/trunk/Examples/tcl/variables/index.html

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  3. <title>SWIG:Examples:tcl:variables</title>
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  8. <tt>SWIG/Examples/tcl/variables/</tt>
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  10. 

  11. <H2>Wrapping C Global Variables</H2>
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  12. 

  13. <p>
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  14. When a C global variable appears in an interface file, SWIG tries to wrap it using a technique
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  15. known as "variable linking."  The idea is pretty simple---we try to create a Tcl
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  16. variable that works exactly like you would expect in a Tcl script, but which magically 
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  17. retrieves or updates the value of the underlying C variable.  
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  18. Click <a href="example.i">here</a> to see a SWIG interface with some variable declarations in it.
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  20. <h2>Manipulating Variables from Tcl</h2>
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  21. 

  22. Click <a href="runme.tcl">here</a> to see a script that updates and prints out the values of
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  23. the variables defined in the above file.  Notice how the C global variables work just
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  24. like normal Tcl variables.
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  25. 

  26. <h2>Key points</h2>
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  27. 

  28. <ul>
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  29. <li>The <tt>set</tt> statement changes the value of the corresponding C global variable.
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  30. <li>Whenever you access the value of a variable such as <tt>$ivar</tt>, the value
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  31. of the C global variable is read. 
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  32. <li>If a C program changes a global variable independently of Tcl, this change is
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  33. automatically reflected in the Tcl variable (i.e., reads will always return the
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  34. most up to date value of the variable).
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  35. <li>When a global variable has the type "<tt>char *</tt>", SWIG manages it as a character
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  36. string.   However, whenever the value of such a variable is set from Tcl, the old
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  37. value is destroyed using <tt>free()</tt> or <tt>delete</tt> (the choice of which depends
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  38. on whether or not SWIG was run with the -c++ option).
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  39. <li><tt>signed char</tt> and <tt>unsigned char</tt> are handled as small 8-bit integers.
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  40. <li>String array variables such as '<tt>char name[256]</tt>' are managed as Tcl strings, but
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  41. when setting the value, the result is truncated to the maximum length of the array.  Furthermore, the string is assumed to be null-terminated.
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  42. <li>When structures and classes are used as global variables, they are mapped into pointers.
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  43. Getting the "value" returns a pointer to the global variable.  Setting the value of a structure results in a memory copy from a pointer to the global.
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  44. </ul>
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  46. <h2>Creating read-only variables</h2>
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  48. The <tt>%immutable</tt> and <tt>%mutable</tt> directives can be used to
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  49. specify a collection of read-only variables.  For example:
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  51. <blockquote>
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  52. <pre>
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  53. %immutable;
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  54. int    status;
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  55. double blah;
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  56. ...
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  57. %mutable;
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  58. </pre>
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  59. </blockquote>
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  61. The <tt>%immutable</tt> directive remains in effect until it is explicitly disabled
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  62. using the <tt>%mutable</tt> directive.
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  64. <h2>Comments</h2>
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  65. <ul>
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  66. <li>Management of global variables is one of the most problematic aspects 
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  67. of C/C++ wrapping because the scripting interface and resulting memory management
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  68. is much trickier than simply creating a wrapper function.
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  69. <p>
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  70. <li>You may be better off hiding global variables behind a function based
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  71. interface.
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  72. </ul>
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