Let's get this finished

[Sven Panne]

"Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" wrote:
> If hslibs is meant to be used with systems other than ghc,
> too - which I think was the idea - there is no choice but to
> rewrite it into H98.  But I guess this is essentially up to
> Mr. HsLibs aka SimonM.

Well, doing some simple local transformations to get H98 compliance
should be possible without consulting Mr. HsLibs in advance.  :-)

> [ peekArray argument order ]
> Sounds reasonable to me.

OK, so let's change this before too many programs use the old order.

> [ MarshalString ]
> Hmmm, yes, although pointer/length pairs are not very common
> in C and this module is a language dependent module (and so
> should be called `MarshalCString').

Granted. And remember we already have a (quite ugly) module CString!
So here is a new proposal:

   * Deprecate the old definitions in CString and add

        type CString    = Ptr CChar
        mallocCString    :: String -> IO CString
        peekCString      :: CString -> IO String
        pokeCString      :: CString -> String -> IO ()
        withCString      :: String -> (CString -> IO a) -> IO a
        newCString       :: String -> IO CString

   * Add a new module CStringLen with

        type CStringLen = (CString, Int)
        mallocCStringLen :: String -> IO CStringLen
        peekCStringLen   :: CStringLen -> IO String
        pokeCStringLen   :: CStringLen -> String -> IO ()
        withCStringLen   :: String -> (CStringLen -> IO a) -> IO a
        newCStringLen    :: String -> IO CStringLen

> [ MarshalError ]
> But SimonM said that he doesn't want to make errno Haskell
> thread local...

Wasn't this only due to efficiency reasons? IIRC Fergus had a good
suggestion (copying errno only on thread switches or something), so
I'd like to hear Mr. HsLibs' opinion on this topic again.

> [ MarshalUtils ]
> BTW, can't we just use `with' now.  IIRC, the only reason
> Marcin used `withObject' was because of a clash with the
> implicit parameter extension.  This has been changed now,
> hasn't it?

Nope, not yet. Although there was some consensus about SPJ's
?-suggestion for those bindings, it's not implemented yet.
Any takers? If this has been done, `with' would be better, indeed.

> [...] This is also along the lines of what Marcin proposed.  So,
> let's use it.

Well, it *is* what Marcin proposed. :-) I only gave maybe ($nullPtr)
a name and a (less general) signature.

> [ module (re-)exports ]
> I was thinking of an extra module mainly because the
> MarshalXXX code is system independent - in contrast to the
> code in `Foreign'.  However, we may also just let Foreign
> do the whole job.  Thinking about it again, I doubt that
> anybody will ever import one module, but not the other -
> so, let's make Foreign export the whole lot.
> 
> There is one exception: MarshalCString shouldn't be
> re-exported by Foreign (like CTypes).

I'd opt for this too: Foreign re-exports MarshalAlloc, MarshalArray,
MarshalError and MarshalUtils and *not* CString/CStringLen.
 
> > And just a final topic which really should be settled:
> > "Marshal" or "Marshall"??   :-}
> 
> I would have taken the latter, but I think, SimonM
> originally proposed the name MarshalUtils with one "l" and
> as he is the native speaker...

*sigh* Have to change HOpenGL once again...   :-P

If there are no further objections I'll incorporate the MarshalXXX
and CSTring{,Len} stuff into hslibs this weekend.

Cheers,
   Sven