'\" '\" Generated from file 'critcl_pkg\&.man' by tcllib/doctools with format 'nroff' '\" Copyright (c) Jean-Claude Wippler '\" Copyright (c) Steve Landers '\" Copyright (c) 2011-2015 Andreas Kupries '\" .TH "critcl" 3tcl 3\&.1\&.17 doc "C Runtime In Tcl (CriTcl)" .\" The -*- nroff -*- definitions below are for supplemental macros used .\" in Tcl/Tk manual entries. .\" .\" .AP type name in/out ?indent? .\" Start paragraph describing an argument to a library procedure. .\" type is type of argument (int, etc.), in/out is either "in", "out", .\" or "in/out" to describe whether procedure reads or modifies arg, .\" and indent is equivalent to second arg of .IP (shouldn't ever be .\" needed; use .AS below instead) .\" .\" .AS ?type? ?name? .\" Give maximum sizes of arguments for setting tab stops. Type and .\" name are examples of largest possible arguments that will be passed .\" to .AP later. If args are omitted, default tab stops are used. .\" .\" .BS .\" Start box enclosure. From here until next .BE, everything will be .\" enclosed in one large box. .\" .\" .BE .\" End of box enclosure. .\" .\" .CS .\" Begin code excerpt. .\" .\" .CE .\" End code excerpt. .\" .\" .VS ?version? ?br? .\" Begin vertical sidebar, for use in marking newly-changed parts .\" of man pages. The first argument is ignored and used for recording .\" the version when the .VS was added, so that the sidebars can be .\" found and removed when they reach a certain age. If another argument .\" is present, then a line break is forced before starting the sidebar. .\" .\" .VE .\" End of vertical sidebar. .\" .\" .DS .\" Begin an indented unfilled display. .\" .\" .DE .\" End of indented unfilled display. .\" .\" .SO ?manpage? .\" Start of list of standard options for a Tk widget. The manpage .\" argument defines where to look up the standard options; if .\" omitted, defaults to "options". The options follow on successive .\" lines, in three columns separated by tabs. .\" .\" .SE .\" End of list of standard options for a Tk widget. .\" .\" .OP cmdName dbName dbClass .\" Start of description of a specific option. cmdName gives the .\" option's name as specified in the class command, dbName gives .\" the option's name in the option database, and dbClass gives .\" the option's class in the option database. .\" .\" .UL arg1 arg2 .\" Print arg1 underlined, then print arg2 normally. .\" .\" .QW arg1 ?arg2? .\" Print arg1 in quotes, then arg2 normally (for trailing punctuation). .\" .\" .PQ arg1 ?arg2? .\" Print an open parenthesis, arg1 in quotes, then arg2 normally .\" (for trailing punctuation) and then a closing parenthesis. .\" .\" # Set up traps and other miscellaneous stuff for Tcl/Tk man pages. .if t .wh -1.3i ^B .nr ^l \n(.l .ad b .\" # Start an argument description .de AP .ie !"\\$4"" .TP \\$4 .el \{\ . ie !"\\$2"" .TP \\n()Cu . el .TP 15 .\} .ta \\n()Au \\n()Bu .ie !"\\$3"" \{\ \&\\$1 \\fI\\$2\\fP (\\$3) .\".b .\} .el \{\ .br .ie !"\\$2"" \{\ \&\\$1 \\fI\\$2\\fP .\} .el \{\ \&\\fI\\$1\\fP .\} .\} .. .\" # define tabbing values for .AP .de AS .nr )A 10n .if !"\\$1"" .nr )A \\w'\\$1'u+3n .nr )B \\n()Au+15n .\" .if !"\\$2"" .nr )B \\w'\\$2'u+\\n()Au+3n .nr )C \\n()Bu+\\w'(in/out)'u+2n .. .AS Tcl_Interp Tcl_CreateInterp in/out .\" # BS - start boxed text .\" # ^y = starting y location .\" # ^b = 1 .de BS .br .mk ^y .nr ^b 1u .if n .nf .if n .ti 0 .if n \l'\\n(.lu\(ul' .if n .fi .. .\" # BE - end boxed text (draw box now) .de BE .nf .ti 0 .mk ^t .ie n \l'\\n(^lu\(ul' .el \{\ .\" Draw four-sided box normally, but don't draw top of .\" box if the box started on an earlier page. .ie !\\n(^b-1 \{\ \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\l'\\n(^lu+3n\(ul'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\l'|0u-1.5n\(ul' .\} .el \}\ \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\h'\\n(^lu+3n'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\l'|0u-1.5n\(ul' .\} .\} .fi .br .nr ^b 0 .. .\" # VS - start vertical sidebar .\" # ^Y = starting y location .\" # ^v = 1 (for troff; for nroff this doesn't matter) .de VS .if !"\\$2"" .br .mk ^Y .ie n 'mc \s12\(br\s0 .el .nr ^v 1u .. .\" # VE - end of vertical sidebar .de VE .ie n 'mc .el \{\ .ev 2 .nf .ti 0 .mk ^t \h'|\\n(^lu+3n'\L'|\\n(^Yu-1v\(bv'\v'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^Yu'\h'-|\\n(^lu+3n' .sp -1 .fi .ev .\} .nr ^v 0 .. .\" # Special macro to handle page bottom: finish off current .\" # box/sidebar if in box/sidebar mode, then invoked standard .\" # page bottom macro. .de ^B .ev 2 'ti 0 'nf .mk ^t .if \\n(^b \{\ .\" Draw three-sided box if this is the box's first page, .\" draw two sides but no top otherwise. .ie !\\n(^b-1 \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\l'\\n(^lu+3n\(ul'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\h'|0u'\c .el \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\h'\\n(^lu+3n'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\h'|0u'\c .\} .if \\n(^v \{\ .nr ^x \\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^Yu \kx\h'-\\nxu'\h'|\\n(^lu+3n'\ky\L'-\\n(^xu'\v'\\n(^xu'\h'|0u'\c .\} .bp 'fi .ev .if \\n(^b \{\ .mk ^y .nr ^b 2 .\} .if \\n(^v \{\ .mk ^Y .\} .. .\" # DS - begin display .de DS .RS .nf .sp .. .\" # DE - end display .de DE .fi .RE .sp .. .\" # SO - start of list of standard options .de SO 'ie '\\$1'' .ds So \\fBoptions\\fR 'el .ds So \\fB\\$1\\fR .SH "STANDARD OPTIONS" .LP .nf .ta 5.5c 11c .ft B .. .\" # SE - end of list of standard options .de SE .fi .ft R .LP See the \\*(So manual entry for details on the standard options. .. .\" # OP - start of full description for a single option .de OP .LP .nf .ta 4c Command-Line Name: \\fB\\$1\\fR Database Name: \\fB\\$2\\fR Database Class: \\fB\\$3\\fR .fi .IP .. .\" # CS - begin code excerpt .de CS .RS .nf .ta .25i .5i .75i 1i .. .\" # CE - end code excerpt .de CE .fi .RE .. .\" # UL - underline word .de UL \\$1\l'|0\(ul'\\$2 .. .\" # QW - apply quotation marks to word .de QW .ie '\\*(lq'"' ``\\$1''\\$2 .\"" fix emacs highlighting .el \\*(lq\\$1\\*(rq\\$2 .. .\" # PQ - apply parens and quotation marks to word .de PQ .ie '\\*(lq'"' (``\\$1''\\$2)\\$3 .\"" fix emacs highlighting .el (\\*(lq\\$1\\*(rq\\$2)\\$3 .. .\" # QR - quoted range .de QR .ie '\\*(lq'"' ``\\$1''\\-``\\$2''\\$3 .\"" fix emacs highlighting .el \\*(lq\\$1\\*(rq\\-\\*(lq\\$2\\*(rq\\$3 .. .\" # MT - "empty" string .de MT .QW "" .. .BS .SH NAME critcl \- Critcl - Package Reference .SH SYNOPSIS package require \fBTcl 8\&.4\fR .sp package require \fBcritcl ?3\&.1\&.17?\fR .sp package require \fBplatform ?1\&.0\&.2?\fR .sp package require \fBmd5 ?2?\fR .sp \fB::critcl::ccode\fR \fItext\fR .sp \fB::critcl::ccommand\fR \fItclname\fR \fIcfunname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::ccommand\fR \fItclname\fR \fIarguments\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIoption\fR \fIvalue\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::cdata\fR \fItclname\fR \fIdata\fR .sp \fB::critcl::cconst\fR \fItclname\fR \fIresulttype\fR \fIvalue\fR .sp \fB::critcl::cdefines\fR \fIdefinitions\fR ?\fInamespace\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::cproc\fR \fIname\fR \fIarguments\fR \fIresulttype\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIoption\fR \fIvalue\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::cproc\fR \fIname\fR \fIarguments\fR \fIresulttype\fR .sp \fB::critcl::cinit\fR \fItext\fR \fIexternals\fR .sp \fB::critcl::include\fR \fIpath\fR .sp \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBimport\fR \fIname\fR \fIversion\fR .sp \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBfunction\fR \fIresulttype\fR \fIname\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBheader\fR ?\fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBextheader\fR ?\fIfile\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::license\fR \fIauthor\fR ?\fItext\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::summary\fR \fItext\fR .sp \fB::critcl::description\fR \fItext\fR .sp \fB::critcl::subject\fR ?\fIkey\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::meta\fR \fIkey\fR ?\fIword\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::meta?\fR \fIkey\fR .sp \fB::critcl::buildrequirement\fR \fIscript\fR .sp \fB::critcl::cheaders\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::csources\fR ?\fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::clibraries\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::source\fR \fIpath\fR .sp \fB::critcl::tsources\fR \fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&. .sp \fB::critcl::owns\fR \fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&. .sp \fB::critcl::cflags\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::ldflags\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::framework\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::tcl\fR \fIversion\fR .sp \fB::critcl::tk\fR .sp \fB::critcl::preload\fR \fIlib\fR\&.\&.\&. .sp \fB::critcl::debug\fR \fIarea\fR\&.\&.\&. .sp \fB::critcl::check\fR ?\fIlabel\fR? \fItext\fR .sp \fB::critcl::checklink\fR ?\fIlabel\fR? \fItext\fR .sp \fB::critcl::msg\fR ?\fB-nonewline\fR? \fImsg\fR .sp \fB::critcl::print\fR ?\fB-nonewline\fR? ?\fIchan\fR? \fImsg\fR .sp \fB::critcl::compiled\fR .sp \fB::critcl::compiling\fR .sp \fB::critcl::done\fR .sp \fB::critcl::failed\fR .sp \fB::critcl::load\fR .sp \fB::critcl::config\fR \fIoption\fR ?\fIval\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::cache\fR ?path? .sp \fB::critcl::clean_cache\fR ?\fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::readconfig\fR \fIpath\fR .sp \fB::critcl::showconfig\fR ?\fIchan\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::showallconfig\fR ?\fIchan\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::chooseconfig\fR \fItarget\fR ?\fInomatcherr\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::setconfig\fR \fItarget\fR .sp \fB::critcl::actualtarget\fR .sp \fB::critcl::buildforpackage\fR ?\fIflag\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::cnothingtodo\fR \fIfile\fR .sp \fB::critcl::cresults\fR ?\fIfile\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::crosscheck\fR .sp \fB::critcl::error\fR \fImsg\fR .sp \fB::critcl::knowntargets\fR .sp \fB::critcl::sharedlibext\fR .sp \fB::critcl::targetconfig\fR .sp \fB::critcl::buildplatform\fR .sp \fB::critcl::targetplatform\fR .sp \fB::critcl::cobjects\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? .sp \fB::critcl::scan\fR \fIpath\fR .sp \fB::critcl::name2c\fR \fIname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argnames\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argcnames\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argcsignature\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argvardecls\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argconversion\fR \fIarguments\fR ?\fIn\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::argoptional\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argdefaults\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argsupport\fR \fIarguments\fR .sp \fB::critcl::userconfig\fR \fBdefine\fR \fIname\fR \fIdescription\fR \fItype\fR ?\fIdefault\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::userconfig\fR \fBquery\fR \fIname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::userconfig\fR \fBset\fR \fIname\fR \fIvalue\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR \fIoffset\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR \fIoffset\fR \fIlevel\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::here\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::get*\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::get\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::=\fR \fIfile\fR \fIline\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::incr\fR \fIn\fR\&.\&.\&. .sp \fB::critcl::at::incrt\fR \fIstr\fR\&.\&.\&. .sp \fB::critcl::at::caller!\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::caller!\fR \fIoffset\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::caller!\fR \fIoffset\fR \fIlevel\fR .sp \fB::critcl::at::here!\fR .sp \fB::critcl::collect_begin\fR .sp \fB::critcl::collect_end\fR .sp \fB::critcl::collect\fR \fIscript\fR .sp \fB::critcl::make\fR \fIpath\fR \fIcontents\fR .sp \fB::critcl::has-resulttype\fR \fIname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::resulttype\fR \fIname\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIctype\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::resulttype\fR \fIname\fR \fB=\fR \fIorigname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::has-argtype\fR \fIname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argtype\fR \fIname\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIctype\fR? ?\fIctypefun\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::argtype\fR \fIname\fR \fB=\fR \fIorigname\fR .sp \fB::critcl::argtypesupport\fR \fIname\fR \fIcode\fR ?\fIguard\fR? .sp \fB::critcl::argtyperelease\fR \fIname\fR \fIcode\fR .sp \fB::preload\fR \fIlibrary\fR .sp .BE .SH DESCRIPTION .PP Welcome to the \fIC Runtime In Tcl\fR, \fICriTcl\fR for short, a system to build C extension packages for Tcl on the fly, from C code embedded within Tcl scripts, for all who wish to make their code go faster\&. .PP This document is the reference manpage for the \fBcritcl\fR package\&. This package is the system's core, i\&.e\&. it provides the essential functionality on top of which everything else is built\&. Its intended audience are mainly developers wishing to write Tcl packages with embedded C code\&. Some of its sections are however for developers wishing to understand the package internals, and the API it provides to the \fICriTcl Application\fR\&. These sections will be marked, allowing package writers to skip them\&. Users of \fBcritcl\fR on the other hand are hereby refered to the applications' manpage, i\&.e\&. \fICriTcl Application\fR\&. If you are in need of an overview of the whole system instead, please go and read the \fIIntroduction To CriTcl\fR\&. .PP This package resides in the Core Package Layer of CriTcl\&. .PP .PS .nf +----------------+ |Applications | | critcl | | critcl::app | +----------------+ *================* |Core Packages | | critcl | | critcl::util | *================* +----------------+ |Support Packages| | stubs::* | | md5, platform | | \&.\&.