On Mon, 11 May 1998, Alastair Reid wrote:
> Hugs' "server interface" provides a very limited ability for C functions
> to call Haskell. Have a look at
>
> http://haskell.org/hugs/docs/server.html
>
> Needless to say, it'll all be better in the new Hugs-GHC system
> we're working on.
I have gotten a few emails on this new system and it sounds exciting, but
I am a little confused. The HugServer effectively provides a way to
call use Hugs from within a C program. I am looking for something
somewhat different (maybe this is H/Direct or not?).
The York system seems to be somewhat better, but still seems to require a
substantial amount of manual labor.
Ideally there would be a system which takes a Haskell project and exports
enumerated functions into a header file and set of C files. This would
allow C code like:
#include "myHaskellProg.h" //functions prototypes + Haskell fun data structures
void main(int argc,char **argv) {
printf(myHaskellFunction(argv[1]));
}
If the Haskell file contained its own main, then it would be a standalone
executable.
I could use this to write an adapter to the Apache module API.
It would also allow the use of Haskell code in C and Java libraries.
It would also run a lot faster than Hugs interpreted Haskell.
If you are also required to execute some initialization function,
that would not be soo bad either.
(yes, this begs the question of translating C arguments to Haskell, but
if export was restricted to basic types that would cover 80% of needs.
it would be nice to write Haskell code to process C structs, but that is
really just bonus.)
If this is what H/Direct is about, that is great. If not, I guess I will
just have to cope.
-Alex-
PS Erik, I have made a new version of the CGI library that is somewhat
easier for newer Haskell users. I will forward once I've finished
testing (if you are interested).
___________________________________________________________________
S. Alexander Jacobson i2x Media
1-212-697-0184 voice 1-212-697-1427 fax
