0004589: Wish: FFI API for the Unix module

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0004589

OCaml

OCaml general

public

2008-07-23 14:57

2008-09-23 19:48

Reporter

gerd

Assigned To

Priority

normal

Severity

feature

Reproducibility

always

Status

acknowledged

Resolution

open

Platform

OS Version

Product Version

3.10.2

Target Version

Fixed in Version

Summary

0004589: Wish: FFI API for the Unix module

Description

I'm often writing extensions to the Unix module using the FFI. Currently, this is a bit awkward, because there is no API, and one has to rely on undocumented features. What would be helpful (at minimum):

- C functions for accessing and creating file descriptors
- C functions for accessing and creating inet_addr
- C function to turn an OS error into a Unix.error

This API would hide the differences between Unix and Win32.

For Win32 there is additionally a linking problem. Currently, functions like uerror cannot be called from a custom DLL because these functions aren't exported. Furthermore, there is no import lib for dllunix.dll.

Additional Information

For ocamlnet I'm currently working around by

- calling undocumented functions like uerror
- for Win32, by even including a copy of unixsupport.c

See here for code: https://godirepo.camlcity.org/svn/lib-ocamlnet2/trunk/code/src/netsys/ [^]

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Notes
(0004536) frisch (developer) 2008-07-23 22:53	Note that on the current CVS trunk, the semantics of dynamic libraries is similar to the Unix one on Win32: you are able to access symbols defined in dllunix.dll even though there is no import library and symbols are not exported explicitly.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2008-07-23 14:57	gerd	New Issue
2008-07-23 22:53	frisch	Note Added: 0004536
2008-09-23 19:48	doligez	Status	new => acknowledged