\&. | +----------------+ .fi .PE .PP .SH API A short note ahead of the documentation: Instead of repeatedly talking about "a "\fI\&.tcl\fR" with embbedded C code", or "a "\fI\&.tcl\fR" containing critcl commands", etc\&. we use a shorthand and simply call them "\fI\&.critcl\fR" files, regardless of their file extension\&. .SS "EMBEDDED C CODE" The package provides five commands to declare various types of C code fragments\&. These are: .TP \fB::critcl::ccode\fR \fItext\fR This command compiles the C code in \fItext\fR and makes the contained definitions (variables, functions, macros, etc\&.) available to all C code fragments specified after it\&. It itself can assume to have access to all definitions which were specified before it\&. See section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR for more details\&. .sp The result of the command is the empty string\&. .TP \fB::critcl::ccommand\fR \fItclname\fR \fIcfunname\fR This command creates a new Tcl command named \fItclname\fR which is implemented by the C function \fIcfunname\fR\&. It is expected that \fIcfunname\fR has the proper signature for a Tcl command function, and was declared already\&. .sp The result of \fB::critcl::ccommand\fR itself is the empty string\&. .TP \fB::critcl::ccommand\fR \fItclname\fR \fIarguments\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIoption\fR \fIvalue\fR\&.\&.\&.? This form of \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR creates a new Tcl command named \fItclname\fR which is implemented by the C code in \fIbody\fR\&. .sp The command wraps the \fIbody\fR in an invisible C function, compiles it and makes the resulting definition available to all C code fragments declared later on\&. It itself can assume to have access to all definitions which came before it\&. See section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR for more details\&. .sp The result of \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR itself is the empty string\&. .sp The list of \fIarguments\fR contain the names for the four parameters required by a Tcl command function\&. Superfluous list elements (i\&.e\&. beyond the fourth) are ignored\&. Missing elements (parameters), and empty parameter names are handled by replacing them with standard names\&. These are, in order of usage .RS .IP [1] \fBclientdata\fR .IP [2] \fBinterp\fR .IP [3] \fBobjc\fR .IP [4] \fBobjv\fR .RE .IP The only options accepted by this command are: .RS .TP \fB-clientdata\fR \fIc-expression\fR The value of this option is the text of a single C expression\&. The value of expression is used in the generated C statement registering \fItclname\fR to initialize the client data of the new Tcl command\&. If not specified the expression defaults to \fBNULL\fR, i\&.e\&. no client data\&. .TP \fB-delproc\fR \fIc-expression\fR The value of this option is the text of a single C expression\&. The value of this expression has to be a function pointer of type "Tcl_CmdDeleteProc", which is used in the generated C statement registering \fItclname\fR to initialize a deletion function for the new Tcl command, i\&.e\&. a function which is run by Tcl when the Tcl command is deleted again\&. If not specified the expression defaults to \fBNULL\fR, i\&.e\&. no deletion function\&. .TP \fB-cname\fR \fIboolean\fR The value of this option is a boolean flag\&. If \fBtrue\fR the name of the command is the C identifier of the command function\&. Namespaces, etc\&. are in that case not relevant at all\&. The default value of this option is \fBfalse\fR, causing the system to derive a name from the Tcl level command name, including its namespace\&. .RE .IP A ccommand is, in comparison to functions defined via \fBcritcl::cproc\fR, more lower level\&. Its advantage is that the developer \fIcan\fR do their own argument processing, enabling things like variable number of arguments, options, etc\&., i\&.e\&. much higher flexibility\&. Their disadvantage is that you \fIhave\fR to do your own argument processing\&. Where a \fBcritcl::cproc\fR generates the code to convert from Tcl values to C values and back a \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR forces the writer to do all of this on their own\&. I\&.e\&. the cost of the aforementioned flexibility is a higher complexity seen by the user\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cdata\fR \fItclname\fR \fIdata\fR This command creates a new Tcl command named \fItclname\fR which returns \fIdata\fR as a ByteArray result\&. .sp The result of \fBcritcl::cdata\fR itself is the empty string\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cconst\fR \fItclname\fR \fIresulttype\fR \fIvalue\fR This command creates a new Tcl command named \fItclname\fR which returns the constant \fIvalue\fR as its result, with Tcl type \fIresulttype\fR\&. .sp The result of \fBcritcl::cconst\fR itself is the empty string\&. .sp The command is similar to \fBcritcl::cdata\fR in that it returns a constant value\&. Contrary to \fBcritcl::cdata\fR however it is not restricted to ByteArray results, but accepts all result-types known to \fBcritcl::cproc\fR\&. Its semantics are actually equivalent to .CS cproc $tclname {} $resulttype "return $value ;" .CE .sp Contrary to \fBcritcl::cproc\fR however it is internally optimized to avoid generating a superfluous C function\&. .sp Note that nothing prevents the user from using a C define for the \fIvalue\fR\&. Any visible C function is actually also allowed, as long as it does not take arguments\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cdefines\fR \fIdefinitions\fR ?\fInamespace\fR? This command creates Tcl variables in the specified \fInamespace\fR which are linked to the \fIC enum values\fR and \fI#define\fRs named as \fIglob patterns\fR in the list of \fIdefinitions\fR\&. Each variable has the same name as the definition which gave rise to it, and its value is the value of the corresponding enum value or #define\&. The namespace defaults to the global namespace, i\&.e\&. "::", if it wasn't specified explicitly\&. .sp Please note that this command is only for the lifting of \fIexisting\fR C definitions into Tcl\&. The command \fIdoes not\fR create the definitions in C\&. It actually goes so far to check for the presence of the named definitions and not performing the mapping for any which do not exist\&. Which is sensible, given that non-existing defines have no value which could be used in the mapping\&. .sp As these checks are run at the time the embedded C code of a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file is actually compiled they have access to and check \fIall\fR C fragments defined with \fBcritcl::ccode\fR, plus all the headers it has access to via \fBcritcl::cheaders\fR, for that file\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cproc\fR \fIname\fR \fIarguments\fR \fIresulttype\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIoption\fR \fIvalue\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command creates a new Tcl command named \fItclname\fR which is implemented by the C code in \fIbody\fR\&. In contrast to the low-level \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR here the arguments and result are typed and critcl generates the code converting from Tcl_Obj's to C data types, and vice versa\&. The command creates two invisible C functions, one wrapping the \fIbody\fR, the other a shim containing the necessary conversions, compiles them and makes the resulting definitions available to all C code fragments declared later on\&. It itself can assume to have access to all definitions which came before it\&. See section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR for more details\&. .sp The result of \fBcritcl::cproc\fR itself is the empty string\&. .sp The only options accepted by this command are: .RS .TP \fB-cname\fR \fIboolean\fR The value of this option is a boolean flag\&. If \fBtrue\fR the name of the command is the C identifier of the command function\&. Namespaces, etc\&. are in that case not relevant at all\&. The default value of this option is \fBfalse\fR, causing the system to derive a name from the Tcl level command name, including its namespace\&. .TP \fB-pass-cdata\fR \fIboolean\fR The value of this option is a boolean flag\&. If specified and set the shim translating from Tcl to C level and back will pass the command's ClientData to the function\&. If not specified the flag defaults to \fBfalse\fR, i\&.e\&. no passing of client data\&. .TP \fB-arg-offset\fR \fIint\fR The value of this option is a positive integer number specifying the number of hidden arguments preceding the actual procedure arguments\&. If not specified the flag defaults to \fB0\fR\&. This is useful to higher-order code generator using the command in settings with prefix arguments which are not directly seen by the function, but influence argument counting and extraction\&. .RE .IP Below is the list of predefined types legal for \fIresulttype\fR, plus the details of their semantics\&. Note that it is possible to extend this list with custom types if the standard does not support what is needed\&. See section \fBAdvanced: Extending cproc\fR for details\&. .RS .TP Tcl_Obj* .TP object The function returns a value of type \fBTcl_Obj*\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, if not \fB0\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fBTCL_ERROR\fR when a \fB0\fR is returned, and \fBTCL_OK\fR otherwise\&. .sp \fINote\fR how it is the responsibility of the function to set the interpreter result to an appropriate error message when returning \fB0\fR\&. .sp \fIAttention\fR: The conversion assumes that the value belonged to the function, with an associated reference count, and decrements the reference count to indicate the loss of ownership by the function\&. This means that it is an error to return a value whose reference count is zero\&. The system will crash at some point after the return due to reuse of the freed memory\&. .TP Tcl_Obj*0 .TP object0 The function returns a value of type \fBTcl_Obj*\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, if not \fB0\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fBTCL_ERROR\fR when a \fB0\fR is returned, and \fBTCL_OK\fR otherwise\&. .sp \fINote\fR how it is the responsibility of the function to set the interpreter result to an appropriate error message when returning \fB0\fR\&. .sp \fIAttention\fR: Contrary to \fBTcl_Obj*\fR above this conversion assumes that the returned value has a reference count of \fB0\fR and performs \fIno\fR decrement\&. Returning a value whose reference count is greater than zero will likely cause a memory leak\&. .TP char* .TP vstring The function returns a value of type \fBchar*\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, wrapped in a \fBString\fR\&. It is assumed that the string is volatile in some way, with the wrapping in a \fBString\fR duplicating it before making it the result, ensuring that we will not access a dangling pointer in the future\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP const char* Like type \fBchar*\fR above, except that the returned string is \fBconst\fR-qualified\&. .TP string .TP dstring The function returns a value of type \fBchar*\fR\&. Contrary to the previous string types here it is assumed that the value is dynamically allocated, via \fBTcl_Alloc\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, as usual, but is \fInot\fR copied\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP double The function returns a value of type \fBdouble\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, properly wrapped as a \fBDouble\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP float The function returns a value of type \fBfloat\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, properly wrapped as a \fBDouble\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP boolean .TP bool The function returns a value of type \fBint\fR, interpreted as boolean\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, properly wrapped as a \fBInt\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP int The function returns a value of type \fBint\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, properly wrapped as a \fBInt\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP long The function returns a value of type \fBlong int\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, properly wrapped as a \fBLong\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP wideint The function returns a value of type \fBTcl_WideInt\fR\&. This value becomes the interpreter result, properly wrapped as a \fBWideInt\fR\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .TP ok The function returns a value of type \fBint\fR\&. It is interpreted as the Tcl status code\&. The interpreter result is left untouched (empty)\&. For a different outcome the function has to set the interpreter result by itself\&. .TP void The function does not return a value\&. The interpreter result is left untouched (empty)\&. For a different outcome the function has to set the interpreter result by itself\&. The Tcl status is \fIalways\fR \fBTCL_OK\fR\&. .RE .sp The \fIarguments\fR parameter has the overall syntax of a Tcl dictionary value, except that keys (argument names) and values (argument types) are specified in reverse order\&. Consider the example .CS int x int y .CE .IP where \fIx\fR and \fIy\fR are the arguments/keys, both mapped to type/value \fBint\fR\&. .sp The argument names must be valid C identifiers\&. .sp A limited form of variadic arguments is possible, through optional arguments with default values\&. For these the argument name is a 2-element list containing the actual name, and the default value\&. For example, in the declaration .CS int {x 1} .CE .IP \fIx\fR is an optional argument of type \fBint\fR and default value \fB1\fR\&. .sp A caveat! The default value is assigned unconditionally\&. If a custom argument type uses more complex validation, and the default may be invalid according to it, then the relevant checks have to be done in the procedure body\&. The argument conversion cannot do it as it is completely bypassed when the argument is not present\&. Overcoming this requires the separation of argument conversion and validation code\&. .sp Below is the list of predefined types legal for arguments, plus the details of their semantics\&. Note that it is possible to extend this list with custom types if the standard does not support what is needed\&. See section \fBAdvanced: Extending cproc\fR for details\&. .sp Further note that the type of the first argument is allowed to be \fBTcl_Interp*\fR\&. In that case the argument in question is \fInot\fR counted as an argument of the new Tcl command\&. .RS .TP Tcl_Obj* .TP object The function takes an argument of type \fBTcl_Obj*\fR\&. No argument checking is done\&. The Tcl level word is passed to the argument as-is\&. .TP pstring The function takes an argument of type \fBcritcl_pstring\fR containing the original \fBTcl_Obj*\fR reference of the Tcl argument, plus the length of the string and a pointer to the character array\&. .CS typedef struct critcl_pstring { Tcl_Obj* o; char* s; int