From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9280DBC69 for ; Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:04:31 +0100 (CET) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAHbKakfUnw6FhWdsb2JhbACCNY1PAQEBCAQGDxMHmBs X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.24,192,1196636400"; d="scan'208";a="5416046" Received: from discorde.inria.fr ([192.93.2.38]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 21 Dec 2007 05:04:30 +0100 Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by discorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id lBL44Vuu010423 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=OK) for ; Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:04:31 +0100 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAHbKakfUnw6FhWdsb2JhbACCNY1PAQEBCAQGDxMHmBs X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.24,192,1196636400"; d="scan'208";a="5416045" Received: from pih-relay06.plus.net ([212.159.14.133]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 21 Dec 2007 05:04:30 +0100 Received: from [80.229.56.224] (helo=beast.local) by pih-relay06.plus.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1J5Z7d-0003Wb-T5; Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:04:29 +0000 From: Jon Harrop Organization: Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd. To: Dave Benjamin Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Easier FFI Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 03:54:15 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: caml-list@inria.fr References: <200712201639.15513.jon@ffconsultancy.com> <476B34E5.2060108@ramenlabs.com> In-Reply-To: <476B34E5.2060108@ramenlabs.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200712210354.15315.jon@ffconsultancy.com> X-Miltered: at discorde with ID 476B3B4F.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; ffi:01 statically:01 ocaml:01 interop:01 frog:98 wrote:01 caml-list:01 unsafe:01 benjamin:01 python:03 python:03 library:03 library:03 typed:04 translate:04 On Friday 21 December 2007 03:37, Dave Benjamin wrote: > I would love something like this. I've used "ctypes", a similar library > for Python, a few times, and it has really come in handy. Not something > I want to use often (at least not directly), but for those times when > use of an unsupported C library is necessary, it's so nice to have the > ability to stay within the language rather than writing a bunch of > wrapper code. I wonder if something like ctypes would translate well to > a statically typed language like OCaml. > > http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/ctypes/ Absolutely, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Basically just a glorified C interpreter as a fallback to make unsafe interop as easy as possible. -- Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd. http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?e