Malcolm Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote, > Alastair Reid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > So, my proposal is to: > > > [...] > > > > I think only GHC implements anything like this (correct me if wrong, > > Malcolm) and they haven't used it in the way John Meacham is > > interested in. > > At the moment, nhc98 provides a routine > > void haskellInit (int argc, char **argv) > > which collects the command-line args intended for (1) the nhc98 runtime > system, and (2) the response to System.getArgs. It does not strip any > arguments from the given set, on the basis that the calling C routine > may be interested in the same arguments that nhc98 is interested in. > > Also, if the controlling C routine wants to alter the argument > set before Haskell sees it, that is perfectly catered for by this > interface.
I am sorry, but I really think that this interface is too restrictive. My opinion here stems less from using Haskell for implementing C libraries and more from using and implementing C libraries (in C) that need to get at some library-specific arguments. Here some requirements: * In general, hs_init() must be able to remove arguments. Some Haskell systems - eg, GHC - will allow arguments to the runtime that just don't make any sense to the user program and/or other libraries. * We must design the interface such that it does not place any restriction on the order in which libraries are initialised. The reason is that the libraries themselves may put constraints in the order of initialisation, which may conflict with any artificial ordering that we require by a less flexible interface. * For mostly transparent Haskell libraries, it is not sufficient that the C program can alter the arguments before Haskell sees it, but the C program may expect that the library (incidentally) implemented by a Haskell program already strips all arguments that are present because the library is implemented in Haskell (eg, again arguments to the RTS). Cheers, Manuel _______________________________________________ FFI mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ffi