len; } critcl_pstring; .CE .TP list The function takes an argument of type \fBcritcl_list\fR containing the original \fBTcl_Obj*\fR reference of the Tcl argument, plus the length of the Tcl list and a pointer to the array of the list elements\&. .CS typedef struct critcl_list { Tcl_Obj* o; Tcl_Obj** v; int c; } critcl_list; .CE .IP The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBList\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP bytearray .TP rawchar* .TP rawchar The function takes an argument of type \fBchar*\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBByteArray\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. \fINote\fR that the length of the \fBByteArray\fR is \fInot\fR passed to the function, making this type not very usable\&. .TP bytes This is the \fInew\fR and usable \fBByteArray\fR type\&. .sp The function takes an argument of type \fBcritcl_bytes\fR containing the original \fBTcl_Obj*\fR reference of the Tcl argument, plus the length of the byte array and a pointer to the byte data\&. .CS typedef struct critcl_bytes { Tcl_Obj* o; char* s; int len; } critcl_list; .CE .IP The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBByteArray\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP char* The function takes an argument of type \fBchar*\fR\&. The string representation of the Tcl argument is passed in\&. .TP double The function takes an argument of type \fBdouble\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBDouble\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP float The function takes an argument of type \fBfloat\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBDouble\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP boolean .TP bool The function takes an argument of type \fBint\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBBoolean\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP int The function takes an argument of type \fBint\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBInt\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP long The function takes an argument of type \fBlong int\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBLong\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP wideint The function takes an argument of type \fBTcl_WideInt\fR\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to \fBWideInt\fR, an error is thrown otherwise\&. .TP void* .TP double* .TP float* .TP int* The function takes an argument of the same-named C type\&. The Tcl argument must be convertible to ByteArray, an error is thrown otherwise\&. The bytes in the ByteArray are then re-interpreted as the raw representation of a single C pointer of the given type which is then passed as argument to the function\&. In other words, this is for Tcl values somehow holding raw C pointers, i\&.e\&. memory addresses\&. .sp \fIAttention\fR: These types are considered \fIDEPRECATED\fR\&. It is planned to remove their documentation in release 3\&.2, and their implementation in release 3\&.3\&. Their deprecation can be undone if good use cases are shown\&. .RE .TP \fB::critcl::cproc\fR \fIname\fR \fIarguments\fR \fIresulttype\fR This variant of \fBcritcl::cproc\fR assumes that the functionality to connect to is implemented by the C function \fIname\fR which has the signature described by the \fIarguments\fR and \fIresulttype\fR\&. .sp It creates only the shim performing the conversions required by arguments and result\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cinit\fR \fItext\fR \fIexternals\fR This command compiles the C code in \fItext\fR and \fIexternals\fR\&. .sp Both arguments have access to all definitions created by the previously listed commands, regardless of their placement in the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file relative to this command\&. See section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR for more details\&. .sp The C code in \fItext\fR is put into the body of the initialization function of the shared library backing the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, and is executed when this library is loaded into the interpreter\&. .sp This code has access to a variable \fBinterp\fR of type \fBTcl_Interp*\fR referencing the Tcl interpreter currently being initialized\&. .sp The code in \fIexternals\fR on the other hand is placed outside and just before the initialization function, making this is a good place for any external symbols required by initialization function which should not be accessible by any other parts of the C code\&. .sp Multiple invokations of this command are allowed, and a later call has access to the information of all preceding ones\&. .sp The result of the command is the empty string\&. .TP \fB::critcl::include\fR \fIpath\fR This command is a convenient shorthand for .CS critcl::code { #include <${path}> } .CE .PP .SS "STUBS TABLE MANAGEMENT" Newly introduced with critcl version 3 is the support for stubs tables, Tcl's dynamic linking mechanism handling the resolution of symbols between C extensions\&. We won't go into its details here\&. See \fIhttp://wiki\&.tcl\&.tk/285\fR for an introduction in general, and section \fBStubs Tables\fR for the details of critcl's particular variant\&. .PP Critcl supports this via a single command, \fBcritcl::api\fR, and its methods\&. .PP First, importing stubs tables, i\&.e\&. APIs, from another extension: .TP \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBimport\fR \fIname\fR \fIversion\fR Critcl prepares the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file \fIand\fR its companion "\fI\&.c\fR" files by including the headers .RS .IP [1] "\fI\fBname\fR/\fBname\fRDecls\&.h\fR" .IP [2] "\fI\fBname\fR/\fBname\fRStubLib\&.h\fR" .RE .IP in the appropriate places\&. It is checked that the compiler will be able to find these header files somewhere on the include search path, using the paths defined so far (See \fBcritcl::cheaders\fR, and the critcl application's \fB-I\fR and \fB-includedir\fR options)\&. Note how critcl expects the headers of package \fBfoo\fR to reside in a sub-directory "\fIfoo\fR" of the known include search paths\&. .sp \fIImportant:\fR If \fBfoo\fR is a namespaced package name, like, for example "c::stack", then the namespace separators "::" are converted into underscores ("_") in path names, C code, etc\&. .sp The first header is expected to contain contains all the necessary stubs table type declarations, mapping macros, etc\&., and may include package specific headers (See \fBcritcl::api header\fR below)\&. This header is included at the beginning of the C code backing the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, and at the beginning of all companion "\fI\&.c\fR" files\&. This means that the writer of these files doesn't have to write the necessary \fI#include\fR directory, critcl does it for them\&. .sp The second header is expected to contain the stubs table variable definition, and the C code, i\&.e\&. definition, of the function to initialize it\&. This, and a call to this initializer function are added to the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file's initialization code\&. .sp If the directory containing the aforementioned headers also contains the file "\fI\fBname\fR/\fBname\fR\&.decls\fR" then it is assumed that this file contains the external representation of the stubs table used to generate the headers\&. The file is read and the internal representation of the stubs table returned as result of the command, for the importing package to use as it sees fit\&. If no such file is present the command returns the empty string as its result\&. .sp One possible use would be the automatic generation of C code calling on the functions listed in the imported API\&. .sp When generating a TEA wrapper the names of the imported APIs are used to declare \fBconfigure\fR options with which the user can declare a non-standard location for the headers of the API\&. Any API \fBFOO\fR is translated a single configure option \fB--with-\fBFOO\fR-include\fR\&. .PP .PP Second, declaration and export of a stubs table, i\&.e\&. API, for the current package, \fBfoo\fR: .TP \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBfunction\fR \fIresulttype\fR \fIname\fR \fIarguments\fR This method declares that the function \fIname\fR is in the public API of the package, and its signature (type of the result, number, names and types of its arguments)\&. Using this method automatically causes critcl to generate both the code for a stubs table in the package, the headers needed by packages using this API, and a "\fI\&.decls\fR" file containing the stubs table implied by the exports, usable by \fBcritcl::api import\fR\&. .sp \fIarguments\fR is a list of C types and associated argument names\&. Like a dictionary, except that keys (argument names) and values (argument types) are swapped\&. The \fIresulttype\fR is a C type as well\&. .TP \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBheader\fR ?\fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&.? This method notifies critcl of companion header files which have to be exported together with the generated stubs headers\&. .sp All arguments are interpreted as glob pattern and the matching files are copied into the directory containing the generated headers well\&. As an importing package uses only "\fI\fBfoo\fRDecls\&.h\fR" to access the API this generated header will contain the necessary \fI#include\fR directives to make these companion header files and their declarations available too\&. Patterns matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. .sp \fINote\fR that patterns which are not beginning with an absolute path are interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .TP \fB::critcl::api\fR \fBextheader\fR ?\fIfile\fR\&.\&.\&.? This method is similar \fB::critcl::api header\fR, in that it notifies critcl of companion header files which have to be exported together with the generated stubs headers\&. .sp The difference is that these headers will be expected to exist in the external development environment\&. As such they will be \fI#include\fRd in the generated header for the package, but not copied to the package header directory\&. Nor are they allowed to be glob patterns, as critcl has no context, i\&.e directory, in which to expand such patterns\&. .PP Note that the generated headers for an exported API are included in the package like it is done when importing it somewhere else\&. To repeat: .PP The "\fI\fBfoo\fRDecls\&.h\fR" header is included at the beginning of the C code backing the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, and at the beginning of all companion "\fI\&.c\fR" files\&. This means that the writer of these files doesn't have to write the necessary \fI#include\fR directory, critcl does it for them\&. .PP In mode "compile & run" the generated header files, and their companion headers, if any, are placed in the subdirectory "\fIfoo\fR" of the \fBResult Cache\fR\&. As this location is implicitly added to the include search path any other package importing this API and and build in mode "compile & run" as well will find the these headers\&. .PP For mode "generate package" the application was extended with a new option \fB-includedir\fR which specifies the location to place the generated headers in (again in subdirectory "\fIfoo\fR" of that path)\&. This path is also be added to the include search paths, ensuring that a package importing an API will find it if the package exporting that API used the same setting for \fB-includedir\fR\&. .PP For mode "generate TEA" the static scanner was extended to recognize \fBcritcl::api header\fR as a source of companion files\&. It further uses data about \fBcritcl::api import\fR commands to put proper support for \fB--with-\fBfoo\fR-include\fR options into the generate "\fIconfigure(\&.in)\fR" so that a user may specify custom locations for the headers of any imported API\&. .SS "PACKAGE META DATA" Newly introduced with critcl version 3 is support for TEApot meta-data\&. .PP While, from the package developer's perspective, some meta data support was already present in critcl v2, through the command \fB::critcl::license\fR, this was only used to generate and place a file "\fIlicense\&.txt\fR" into the built package\&. .PP Now critcl supports the declaration of arbitrary meta data, which will be placed into a file "\fIteapot\&.txt\fR" in a format suitable for use by the \fITEApot tools\fR [http://docs\&.activestate\&.com/activetcl/8\&.5/tpm/toc\&.html]\&. .TP \fB::critcl::license\fR \fIauthor\fR ?\fItext\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides information about the author of the package, and its license\&. .sp If no \fItext\fR is present the command expects to find a file "\fIlicense\&.terms\fR" in the same directory as the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file and reads the license from that\&. Otherwise the license is the joined \fItext\fRs\&. .sp This information, the license, is ignored in mode "compile & run", only mode "generate package" uses it\&. In that case the information is written to a file "\fIlicense\&.terms\fR", a sibling to the "\fIpkgIndex\&.tcl\fR" file in the directory hierarchy of the generated package\&. .sp This information is additionally placed into the meta data file "\fIteapot\&.txt\fR", under the keys \fIas::author\fR and \fIlicense\fR\&. .sp The data specified by this command has priority over any information specified through the generic API \fB::critcl::meta\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::summary\fR \fItext\fR Declares a short (one line is recommended) description of the package\&. .sp This information is ignored in mode "compile & run", only mode "generate package" uses it\&. In that case the information is placed into the meta data file "\fIteapot\&.txt\fR", under the key \fIsummary\fR\&. .sp The data specified by this command has priority over any information specified through the generic API \fB::critcl::meta\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::description\fR \fItext\fR Declares a longer description of the package\&. .sp This information is ignored in mode "compile & run", only mode "generate package" uses it\&. In that case the information is placed into the meta data file "\fIteapot\&.txt\fR", under the key \fIdescription\fR\&. .sp The data specified by this command has priority over any information specified through the generic API \fB::critcl::meta\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::subject\fR ?\fIkey\fR\&.\&.