From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Thu Feb  1 19:47:39 2001
Subject: Dynamically linked C/C++ functions and file descriptor
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: Joshua Rigler <Jrigler at colorado dot edu>
Cc: Help-Octave <help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 19:47:32 -0600

On  1-Feb-2001, Joshua Rigler <Jrigler at colorado dot edu> wrote:

| 1) Suppose I create a dynamically linked C++ function using mkoctfile. 
| This function dynamically allocates some memory, and sets a static
| pointer for this memory location (using calloc).  The function exits,
| and I'm returned to Octave.  I call that function again.  Can I assume
| that the static pointer is still valid and points to the proper place in
| memory, as it would if I was simply calling the function from another
| C++ function?

Yes, unless you have unloaded (cleared) the function between calls.

| 2) Maybe related...suppose I have a C++ function that generates a void
| pointer file descriptor (i.e. typedef void *CDFid). If I return that
| file descriptor to the parent Octave session, then use it in subsequent
| calls to other dynamically linked functions that use it, is that pointer
| still valid?

Yes, but whether it points to anything valid depends on what you've
done with the storage that it points to between calls.

| 3) Finally, how the heck can I return a pointer to Octave?  It doesn't
| seem to like anything but double floats and strings (and vectors,
| arrays, and complex versions of such).  Could I perhaps pass back a
| string of the hexidecimal format of the pointer, and then pass this
| between function calls, which would convert the string to the real
| pointer/address...is this even possible?

You could just try to stuff the pointer into a double, but that could
cause exceptions (not all pointer values are guaranteed to be valid
double values on all systems, I think, so you might generate a
floating point exception).

You could define a new data type for your pointer type, but that would
be a lot of work.

Or, you could maintain a static array of your integers and then return
the index into the array to the caller.  When someone passes you an
integer, you look up the pointer in the array.  This is essentially
how Octave deals with streams.

|   // Copy string from args into a charactar array that can be
|   // read by CDFopen
|   int flength = args(0).string_value().length();
|   CDFname = (char *)(calloc(flength,sizeof(char)));
|   strcpy(CDFname,args(0).string_value().c_str());

Bad things will happen in this code if args(0) is not a string.  You
can also extract the name without calloc and strcpy.

|   // Make call(s) to CDFlib
|   status = CDFopen (CDFname, &id);
|   if (status != CDF_OK) printf ("\nError, status: %d\n",status);

Better to use error().

Here is more or less how I would write it, I think.


// cdf_open -- function to open a CDF file and return the file descriptor
//  (this is a dynamically linked function for Octave, written in C++)
//
// Usage:  id = CDF_OPEN('filename.cdf');

#include <octave/oct.h>

extern "C" {
#include <cdf.h>
}

DEFUN_DLD (cdf_open, args, nargout, 
 "id = CDF_OPEN ('filename.cdf');\n\
\n\
Open a file.;\n\
... other CDF_ commands ...")

{
  octave_value retval;

  if (args.length () == 0 || nargout > 1)
    print_usage ("cdf_open");
  else
    {
      char *CDFname; // pointer for Variable length CDF filename

      std::string fname = args(0).string_value ();

      if (! error_state)
        {
          // I assume that CDFopen does not need to modify the
          // filename argument.  If CDFopen is declared to take const
          // char* for fname, this will work.  If it is char*, then
          // you will either have to fix CDF, or copy fname.c_str ()
          // to some temporary storage (Octave's library has an
          // strsave function, declared in lo-utils.h, that is useful
          // for this purpose).

          CDFid id;

          CDFstatus status = CDFopen (fname.c_str (), &id);

          if (status == CDF_OK)
            {
              // Do whatever you need to keep IDs in an array, and
              // return an index to the new ID.

              // ...
            }
          else
            {
              error ("CDFopen failed, status: %d", status);
              retval = -1.0;
            }
        }
    }

  return retval;
}


jwe



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