated source file contains the low-level wrappers that need to be compiled and linked with the rest of your C/C++ application to create an extension module.
The name of the wrapper file is derived from the name of the input file. For example, if the input file is example.i, the name of the wrapper file is example_wrap.c. To change this, you can use the -o option:
$ swig -pike -o pseudonym.c example.i
In order to compile the C/C++ wrappers, the compiler needs to know the path to the Pike header files. These files are usually contained in a directory such as
/usr/local/pike/7.4.10/include/pike
There doesn't seem to be any way to get Pike itself to reveal the location of these files, so you may need to hunt around for them. You're looking for files with the names global.h, program.h and so on.
To use your module, simply use Pike's import statement:
$ pike Pike v7.4 release 10 running Hilfe v3.5 (Incremental Pike Frontend) > import example; > fact(4); (1) Result: 24
All of the code for a given SWIG module is wrapped into a single Pike module. Since the name of the shared library that implements your module ultimately determines the module's name (as far as Pike is concerned), SWIG's %module directive doesn't really have any significance.
Global functions are wrapped as new Pike built-in functions. For example,
%module example int fact(int n);
creates a new built-in function example.fact(n) that works exactly as you'd expect it to:
> import example; > fact(4); (1) Result: 24
Global variables are currently wrapped as a pair of functions, one to get the current value of the variable and another to set it. For example, the declaration
%module example double Foo;
will result in two functions, Foo_get() and Foo_set():
> import example; > Foo_get(); (1) Result: 3.000000 > Foo_set(3.14159); (2) Result: 0 > Foo_get(); (3) Result: 3.141590
Enumerated types in C/C++ declarations are wrapped as Pike constants, not as Pike enums.
Constructors are wrapped as create() methods, and destructors are wrapped as destroy() methods, for Pike classes.
Since Pike doesn't support static methods or data for Pike classes, static member functions in your C++ classes are wrapped as regular functions and static member variables are wrapped as pairs of functions (one to get the value of the static member variable, and another to set it). The names of these functions are prepended with the name of the class. For example, given this C++ class declaration:
class Shape
{
public:
static void print();
static int nshapes;
};
SWIG will generate a Shape_print() method that invokes the static Shape::print() member function, as well as a pair of methods, Shape_nshapes_get() and Shape_nshapes_set(), to get and set the value of Shape::nshapes.