\&.? Declares one or more keywords and key-phrases describing the package, for an index\&. .sp Multiple calls of this command accumulate keywords and phrases\&. .sp This information is ignored in mode "compile & run", only mode "generate package" uses it\&. In that case the information is placed into the meta data file "\fIteapot\&.txt\fR", under the key \fIsubject\fR\&. .sp The data specified by this command has priority over any information specified through the generic API \fB::critcl::meta\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::meta\fR \fIkey\fR ?\fIword\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command is for the declaration of arbitrary meta data outside of the reserved keys \fIas::author\fR, \fIas::build::date\fR, \fIdescription\fR, \fIlicense\fR, \fIname\fR, \fIplatform\fR, \fIrequire\fR \fIsubject\fR, \fIsummary\fR, and \fIversion\fR, Its behaviour is like \fB::critcl::subject\fR, in that it treats all keys as list of words, with each call declaring one or more words for the key, and multiple calls extending the data for an existing key, if not reserved\&. .sp While it is possible to declare information for one of the reserved keys with this command such data is ignored when the final meta data is assembled and written\&. .sp Use the commands \fB::critcl::license\fR, \fB::critcl::summary\fR, \fB::critcl::description\fR \fB::critcl::subject\fR, \fBpackage require\fR, and \fBpackage provide\fR to declare data for the reserved keys\&. .sp The information for the reserved keys \fIas::build::date\fR and \fIplatform\fR is automatically generated by \fBcritcl\fR itself\&. .TP \fB::critcl::meta?\fR \fIkey\fR This command enables the retrieval of meta data information from with the code defining a critcl based package\&. Given the \fIkey\fR the associated value is returned as the result of the command\&. .sp The envisioned main use is the retrieval of the package's name from within utility packages having to adapt C code templates to their environment\&. An example of a package using this command for exactly this purpose is \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::buildrequirement\fR \fIscript\fR This command provides control over the capturing of dependencies declared via \fBpackage require\fR\&. It runs the script, and any dependencies declared within are ignored, i\&.e\&. not recorded in the meta data\&. .PP .SS "CONTROL & INTERFACE" The package provides thirteen commands to control the details of compilation and linking, enabling "\fI\&.critcl\fR" files to provide custom information about their environment and dependencies\&. .PP In important thing to note about all these commands is that the package manages their information on a per-file basis\&. I\&.e\&. information provided by and in a file "\fIFOO\&.tcl\fR" is kept separate from the information provided by and in a file "\fIBAR\&.tcl\fR", preventing them from interfering with each other\&. .PP The commands are: .TP \fB::critcl::cheaders\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides the compile step with additional header files and header locations\&. .sp All arguments matching the glob pattern \fB-*\fR are forwarded to the compiler's command line when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp All other arguments are interpreted as glob pattern and the matching files are made available to the compiler when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. Patterns matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. .sp \fINote\fR that patterns which are not beginning with an absolute path are interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp \fINote\fR further that this declaration does not cause the specified header files to be automatically \fB#include\fR'd\&. Inclusion still has to be done via either \fBcritcl::include\fR or \fBcritcl::ccode\fR, where necessary\&. It does simply ensure that the compiler will be able to find these files when invoked, by providing the necessary command line flags to extend the compiler's search paths\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::csources\fR ?\fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides the compile step with additional C source files\&. .sp All arguments are interpreted as glob patterns\&. Patterns matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. The files matching the patterns are made available to the compiler when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. This means that the files in question are compiled together with the "\fI\&.c\fR" file backing the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file into a single object\&. .sp \fINote\fR that patterns which are not beginning with an absolute path are interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::clibraries\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides the link step with additional libraries to link and library locations\&. .sp All arguments matching the glob pattern \fB-*\fR are forwarded to the linkers's command line when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp All other arguments are interpreted glob patterns\&. Patterns matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. The files matching the patterns are made available to the linker when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. This means that the files in question are linked together with the object file backing the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file into a single shared library\&. .sp \fINote\fR that patterns which are not beginning with an absolute path are interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::source\fR \fIpath\fR This command evaluates the critcl commands in the file specified by \fIpath\fR in the context of the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp The argument is actually considered as glob pattern and all matching files are evaluated\&. A pattern matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. .sp \fINote\fR that a pattern not beginning with an absolute path is interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .TP \fB::critcl::tsources\fR \fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&. This command provides the critcl package with information about additional Tcl script files to source when the shared library is loaded\&. .sp All arguments are considered as glob patterns and the matching files are made available to generated shared library when it is loaded for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. Patterns matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. .sp \fINote\fR that patterns which are not beginning with an absolute path are interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .sp The declared files are sourced after the shared library has been loaded, in the same order they were provided to \fBcritcl::tsources\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::owns\fR \fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&. This command is ignored by the regular build modes, i\&.e\&. both "compile and run", and "generate package"\&. It is present to support the static code scanner of critcl v3's new mode to "generate TEA" packages\&. .sp In that situation it provides the critcl package with information about any files which have to be wrapped and could not be figured out from the previous commands (i\&.e\&. \fBcritcl::csources\fR, \fBcritcl::tsources\fR) because of getting specified dynamically, or getting directly sourced and this not visible to critcl in any other way\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cflags\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides the compile step with additional compiler flags\&. .sp All arguments are forwarded to the compiler's command line when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::ldflags\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides the link step with additional linker flags\&. .sp All arguments are forwarded to the linkers's command line when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::framework\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command provides the link step with the names of additional frameworks to link on MacOS X\&. The command is ignored if we are not building for OS X\&. This means that it is possible to declare the OS X specific frameworks unconditionally\&. The package itself takes care to not use them when building for non-OS X platforms\&. .sp All arguments are forwarded to the linkers's command line when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::tcl\fR \fIversion\fR This command tells critcl for what minimum version of the Tcl runtime to compile and link the package for\&. If not specified critcl falls back to the default of \fB8\&.4\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::tk\fR This command informs critcl that the package in question is based on Tk, and therefore needs the Tk headers for compilation, and the Tk stubs for linking\&. .TP \fB::critcl::preload\fR \fIlib\fR\&.\&.\&. This command arranges that the named dependent external shared library is loaded before the generated package's shared library\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .sp Each library \fIFOO\fR named for preload will be searched at the locations listed below, in the order listed, and the search will stop on the first existing path\&. Additional notes: .RS .IP \(bu \fBplatform\fR is the placeholder for the target platform of the package\&. .IP \(bu The extension "\fI\&.so\fR" is the placeholder for whatever actual extension is used by the target platform for its shared libraries\&. .IP \(bu Note how the search is relative to the current working directory\&. .RE .IP And now the paths, depending on the exact form of the library name: .RS .TP FOO .RS .IP [1] FOO\&.so .IP [2] FOO/FOO\&.so .IP [3] FOO/\fBplatform\fR/FOO\&.so .RE .TP PATH/FOO For this form the exact set searched depends on the existence of directory "\fIPATH/FOO\fR"\&. If it does not exist critcl searches .RS .IP [1] FOO\&.so .IP [2] PATH/FOO\&.so .IP [3] PATH/\fBplatform\fR/FOO\&.so .RE .IP Otherwise it searches .RS .IP [1] FOO\&.so .IP [2] PATH/FOO/FOO\&.so .IP [3] PATH/FOO/\fBplatform\fR/FOO\&.so .RE .IP instead\&. .TP /PATH/FOO Even when specifying FOO with an absolute path the first path searched is relative to the current working directory\&. .RS .IP [1] FOO\&.so .IP [2] /PATH/FOO\&.so .IP [3] /PATH/\fBplatform\fR/FOO\&.so .RE .RE .IP If you are a developer wishing to understand or modify the internals of the \fBcritcl\fR package then you possibly should read the section explaining how the \fBPreloading functionality\fR is implemented\&. .TP \fB::critcl::debug\fR \fIarea\fR\&.\&.\&. This tells critcl if the package is to be compiled for debugging, and which areas to activate\&. Internally each area is translated into area-specific flags for the compiler which are then handed over to \fBcritcl::cflags\fR\&. .RS .TP \fBmemory\fR Specification of this area activates Tcl memory debugging for the package code\&. .TP \fBsymbols\fR Specification of this area activates compilation and linking with debugging symbols, for use by a debugger or other tool\&. .TP \fBall\fR Specification of this area translates ino the activation of all other legal areas\&. .RE .PP .SS INTROSPECTION The package provides six commands to control compilation and linking\&. These are: .TP \fB::critcl::check\fR ?\fIlabel\fR? \fItext\fR This command is useful to test if some functionality is available in the build environment, and then select other C code fragments based on that information\&. It immediately compiles the C code in \fItext\fR and returns a boolean value based on the result of the compilation\&. The command returns \fBtrue\fR on success, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. If specified, the \fIlabel\fR is used to uniquely mark the check in the generated log\&. .TP \fB::critcl::checklink\fR ?\fIlabel\fR? \fItext\fR This command is an extenson of \fBcritcl::check\fR above, useful to test if some functionality is available in the build environment, and then select other C code fragments based on that information\&. It immediately compiles and links the C code in \fItext\fR and returns a boolean value based on the result of compilation and linking\&. The command returns \fBtrue\fR on success, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. If specified, the \fIlabel\fR is used to uniquely mark the check in the generated log\&. .TP \fB::critcl::msg\fR ?\fB-nonewline\fR? \fImsg\fR This command can be used by critc-based code to report results from \fBcritcl::check\fR and \fBcritcl::checklink\fR\&. The default implementation used by mode \fIcompile & run\fR ignores any calls\&. .sp Tools like the \fICriTcl Application\fR are allowed to redefine this procedure to perform their own way of message reporting\&. The package \fBcritcl::app\fR and the application on top print such messages to \fIstdout\fR, for example\&. .TP \fB::critcl::print\fR ?\fB-nonewline\fR? ?