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<center><h1>Calling Haskell from C using <em>GreenCard</em></h1></center>
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<p>
Let's say you are working on a software project where different
components of the system are written in different languages. Now one
of your colleagues asks whether she can use your component (written
as a Haskell library) from her component (written in C) for testing.
<p>
In this scenario, the controlling part of the application is in C, but
it should be able to call out to Haskell from time to time, to perform
some part of the computation. How can it be done?
<p>
We provide the necessary hooks in both C and Haskell. In essence,
although C is supposedly in control, the program must start in Haskell
(to initialise the heap and other runtime structures), before passing
control over completely to C. Also, the initialisation phase must
include a stage where C is given some handles on the Haskell functions
it will later apply and evaluate.
<p>
The Haskell side is easy - just use <em>GreenCard</em> and pass functions
across the boundary as stable pointers. For example:
<pre>
module Main where
%fun registerFn :: Int -> String -> a -> IO ()
%call (int arity) (string name) (stable fn)
%fun handOver :: () -> IO ()
main = registerFn 2 "plus" ((+)::Int->Int->Int) >>
registerFn 1 "mult5" ((5*)::Int->Int) >>
handOver ()
</pre>
<p>
The C side is also pretty straightforward. You need to write an
appropriate implementation of <tt>registerFn</tt> which stores the Haskell
values for later use. All Haskell stable pointers (whether functions
or data) have a uniform representation as far as C is concerned: they
are of type <tt>HaskellRef</tt>, which in practice should be treated as an
abstract datatype. The C header file <tt>usr/local/lib/nhc98/greencard.h</tt>
includes all the other facilities that are needed to deal with
HaskellRefs - to build application closures and evaluate them,
and to turn ordinary C values into HaskellRefs and vice versa.
<pre>
----greencard.h----
typedef ... HaskellRef;
extern HaskellRef buildClosure (int, HaskellRef*);
extern void eval (HaskellRef);
extern HaskellRef makeInt (int);
extern int unmakeInt (HaskellRef);
extern HaskellRef makeBool (int);
extern int unmakeBool (HaskellRef);
extern HaskellRef makeChar (char);
extern char unmakeChar (HaskellRef);
</pre>
<p>
Note the following points:
<ul>
<li>The arguments to <tt>buildClosure()</tt> are:
the arity of the function; and a
pointer to a small block of memory containing the the correct sequence
of HaskellRefs to form the application.</li>
<li>Why does <tt>eval()</tt> not return a value? Because its
HaskellRef argument already contains the value - it just
happens to be in a more usable form following the call.</li>
<li>Can I <tt>make</tt> and <tt>unmake</tt> any C values into
HaskellRefs or must I use only int char and bool?
No, you could use other types too,
but I haven't written the make and unmake wrappers yet (because no-one
has asked for them yet). Ask and you shall receive!</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
The latest updates to these pages are available on the WWW from
<a href="http://www.haskell.org/nhc98/">
<tt>http://www.haskell.org/nhc98/</tt></a>
<p>
26 January 1999<br>
<a href="http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/">
York Functional Programming Group</a><br>
[email protected]
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