\fIchan\fR? \fImsg\fR This command is used by the critcl internals to report its activity\&. Its signature is equivalent to the Tcl builtin command \fB::puts\fR\&. The default implementation is effectively \fB::puts\fR\&. .sp Tools directly using either the critcl package, or the critcl application package are allowed to redefine this procedure to perform their own way of printing\&. .sp An example of this is \fIKettle\fR [https://chiselapp\&.com/user/andreas_kupries/repository/Kettle/index] where the newest revisions use this to highlight build warnings\&. .TP \fB::critcl::compiled\fR This command returns a boolean value\&. It returns \fBtrue\fR if the C code of the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file is already compiled, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. .sp This predicate effectively enables a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file used as its own Tcl companion file (see \fBcritcl::tsources\fR) to distinguish between sourced by mode "compile & run" for compilation and sourced from either the result of mode "generate package" or during the load phase of "compile & run"\&. In case of the two latter possibilities the result is \fBtrue\fR, and \fBfalse\fR for the first\&. .TP \fB::critcl::compiling\fR This command returns a boolean value\&. It returns \fBtrue\fR if C code can be compiled on this platform in general, i\&.e\&. if a C compiler is available, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. .TP \fB::critcl::done\fR This command returns a boolean value\&. It returns \fBtrue\fR when critcl has built the embedded C code, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. .sp This enables the Tcl code of a critcl-based package to distinguish between it getting used as a prebuilt package, versus dynamic compile & run, and take action based on that\&. .sp \fINote\fR that this command is only useful from within a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. The result is managed on a per-file basis, like is done for the commands embedding C code and controlling the behaviour of compiler and linker\&. .sp See also section \fBModes Of Operation/Use\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::failed\fR This command returns a boolean value\&. It returns \fBtrue\fR if critcl has failed to build the package, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise, i\&.e\&. success\&. As part of this it forces the building of the package, but not its loading\&. Note that it will attempt to build the package only on the first call; future calls for the same package will return a cached result\&. .sp This enables a critcl-based package to check itself for availability and throw an error if it could not be built\&. \fINote\fR that the command does \fInot\fR throw such an error itself\&. .sp \fINote\fR further that this command is only useful from within in a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. The result is managed on a per-file basis, like is done for the commands embedding C code and controlling the behaviour of compiler and linker\&. .TP \fB::critcl::load\fR This command is like \fBcritcl::failed\fR, except that it also forces the loading of the generated shared library, if it was built, and that its result has reversed sense\&. .sp It returns \fBtrue\fR if critcl succeeded in building and loading the package, and \fBfalse\fR otherwise, i\&.e\&. build- or load-failure\&. .sp This enables a critcl-based package to to not only check itself for availability and throw an error if it could not be built, but also force an immediate load, circumventing the default behaviour, which is lazy\&. See also section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR\&. \fINote\fR that the command does \fInot\fR throw any error itself\&. .sp \fINote\fR further that this command is only useful from within in a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. The result is managed on a per-file basis, like is done for the commands embedding C code and controlling the behaviour of compiler and linker\&. .PP .SS "BUILD MANAGEMENT" The package provides a single command for the management of global settings, i\&.e\&. configuration options which are independent of any "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .PP It is expected that this command is irrelevant to anybody just wishing to write a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. It is a management command which is only useful to the \fICriTcl Application\fR or similar tools\&. .TP \fB::critcl::config\fR \fIoption\fR ?\fIval\fR? This command sets and returns critcl's global configuration options\&. These are .RS .TP \fBforce\fR bool This flag tells the package whether it should force the building of C files despite having a cached shared library (when \fBtrue\fR, or not\&. The default is \fBoff\fR\&. .TP \fBlines\fR bool This flag tells the package whether to embed #line directives into the generated C code (when \fBtrue\fR) or not\&. By default this is \fBon\fR\&. .TP \fBtrace\fR bool Inactive by default\&. When active code tracing entry and exit of \fBcritcl::cproc\fR-based is inserted into the C code\&. This implicitly activates the tracing facility in general\&. (See package \fBcritcl::cutil\fR)\&. .sp Side note: This facility requires the use of a tclsh supporting the builtin \fBinfo frame\fR command\&. If critcl is run by a tclsh not supporting this no \fI#line\fR directives will be emitted\&. The command is supported by Tcl 8\&.5 and higher\&. It is also supported by Tcl 8\&.4 provided that it was compiled with the define \fB-DTCL_TIP280\fR\&. An example of such is ActiveState's ActiveTcl\&. .sp Developers of higher-level packages generating their own C code, either directly, or indirectly, by using critcl commands, should also read section \fBAdvanced: Location management\fR to see how critcl helps them in generating their directives\&. Examples of such packages come with critcl itself, see the packages \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR and \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .TP \fBI\fR path A single global include path to use for all files\&. Not set by default\&. .TP \fBcombine\fR enum .RS .TP \fBdynamic\fR Object files have the suffix \fB_pic\fR\&. .TP \fBstatic\fR Object files have the suffix \fB_stub\fR\&. .TP \fBstandalone\fR Object files have no suffix, and the generated C files are compiled without using Tcl/Tk stubs\&. The result are object files usable for static linking into a \fIbig shell\fR\&. .RE .IP The default is \fBdynamic\fR\&. .TP \fBlanguage\fR string .TP \fBkeepsrc\fR bool This flag tells the package whether to keep the generated "\fI\&.c\fR" files after it has build their "\fI\&.o\fR" files (when \fBtrue\fR), or not\&. The default is \fBoff\fR\&. .TP \fBoutdir\fR path The path where to place a generated shared library\&. Not set by default, causing placement into the \fBResult Cache\fR\&. .RE .PP .SS "RESULT CACHE MANAGEMENT" This package provides two commands for the management of the \fBResult Cache\fR\&. See that section for background information\&. .PP \fINOTE\fR that these commands are irrelevant to anybody just wishing to write a package using critcl for the C parts\&. They are management commands which are only useful to the \fICriTcl Application\fR or similar tools\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cache\fR ?path? This command sets and returns the path to the directory for the package's result cache\&. .sp The default location is "\fI~/\&.critcl/[platform::generic]\fR" and usually does not require any changes\&. .TP \fB::critcl::clean_cache\fR ?\fIpattern\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command cleans the result cache, i\&.e\&. removes any and all files and directories in it\&. If one or more patterns are specified then only the files and directories matching them are removed\&. .PP .SS "BUILD CONFIGURATION" This package provides four commands for the management of the build configuration, i\&.e\&. the per-platform information about compilers, linkers, and their commandline options\&. .PP \fINOTE\fR that these commands are irrelevant to anybody just wishing to write a package using critcl for the C parts\&. They are management commands which are only useful to the \fICriTcl Application\fR or similar tools\&. .TP \fB::critcl::readconfig\fR \fIpath\fR This command reads the build configuration file at \fIpath\fR and configures the package using the information for the currently set target platform\&. .TP \fB::critcl::showconfig\fR ?\fIchan\fR? This command converts the currently active build configuration into a human-readable string and prints the result to the channel \fIchan\fR\&. If \fIchan\fR is not present the string is instead returned as the result of the command\&. .TP \fB::critcl::showallconfig\fR ?\fIchan\fR? This command converts the set of all known build configurations (from the currently active build configuration file last set with \fBcritcl::readconfig\fR) into a string and print the result to the channel \fIchan\fR\&. If \fIchan\fR is not present the string is instead returned as the result of the command\&. .TP \fB::critcl::chooseconfig\fR \fItarget\fR ?\fInomatcherr\fR? This command takes a target identifier and matches it against all known targets, returning a list containing all the matching ones\&. This search is first done on an exact basis, and then via glob matching\&. If no known target matches the argument the default is to return an empty list\&. However, if the boolean \fInomatcherr\fR is specified and set, and error will be thrown instead, using \fBcritcl::error\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::setconfig\fR \fItarget\fR This command takes a target identifier and configures the package to use all its settings\&. .PP .SS "TOOL API" The twelve commands in this section provide tools like \fICriTcl Application\fR or similar with deeper access to the package's internals\&. These commands are irrelevant to anybody just wishing to write a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .TP \fB::critcl::actualtarget\fR This command returns the platform identifier of the target platform, i\&.e\&. the platform the generated code will be built for\&. In contrast to \fB::critcl::targetplatform\fR this is the true target, with any cross-compilation information resolved\&. .TP \fB::critcl::buildforpackage\fR ?\fIflag\fR? This command signals whether the next file to be build is built for inclusion into a package or not\&. If not specified the \fIflag\fR defaults to \fBtrue\fR, i\&.e\&. building for a package\&. This disables a number of things in the backend, namely the linking of that file into a shared library, and loading such\&. It is expected that the build results are later wrapped into a larger collection\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cnothingtodo\fR \fIfile\fR This command checks whether there is anything to build for \fIfile\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cresults\fR ?\fIfile\fR? This command returns the build result information for the specified \fIfile\fR\&. If no file is specified the information is taken from \fBinfo script\fR\&. The result in question is a Tcl dictionary with the following keys, and their meanings: .RS .TP \fBclibraries\fR The list of external shared libraries, and/or locations thereof to link the \fIfile\fR needs for successful linking\&. .TP \fBldflags\fR The list of linker flags needed by the \fIfile\fR for successful linking\&. .TP \fBlicense\fR The license the package in the \fIfile\fR is under\&. A string\&. .TP \fBmintcl\fR The minimum version of Tcl required by the package in the \fIfile\fR to run successfully\&. A proper Tcl version number\&. .TP \fBobjects\fR The list of object files backing the \fIfile\fR, to be linked\&. .TP \fBpreload\fR The list of libraries the generated package has to preload to allow the package in the \fIfile\fR to run successfully\&. .TP \fBtk\fR A boolean indicating whether the package in the \fIfile\fR has to be linked against Tk or not\&. .TP \fBtsources\fR The list of companion "\fI\&.tcl\fR" files to source for the package in the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" \fIfile\fR to run successfully\&. .TP \fBlog\fR The full build log generated by the compiler/linker, including command line data from critcl, and other things\&. .TP \fBexl\fR The raw build log generated by the compiler/linker\&. This key contains only the output generated by the invoked applications\&. .RE .TP \fB::critcl::crosscheck\fR This command checks if the package is configured for cross-compilation and prints a message to the standard error channel if so\&. .TP \fB::critcl::error\fR \fImsg\fR This command is used by the package to report internal errors\&. The default implementation simply throws the error\&. Tools like the \fICriTcl Application\fR are allowed to redefine this procedure to perform their own way of error reporting\&. There is one constraint they are not allowed to change: The procedure must \fInot return\fR to the caller\&. .TP \fB::critcl::knowntargets\fR This command returns a list containing the identifiers of all targets found during the last invocation of \fBcritcl::readconfig\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::sharedlibext\fR This command returns the file extension used by shared libraries on the target platform\&. .TP \fB::critcl::targetconfig\fR This command returns the target identifier chosen to by either system or user to build code for\&. .TP \fB::critcl::buildplatform\fR This command returns the platform identifier of the build platform, i\&.e\&. where the package is running on\&. .TP \fB::critcl::targetplatform\fR This command returns the platform identifier of the target platform, i\&.e\&. the platform the generated code will be built for\&. In contrast to \fB::critcl::actualtarget\fR this may be the name of a cross-compilation target\&. .TP \fB::critcl::cobjects\fR ?\fIarg\fR\&.\&.\&.? This command is like \fB::critcl::clibraries\fR, provides the link step with additional information\&. Instead of libraries the arguments are object files however\&. Despite this similarity it is not listed in section \fBControl & Interface\fR because it is of no use to package writers\&. Only tools like the \fICriTcl Application\fR have need of it\&. .sp All arguments are interpreted glob patterns\&. Patterns matching no file or non-existing files cause the command to throw an error\&. The files matching the patterns are made available to the linker when it is invoked for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. This means that the files in question are linked together with the object file backing the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file into a single shared library\&. .sp \fINote\fR that patterns which are not beginning with an absolute path are interpreted relative to the directory containing the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .sp Multiple invocations of this command accumulate their information\&. .TP \fB::critcl::scan\fR \fIpath\fR This command is the main entry point to critcl's static code scanner\&. Invoked for a single "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file it returns a dictionary providing the following pieces information about it: .RS .TP version Package version\&. .TP org Author(ing organization)\&. .TP files List of the companion files\&. The paths in this list are all relative to the location (directory) of the input file\&. .RE .IP This command and the information it returns can be used by tools to implement processing modes like the assembly of a directory hierarchy containing a TEA-lookalike buildystem, etc\&. .TP \fB::critcl::name2c\fR \fIname\fR This command exposes the conversion of a Tcl level identifier of commands into various C-level pieces, i\&.e\&. Tcl namespace prefix, C namespace prefix, Tcl base name, and C base name\&. .sp The result of the command is a list of 4 elements providing the above mentioned information, in the named order\&. .sp The envisioned main use is from within utility packages providing Tcl commands without going through the standard commands, i\&.e\&. \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR, or \fBcritcl::cproc\fR\&. An example of a package using this command for exactly this purpose is \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .PP .SS "ADVANCED: EMBEDDED C CODE" For the advanced user five commands used inside of \fBcritcl::cproc\fR are exposed\&. These are: .TP \fB::critcl::argnames\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of the user visible arguments found in the declaration\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argcnames\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of the C side variable names for the user visible arguments found in the declaration\&. The names returned here match the names used in the declarations and code returned by \fB::critcl::argvardecls\fR and \fB::critcl::argconversion\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argcsignature\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of C parameter declarations for all arguments found in the declaration\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argvardecls\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of C side variable declarations for the user visible arguments found in the declaration\&. The names used in these declarations match the names returned by \fB::critcl::argcnames\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argconversion\fR \fIarguments\fR ?\fIn\fR? This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of C code fragments converting the user visible arguments found in the declaration from Tcl_Obj* to C types\&. The names used in these statements match the names returned by \fB::critcl::argcnames\fR\&. .sp The generated code assumes that the procedure arguments start at index \fIn\fR of the \fBobjv\fR array\&. If this argument is not specified \fB1\fR will be assumed\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argoptional\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of boolean values indicating which arguments are optional (\fBtrue\fR) and not (\fBfalse\fR)\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argdefaults\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list containing the default values for all optional arguments\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argsupport\fR \fIarguments\fR This command takes an argument declaration as taken by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and returns a list of C code fragments needed to define the necessary supporting types\&. .PP .SS "CUSTOM BUILD CONFIGURATION" This package provides one command for the management of package-specific, i\&.e\&. developer-specified custom build configuration options\&. .TP \fB::critcl::userconfig\fR \fBdefine\fR \fIname\fR \fIdescription\fR \fItype\fR ?\fIdefault\fR? This command defines custom build configuration option, with \fIdescription\fR, \fItype\fR and optional \fIdefault\fR value\&. .sp The type can be either \fBbool\fR, or a list of values\&. .RS .IP [1] For \fBbool\fR the default value, if specified, must be a boolean\&. If it is not specified it defaults to \fBtrue\fR\&. .IP [2] For a list of values the default value, if specified, must be a value found in this list\&. If it is not specified it defaults to the first value of the list\&. .RE .sp The \fIdescription\fR serves as in-code documentation of the meaning of the option and is otherwise ignored\&. When generating a TEA wrapper the description is used for the \fBconfigure\fR option derived from the option declared by the command\&. .sp A boolean option \fBFOO\fR are translated into a pair of configure options, \fB--enable-\fBFOO\fR\fR and \fB--disable-\fBFOO\fR\fR, whereas an option whose \fItype\fR is a list of values is translated into a single configure option \fB--with-\fBFOO\fR\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::userconfig\fR \fBquery\fR \fIname\fR This command queries the database of custom build configuration option for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file and returns the chosen value\&. This may be the default if no value was set via \fB::critcl::userconfig set\fR\&. .sp It is at this point that definitions and set values are brought together, with the latter validated against the definition\&. .TP \fB::critcl::userconfig\fR \fBset\fR \fIname\fR \fIvalue\fR This command is for use by a tool, like the \fBcritcl\fR application, to specify values for custom build configuration options\&. .sp At the time this command is used only the association between option name and value is recorded, and nothing else is done\&. This behaviour is necessary as the system may not know if an option of the specified name exists when the command is invoked, nor its type\&. .sp Any and all validation is defered to when the value of an option is asked for via \fB::critcl::userconfig query\fR\&. .sp This means that it is possible to set values for any option we like, and the value will take effect only if such an option is both defined and used later on\&. .PP .SS "ADVANCED: LOCATION MANAGEMENT" First a small introduction for whose asking themselves \'what is location management' ? .PP By default critcl embeds \fI#line\fR directives into the generated C code so that any errors, warnings and notes found by the C compiler during compilation will refer to the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file the faulty code comes from, instead of the generated "\fI\&.c\fR" file\&. .PP Side note: This facility requires the use of a tclsh supporting the builtin \fBinfo frame\fR command\&. If critcl is run by a tclsh not supporting this no \fI#line\fR directives will be emitted\&. The command is supported by Tcl 8\&.5 and higher\&. It is also supported by Tcl 8\&.4 provided that it was compiled with the define \fB-DTCL_TIP280\fR\&. An example of such is ActiveState's ActiveTcl\&. .PP Most users will not care about this feature beyond simply wanting it to work and getting proper code references when reading compiler output\&. .PP Developers of higher-level packages generating their own C code however should care about this, to ensure that their generated code contains proper references as well\&. Especially as this is key to separating bugs concerning code generated by the package itself and bug in the user's code going into the package, if any\&. .PP Examples of such packages come with critcl itself, see the implementation of packages \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR and \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .PP To help such developers eight commands are provided to manage such \fIlocation\fR information\&. These are listed below\&. .PP A main concept is that they all operate on a single \fIstored location\fR, setting, returning and clearing it\&. Note that this location information is completely independent of the generation of \fI#line\fR directives within critcl itself\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR This command stores the location of the caller of the current procedure as a tuple of file name and linenumber\&. Any previously stored location is overwritten\&. The result of the command is the empty string\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR \fIoffset\fR As above, the stored line number is modified by the specified offset\&. In essence an implicit call of \fBcritcl::at::incr\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR \fIoffset\fR \fIlevel\fR As above, but the level the location information is taken from is modified as well\&. Level \fB0\fR is the caller, \fB-1\fR its caller, etc\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::here\fR This command stores the current location in the current procedure as a tuple of file name and linenumber\&. Any previously stored location is overwritten\&. The result of the command is the empty string\&. .sp In terms of \fB::critcl::at::caller\fR this is equivalent to .CS critcl::at::caller 0 1 .CE .TP \fB::critcl::at::get*\fR This command takes the stored location and returns a formatted \fI#line\fR directive ready for embedding into some C code\&. The stored location is left untouched\&. Note that the directive contains its own closing newline\&. .sp For proper nesting and use it is recommended that such directives are always added to the beginning of a code fragment\&. This way, should deeper layers add their own directives these will come before ours and thus be inactive\&. End result is that the outermost layer generating a directive will 'win', i\&.e\&. have its directive used\&. As it should be\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::get\fR This command is like the above, except that it also clears the stored location\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::=\fR \fIfile\fR \fIline\fR This command allows the caller to set the stored location to anything they want, outside of critcl's control\&. The result of the command is the empty string\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::incr\fR \fIn\fR\&.\&.\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::incrt\fR \fIstr\fR\&.\&.\&. These commands allow the user to modify the line number of the stored location, changing it incrementally\&. The increment is specified as either a series of integer numbers (\fBincr\fR), or a series of strings to consider (\fBincrt\fR)\&. In case of the latter the delta is the number of lines endings found in the strings\&. .TP \fB::critcl::at::caller!\fR .TP \fB::critcl::at::caller!\fR \fIoffset\fR .TP \fB::critcl::at::caller!\fR \fIoffset\fR \fIlevel\fR .TP \fB::critcl::at::here!\fR These are convenience commands combining \fBcaller\fR and \fBhere\fR with \fBget\fR\&. I\&.e\&. they store the location and immediately return it formatted as proper \fI#line\fR directive\&. Also note that after their use the stored location is cleared\&. .PP .SS "ADVANCED: DIVERSIONS" Diversions are for higher-level packages generating their own C code, to make their use of critcl's commands generating \fBEmbedded C Code\fR easier\&. .PP These commands normally generate all of their C code for the current "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, which may not be what is wanted by a higher-level package\&. .PP With a diversion the generator output can be redirected into memory and from there on then handled and processed as the caller desires before it is committed to an actual "\fI\&.c\fR" file\&. .PP An example of such a package comes with critcl itself, see the implementation of package \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .PP To help such developers three commands are provided to manage diversions and the collection of C code in memory\&. These are: .TP \fB::critcl::collect_begin\fR This command starts the diversion of C code collection into memory\&. .sp The result of the command is the empty string\&. .sp Multiple calls are allowed, with each call opening a new nesting level of diversion\&. .TP \fB::critcl::collect_end\fR This command end the diversion of C code collection into memory and returns the collected C code\&. .sp If multiple levels of diversion are open the call only closes and returns the data from the last level\&. .sp The command will throw an error if no diversion is active, indicating a mismatch in the pairing of \fBcollect_begin\fR and \fBcollect_end\fR\&. .TP \fB::critcl::collect\fR \fIscript\fR This is a convenience command which runs the \fIscript\fR under diversion and returns the collected C code, ensuring the correct pairing of \fBcollect_begin\fR and \fBcollect_end\fR\&. .PP .SS "ADVANCED: FILE GENERATION" While file generation is related to the diversions explained in the previous section they are not the same\&. Even so, like diversions this feature is for higher-level packages generating their own C code\&. .PP Three examples of utility packages using this facility comes with critcl itself\&. See the implementations of packages \fBcritcl::literals\fR, \fBcritcl::bitmap\fR, and \fBcritcl::enum\fR\&. .PP When splitting a package implementation into pieces it is often sensible to have a number of pure C companion files containing low-level code, yet these files may require information about the code in the main "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. Such declarations are normally not exportable and using the stub table support does not make sense, as this is completely internal to the package\&. .PP With the file generation command below the main "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file can generate any number of header files for the C companions to pick up\&. .TP \fB::critcl::make\fR \fIpath\fR \fIcontents\fR This command creates the file \fIpath\fR in a location where the C companion files of the package are able to pick it up by simple inclusion of \fIpath\fR during their compilation, without interfering with the outer system at all\&. .sp The generated file will contain the specified \fIcontents\fR\&. .PP .SS "ADVANCED: EXTENDING CPROC" While the \fBcritcl::cproc\fR command understands the most common C types (see section \fBEmbedded C Code\fR), sometimes this is not enough\&. .PP To get around this limitation the commands in this section enable users of \fBcritcl\fR to extend the set of argument and result types understood by \fBcritcl::cproc\fR\&. In other words, they allow them to define their own, custom, types\&. .TP \fB::critcl::has-resulttype\fR \fIname\fR This command tests if the named result-type is known or not\&. It returns a boolean value, \fBtrue\fR if the type is known and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. .TP \fB::critcl::resulttype\fR \fIname\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIctype\fR? This command defines the result type \fIname\fR, and associates it with the C code doing the conversion (\fIbody\fR) from C to Tcl\&. The C return type of the associated function, also the C type of the result variable, is \fIctype\fR\&. This type defaults to \fIname\fR if it is not specified\&. .sp If \fIname\fR is declared already an error will be thrown\&. \fIAttention!\fR The standard result type \fBvoid\fR is special as it has no accompanying result variable\&. This cannot be expressed by this extension command\&. .sp The \fIbody\fR's responsibility is the conversion of the functions result into a Tcl result and a Tcl status\&. The first has to be set into the interpreter we are in, and the second has to be returned\&. .sp The C code of \fIbody\fR is guaranteed to be called last in the wrapper around the actual implementation of the \fBcproc\fR in question and has access to the following environment: .RS .TP \fBinterp\fR A Tcl_Interp* typed C variable referencing the interpreter the result has to be stored into\&. .TP \fBrv\fR The C variable holding the result to convert, of type \fIctype\fR\&. .RE .IP As examples here are the definitions of two standard result types: .CS resulttype int { Tcl_SetObjResult(interp, Tcl_NewIntObj(rv)); return TCL_OK; } resulttype ok { /* interp result must be set by cproc body */ return rv; } int .CE .TP \fB::critcl::resulttype\fR \fIname\fR \fB=\fR \fIorigname\fR This form of the \fBresulttype\fR command declares \fIname\fR as an alias of result type \fIorigname\fR, which has to be defined already\&. If this is not the case an error is thrown\&. .TP \fB::critcl::has-argtype\fR \fIname\fR This command tests if the named argument-type is known or not\&. It returns a boolean value, \fBtrue\fR if the type is known and \fBfalse\fR otherwise\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argtype\fR \fIname\fR \fIbody\fR ?\fIctype\fR? ?\fIctypefun\fR? This command defines the argument type \fIname\fR, and associates it with the C code doing the conversion (\fIbody\fR) from Tcl to C The C type of the variable to hold the conversion result is \fIctype\fR and the type of the function argument itself is \fIctypefun\fR\&. Both types default to \fIname\fR if they are not specified (or the empty string)\&. .sp If \fIname\fR is declared already an error will be thrown\&. .sp The \fIbody\fR's responsibility is the conversion of a command's Tcl_Obj* argument into a C value for the underlying function and its storage in a helper variable\&. .sp The C code of \fIbody\fR is guaranteed to be called inside of a separate C code block (thus allowing the use of local variables) which has access to the following environment: .RS .TP \fBinterp\fR A Tcl_Interp* typed C variable referencing the interpreter the code is running in\&. .TP \fB@@\fR A placeholder for the Tcl_Obj*-valued C expression providing the value of the argument to convert\&. .TP \fB@A\fR A placeholder for the name of the C variable to store the converted argument into\&. .RE .IP As examples here are the definitions of two standard argument types: .CS argtype int { if (Tcl_GetIntFromObj(interp, @@, &@A) != TCL_OK) return TCL_ERROR; } argtype float { double t; if (Tcl_GetDoubleFromObj(interp, @@, &t) != TCL_OK) return TCL_ERROR; @A = (float) t; } .CE .TP \fB::critcl::argtype\fR \fIname\fR \fB=\fR \fIorigname\fR This form of the \fBargtype\fR command declares \fIname\fR as an alias of argument type \fIorigname\fR, which has to be defined already\&. If this is not the case an error is thrown\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argtypesupport\fR \fIname\fR \fIcode\fR ?\fIguard\fR? This command defines a C code fragment for the already defined argument type \fIname\fR which will be inserted before all functions using that type\&. Its purpose is the definition of any supporting C types needed by the argument type\&. If the type is used by many functions the system ensures that only the first of the multiple insertions of the code fragment is active, and the others disabled\&. The guard identifier is normally derived from \fIname\fR, but can also be set explicitly, via \fIguard\fR\&. This latter allows different custom types to share a common support structure without having to perform their own guarding\&. .TP \fB::critcl::argtyperelease\fR \fIname\fR \fIcode\fR This command defines a C code fragment for the already defined argument type \fIname\fR which will be inserted whenever the worker function of a \fBcritcl::cproc\fR returns to the shim\&. It is the responsibility of this fragment to unconditionally release any resources the \fBcritcl::argtype\fR conversion code allocated\&. An example of this are the \fIvariadic\fR types for the support of the special, variadic \fIargs\fR argument to \fBcritcl::cproc\fR's\&. They allocate a C array for the collected arguments which has to be released when the worker returns\&. This command defines the C code for doing that\&. .PP .SH CONCEPTS .SS "MODES OF OPERATION/USE" CriTcl can be used in three different modes of operation, called .IP [1] \fICompile & Run\fR, and .IP [2] \fIGenerate Package\fR .IP [3] \fIGenerate TEA Package\fR .PP Of these three \fICompile & Run\fR came first and is the default when using the package directly\&. In that case the package collects the C fragments, builds them as needed, and caches the results for quick reuse when the same code is used in the future again\&. .PP The second mode, \fIGenerate Package\fR, was introduced to enable the creation of (prebuilt) deliverable packages which do not depend on the existence of a build system, i\&.e\&. C compiler, on the target machine\&. This was originally done through the experimental \fBCritbind\fR tool, and is now handled by the \fICriTcl Application\fR, also named \fBcritcl\fR\&. .PP Newly introduced with Critcl version 3 is \fIGenerate TEA Package\fR\&. This mode constructs a directory hierarchy from the package which can later be built like a regular TEA package, i\&.e\&. using .CS \&.\&.\&./configure --prefix \&.\&.\&. make all isntall .CE .PP Regarding the caching of results please read the section about the \fBResult Cache\fR fore more details\&. .SS "RUNTIME BEHAVIOUR" The default behaviour of critcl, the package is to defer the compilation, linking, and loading of any C code as much as possible, given that this is an expensive operation, mainly in the time required\&. In other words, the C code embedded into a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file is built only when the first C command or procedure it provides is invoked\&. This part of the system uses standard functionality built into the Tcl core, i\&.e\&. the \fBauto_index\fR variable to map from commands to scripts providing them and the \fBunknown\fR command using this information when the command is needed\&. .PP A \fIlimitation\fR of this behaviour is that it is not possible to just use \fBinfo commands\fR check for the existence of a critcl defined command\&. It is also necessary to search in the \fBauto_index\fR array, in case it has not been build yet\&. .PP This behaviour can be changed by using the control command \fBcritcl::load\fR\&. When invoked, the building, including loading of the result, is forced\&. After this command has been invoked for a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file further definition of C code in this file is not allowed any longer\&. .SS "FILE MAPPING" Each "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file is backed by a single private "\fI\&.c\fR" file containing that code, plus the boilerplate necessary for its compilation and linking as a single shared library\&. .PP The \fBEmbedded C Code\fR fragments appear in that file in the exact same order they were defined in the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, with one exception\&. The C code provided via \fBcritcl::cinit\fR is put after all other fragments\&. In other words all fragments have access to the symbols defined by earlier fragments, and the \fBcritcl::cinit\fR fragment has access to all, regardless of its placement in the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. .PP Note: A \fIlimitation\fR of the current system is the near impossibility of C level access between different critcl-based packages\&. The issue is not the necessity of writing and sharing the proper \fBextern\fR statements, but that the management (export and import) of package-specific stubs-tables is not supported\&. This means that dependent parts have to be forcibly loaded before their user, with all that entails\&. See section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR for the relevant critcl limitation, and remember that many older platforms do not support the necessary resolution of symbols, the reason why stubs were invented for Tcl in the first place\&. .SS "RESULT CACHE" The compilation of C code is time-consuming \fBcritcl\fR not only defers it as much as possible, as described in section \fBRuntime Behaviour\fR, but also caches the results\&. .PP This means that on the first use of a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file "\fIFOO\&.tcl\fR" the resulting object file and shared library are saved into the cache, and on future uses of the same file reused, i\&.e\&. loaded directly without requiring compilation, provided that the contents of "\fIFOO\&.tcl\fR" did not change\&. .PP The change detection is based MD5 hashes\&. A single hash is computed for each "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, based on hashes for all C code fragments and configuration options, i\&.e\&. everything which affects the resulting binary\&. .PP As long as the input file doesn't change as per the hash a previously built shared library found in the cache is reused, bypassing the compilation and link stages\&. .PP The command to manage the cache are found in section \fBResult Cache Management\fR\&. Note however that they are useful only to tools based on the package, like the \fICriTcl Application\fR\&. Package writers have no need of them\&. .PP As a last note, the default directory for the cache is chosen based on the chosen build target\&. This means that the cache can be put on a shared (network) filesystem without having to fear interference between machines of different architectures\&. .SS "PRELOADING FUNCTIONALITY" The audience of this section are developers wishing to understand and possibly modify the internals of critcl package and application\&. Package writers can skip this section\&. .PP It explains how the preloading of external libraries is realized\&. .PP Whenever a package declares libraries for preloading critcl will build a supporting shared library providing a Tcl package named "preload"\&. This package is not distributed separately, but as part of the package requiring the preload functionality\&. This support package exports a single Tcl command .TP \fB::preload\fR \fIlibrary\fR which is invoked once per libraries to preload, with the absolute path of that \fIlibrary\fR\&. The command then loads the \fIlibrary\fR\&. .sp On windows the command will further use the Tcl command \fB::critcl::runtime::precopy\fR to copy the \fIlibrary\fR to the disk, should its path be in a virtual filesystem which doesn't directly support the loading of a shared library from it\&. .PP The command \fB::critcl::runtime::precopy\fR is provided by the file "\fIcritcl-rt\&.tcl\fR" in the generated package, as is the command \fB::critcl::runtime::loadlib\fR which generates the \fIifneeded script\fR expected by Tcl's package management\&. This generated ifneeded script contains the invocations of \fB::preload\fR\&. .PP The C code for the supporting library is found in the file "\fIcritcl_c/preload\&.c\fR", which is part of the \fBcritcl\fR package\&. .PP The Tcl code for the supporting runtime "\fIcritcl-rt\&.tcl\fR" is found in the file "\fIruntime\&.tcl\fR", which is part of the \fBcritcl::app\fR package\&. .SS "CONFIGURATION INTERNALS" The audience of this section are developers wishing to understand and possibly modify the internals of critcl package and application\&. Package writers can skip this section\&. .PP It explains the syntax of configuration files and the configuration keys used by \fBcritcl\fR to configure its build backend, i\&.e\&. how this part of the system accesses compiler, linker, etc\&. .PP It is recommended to open the file containing the standard configurations ("\fIpath/to/critcl/Config\fR") in the editor of your choice when reading this section of the documentation, using it as an extended set of examples going beyond the simple defaults shown here\&. .PP First, the keys and the meaning of their values, plus examples drawn from the standard configurations distributed with the package\&. Note that when writing a custom configuration it is not necessary to specify all the keys listed below, but only those whose default values are wrong or insufficient for the platform in question\&. .TP version The command to print the compiler version number\&. Defaults to .CS gcc -v .CE .TP compile The command to compile a single C source file to an object file\&. Defaults to .CS gcc -c -fPIC .CE .TP debug_memory The list of flags for the compiler to enable memory debugging in Tcl\&. Defaults to .CS -DTCL_MEM_DEBUG .CE .TP debug_symbols The list of flags for the compiler to add symbols to the object files and the resulting library\&. Defaults to .CS -g .CE .TP include The compiler flag to add an include directory\&. Defaults to .CS -I .CE .TP tclstubs The compiler flag to set USE_TCL_STUBS\&. Defaults to .CS -DUSE_TCL_STUBS .CE .TP tkstubs The compiler flag to set USE_TK_STUBS\&. Defaults to .CS -DUSE_TK_STUBS .CE .TP threadflags The list of compiler flags to enable a threaded build\&. Defaults to .CS -DUSE_THREAD_ALLOC=1 -D_REENTRANT=1 -D_THREAD_SAFE=1 -DHAVE_PTHREAD_ATTR_SETSTACKSIZE=1 -DHAVE_READDIR_R=1 -DTCL_THREADS=1 .CE .IP\&. .TP noassert The compiler flag to turn off assertions in Tcl code\&. Defaults to .CS -DNDEBUG .CE .TP optimize The compiler flag to specify optimization level\&. Defaults to .CS -O2 .CE .TP output The compiler flags to set the output file of a compilation\&. Defaults to .CS -o [list $outfile] .CE .sp \fINOTE\fR the use of Tcl commands and variables here\&. At the time \fBcritcl\fR uses the value of this key the value of the referenced variable is substituted into it\&. The named variable is the only variable whose value is defined for this substitution\&. .TP object The file extension for object files on the platform\&. Defaults to .CS \&.o .CE .TP preproc_define The command to preprocess a C source file without compiling it, but leaving #define's in the output\&. Defaults to .CS gcc -E -dM .CE .TP preproc_enum See \fBpreproc_define\fR, except that #define's are not left in the output\&. Defaults to .CS gcc -E .CE .TP link The command to link one or more object files and create a shared library\&. Defaults to .CS gcc -shared .CE .TP link_preload The list of linker flags to use when dependent libraries are pre-loaded\&. Defaults to .CS --unresolved-symbols=ignore-in-shared-libs .CE .TP strip The flag to tell the linker to strip symbols from the shared library\&. Defaults to .CS -Wl,-s .CE .TP ldoutput Like \fBoutput\fR, but for the linker\&. Defaults to the value of \fBoutput\fR\&. .TP link_debug The list of linker flags needed to build a shared library with symbols\&. Defaults to the empty string\&. One platform requiring this are all variants of Windows, which uses .CS -debug:full -debugtype:cv .CE .TP link_release The list of linker flags needed to build a shared library without symbols, i\&.e\&. a regular build\&. Defaults to the empty string\&. One platform requiring this are all variants of Windows, which uses .CS -release -opt:ref -opt:icf,3 -ws:aggressive .CE .TP sharedlibext The file extension for shared library files on the platform\&. Defaults to .CS [info sharedlibextension] .CE .TP platform The identifier of the platform used in generated packages\&. Defaults to .CS [platform::generic] .CE .TP target The presence of this key marks the configuration as a cross-compilation target and the value is the actual platform identifier of the target\&. No default\&. .PP .PP The syntax expected from configuration files is governed by the rules below\&. Again, it is recommended to open the file containing the standard configurations ("\fIpath/to/critcl/Config\fR") in the editor of your choice when reading this section of the documentation, using it as an extended set of examples for the syntax> .IP [1] Each logical line of the configuration file consists of one or more physical lines\&. In case of the latter the physical lines have to follow each other and all but the first must be marked by a trailing backslash\&. This is the same marker for \fIcontinuation lines\fR as used by Tcl itself\&. .IP [2] A (logical) line starting with the character "#" (modulo whitespace) is a comment which runs until the end of the line, and is otherwise ignored\&. .IP [3] A (logical) line starting with the word "if" (modulo whitespace) is interpreted as Tcl's \fBif\fR command and executed as such\&. I\&.e\&. this command has to follow Tcl's syntax for the command, which may stretch across multiple logical lines\&. The command will be run in a save interpreter\&. .IP [4] A (logical) line starting with the word "set" (modulo whitespace) is interpreted as Tcl's \fBset\fR command and executed as such\&. I\&.e\&. this command has to follow Tcl's syntax for the command, which may stretch across multiple logical lines\&. The command will be run in a save interpreter\&. .IP [5] A line of the form "\fIplatform\fR \fBvariable\fR \fIvalue\fR" defines a platform specific configuration variable and value\&. The \fBvariable\fR has to be the name of one of the configuration keys listed earlier in this section, and the \fIplatform\fR string identifies the platform the setting is for\&. All settings with the same identification string form the \fIconfiguration block\fR for this platform\&. .IP [6] A line of the special form "\fIplatform\fR \fBwhen\fR \fIexpression\fR" marks the \fIplatform\fR and all the settings in its \fIconfiguration block\fR as conditional on the \fIexpression\fR\&. .sp If the build platform is not a prefix of \fIplatform\fR, nor vice versa the whole block is ignored\&. Otherwise the \fIexpression\fR is evaluated via \fBexpr\fR, in the same safe interpreter used to run any \fBset\fR and \fBif\fR commands found in the configuration file (see above)\&. .sp If the expression evaluates to \fBtrue\fR this configuration block is considered to be the build platform fo the host and chosen as the default configuration\&. An large example of of this feature is the handling of OS X found in the standard configuration file, where it selects the architectures to build based on the version of the operating system, the available SDK, etc\&. I\&.e\&. it chooses whether the output is universal or not, and whether it is old-style (ix86 + ppc) versus new-style (ix86 32+64) of universality\&. .IP [7] A line of the special form "\fIplatform\fR \fBcopy\fR \fIsourceplatform\fR" copies the configuration variables and values currently defined in the \fIconfiguration block\fR for \fIsourceplatform\fR to that of \fIplatform\fR, overwriting existing values, and creating missing ones\&. Variables of \fIplatform\fR not defined by by \fIsourceplatform\fR are not touched\&. .sp The copied values can be overridden later in the configuration file\&. Multiple \fBcopy\fR lines may exist for a platform and be intermixed with normal configuration definitions\&. If a variable is defined multiple times, the last definition will be used\&. .IP [8] At last, a line of the form "\fBvariable\fR \fIvalue\fR" defines a default configuration variable and value\&. .PP .SS "STUBS TABLES" This section is for developers of extensions not based on critcl, yet also wishing to interface with stubs as they are understood and used by critcl, either by exporting their own stubs table to a critcl-based extension, or importing a stubs table of a critcl-based extension into their own\&. .PP To this end we describe the stubs table information of a package \fBfoo\fR\&. .IP [1] Note that the differences in the capitalization of "foo", "Foo", "FOO", etc\&. below demonstrate how to capitalize the actual package name in each context\&. .IP [2] All relevant files must be available in a sub-directory "\fIfoo\fR" which can be found on the include search paths\&. .IP [3] The above directory may contain a file "\fIfoo\&.decls\fR"\&. If present it is assumed to contain the external representation of the stubs table the headers mentioned in the following items are based on\&. .sp critcl is able to use such a file to give the importing package programmatic access to the imported API, for automatic code generation and the like\&. .IP [4] The above directory must contain a header file "\fIfooDecls\&.h\fR"\&. This file \fIdeclares\fR the exported API\&. It is used by both exporting and importing packages\&. It is usually generated and must contain (in the order specified): .RS .IP [1] the declarations of the exported, i\&.e\&. public, functions of \fBfoo\fR, .IP [2] the declaration of structure "FooStubs" for the stub table, .IP [3] the C preprocessor macros which route the invocations of the public functions through the stubs table\&. .sp These macros must be defined if, and only if, the C preprocessor macro USE_FOO_STUBS is defined\&. Package \fBfoo\fR does not define this macro, as it is allowed to use the exported functions directly\&. All importing packages however must define this macro, to ensure that they do \fInot\fR use any of the exported functions directly, but only through the stubs table\&. .IP [4] If the exported functions need additional types for their proper declaration then these types should be put into a separate header file (of arbitrary name) and "\fIfooDecls\&.h\fR" should contain an #include directive to this header at the top\&. .RE .sp A very reduced, yet also complete example, from a package for low-level random number generator functions can be found at the end of this section\&. .IP [5] The above directory must contain a header file "\fIfooStubLib\&.h\fR"\&. This file \fIdefines\fR everything needed to use the API of \fBfoo\fR\&. Consequently it is used only by importing packages\&. It is usually generated and must contain (in the order specified): .RS .IP [1] An #include directive for "\fItcl\&.h\fR", with USE_TCL_STUBS surely defined\&. .IP [2] An #include directive for "\fIfooDecls\&.h\fR", with USE_FOO_STUBS surely defined\&. .IP [3] A \fIdefinition\fR of the stubs table variable, i\&.e\&. .CS const FooStubs* fooStubsPtr; .CE .IP [4] A \fIdefinition\fR of the stubs initializer function, like .CS char * Foo_InitStubs(Tcl_Interp *interp, CONST char *version, int exact) { /* * Boiler plate C code initalizing the stubs table variable, * i\&.e\&. "fooStubsPtr"\&. */ CONST char *actualVersion; actualVersion = Tcl_PkgRequireEx(interp, "foo", version, exact, (ClientData *) &fooStubsPtr); if (!actualVersion) { return NULL; } if (!fooStubsPtr) { Tcl_SetResult(interp, "This implementation of Foo does not support stubs", TCL_STATIC); return NULL; } return (char*) actualVersion; } .CE .RE .IP This header file must be included by an importing package \fIexactly once\fR, so that it contains only one definition of both stubs table and stubs initializer function\&. .sp The importing package's initialization function must further contain a statement like .CS if (!Foo_InitStubs (ip, "1", 0)) { return TCL_ERROR; } .CE .IP which invokes \fBfoo\fR's stubs initializer function to set the local stub table up\&. .sp For a complete example of such a header file see below, at the end of this section\&. .IP [6] The last item above, about "\fIfooStubLib\&.h\fR" \fIdiffers\fR from the regular stub stable system used by Tcl\&. The regular system assumes that a static library "\fIlibfoostub\&.a\fR" was installed by package \fBfoo\fR, and links it\&. .sp IMVHO critcl's approach is simpler, using \fIonly\fR header files found in a single location, vs\&. header files and static library found in multiple, different locations\&. .sp A second simplification is that we avoid having to extend critcl's compiler backend with settings for the creation of static libraries\&. .PP Below is a complete set of example header files, reduced, yet still complete, from a package for low-level random number generator functions: .TP "\fIrngDecls\&.h\fR": .CS #ifndef rng_DECLS_H #define rng_DECLS_H #include /* * Exported function declarations: */ /* 0 */ EXTERN void rng_bernoulli(double p, int*v); typedef struct RngStubs { int magic; const struct RngStubHooks *hooks; void (*rng_bernoulli) (double p, int*v); /* 0 */ } RngStubs; #ifdef __cplusplus extern "C" { #endif extern const RngStubs *rngStubsPtr; #ifdef __cplusplus } #endif #if defined(USE_RNG_STUBS) /* * Inline function declarations: */ #define rng_bernoulli (rngStubsPtr->rng_bernoulli) /* 0 */ #endif /* defined(USE_RNG_STUBS) */ #endif /* rng_DECLS_H */ .CE .TP "\fIrngStubLib\&.h\fR": .CS /* * rngStubLib\&.c -- * * Stub object that will be statically linked into extensions that wish * to access rng\&. */ #ifndef USE_TCL_STUBS #define USE_TCL_STUBS #endif #undef USE_TCL_STUB_PROCS #include #ifndef USE_RNG_STUBS #define USE_RNG_STUBS #endif #undef USE_RNG_STUB_PROCS #include "rngDecls\&.h" /* * Ensure that Rng_InitStubs is built as an exported symbol\&. The other stub * functions should be built as non-exported symbols\&. */ #undef TCL_STORAGE_CLASS #define TCL_STORAGE_CLASS DLLEXPORT const RngStubs* rngStubsPtr; /* *---------------------------------------------------------------------- * * Rng_InitStubs -- * * Checks that the correct version of Rng is loaded and that it * supports stubs\&. It then initialises the stub table pointers\&. * * Results: * The actual version of Rng that satisfies the request, or * NULL to indicate that an error occurred\&. * * Side effects: * Sets the stub table pointers\&. * *---------------------------------------------------------------------- */ #ifdef Rng_InitStubs #undef Rng_InitStubs #endif char * Rng_InitStubs(Tcl_Interp *interp, CONST char *version, int exact) { CONST char *actualVersion; actualVersion = Tcl_PkgRequireEx(interp, "rng", version, exact, (ClientData *) &rngStubsPtr); if (!actualVersion) { return NULL; } if (!rngStubsPtr) { Tcl_SetResult(interp, "This implementation of Rng does not support stubs", TCL_STATIC); return NULL; } return (char*) actualVersion; } .CE .PP .SH EXAMPLES As the set of examples is a bit large, and growing, it has been put into a separate document\&. Please see section "Embedding C" in the document about \fIUsing CriTcl\fR\&. .PP The latest changes are found at the top\&. .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.17" .IP [1] Extension: Allow duplicate arg- and result-type definitions if they are fully identical\&. .IP [2] Bugfix\&. The application mishandled the possibility of identical-named \fBcritcl::tsource\fRs\&. Possible because \fBcritcl::tsource\fRs can be in subdirectories, a structure which is \fInot\fR retained in the assembled package, causing such files to overwrite each other and at least one lost\&. Fixed by adding a serial number to the file names in the assembled package\&. .IP [3] Bugfix in the static scanner which made it loose requirement information\&. Further added code to generally cleanup results at the end (removal of duplicates, mainly)\&. .IP [4] Bugfix: Fixed issue #76\&. Support installation directories which are not in the \fBauto_path\fR\&. Without the patch the installed \fBcritcl\fR will not find its own packages and fail\&. Thank you to \fISimon Bachmann\fR [https://github\&.com/lupylucke] for the report and patch, and then his patience with me to getting to actually apply it\&. .IP [5] Bugfix: Fixed issue #75\&. Extended \fBcritcl::include\fR to now take multiple paths\&. .IP [6] Added new compatibility package \fBlmap84\fR\&. .IP [7] Fixed typos in various documentation files\&. .IP [8] Fixed bug introduced by commit 86f415dd30 (3\&.1\&.16 release)\&. The separation of \fBcritcl::ccode\fR into user and work layers means that location retrieval has to go one more level up to find the user location\&. .IP [9] New supporting package \fBcritcl::cutil\fR\&. Provides common C level facilities useful to packages (assertions, tracing, memory allocation shorthands)\&. .IP [10] Modified package \fBcritcl\fR to make use of the new tracing facilities to provide tracing of arguments and results for \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR and \fBcritcl::cproc\fR invokations\&. .IP [11] Modified packages \fBcritcl\fR and \fBcritcl::class\fR to provide better function names for (class) method tracing\&. Bumped package \fBcritcl::class\fR to version 1\&.0\&.7\&. .IP [12] Extended the support package \fBcritcl::literals\fR with limited configurability\&. It is now able to generate code for C-level access to the pool without Tcl types (Mode \fBc\fR)\&. The previously existing functionality is accesssible under mode \fBtcl\fR, which also is the default\&. Both modes can be used together\&. .IP [13] Extended the support package \fBcritcl::emap\fR with limited configurability\&. It is now able to generate code for C-level access to the mapping without Tcl types (Mode \fBc\fR)\&. The previously existing functionality is accessible under mode \fBtcl\fR, which also is the default\&. Both modes can be used together\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.16" .IP [1] New feature\&. Extended \fBcritcl::cproc\fR's argument handling to allow arbitrary mixing of required and optional arguments\&. .IP [2] New feature\&. \fIPotential Incompatibility\fR\&. .sp Extended \fBcritcl::cproc\fR's argument handling to treat an argument \fBargs\fR as variadic if it is the last argument of the procedure\&. .IP [3] New feature\&. Added two introspection commands, \fBcritcl::has-argtype\fR and \fBcritcl::has-resulttype\fR\&. These enable a user to test if a specific (named) type conversion is implemented or not\&. .IP [4] Added new result type \fBTcl_Obj*0\fR, with alias \fBobject0\fR\&. The difference to \fBTcl_Obj*\fR is in the reference counting\&. .IP [5] Extended the command \fBcritcl::argtypesupport\fR with new optional argument through which to explicitly specify the identifier for guarding against multiple definitions\&. .IP [6] Bugfix: Fixed problem with the implementation of issue #54 (See 3\&.1\&.14)\&. Always create the secondary log file\&. Otherwise end-of-log handling may break, unconditionally assuming its existence\&. .IP [7] Bugfix: Fixed problem with the internal change to the hook \fBHandleDeclAfterBuild\fR\&. Corrected the forgotten \fBcritcl::cconst\fR\&. .IP [8] Debugging aid: Added comment holding the name of the result type when emitting result conversions\&. .IP [9] Bugfix: Fixed issue #60\&. Unbundled the package directories containing multiple packages\&. All directories under "\fIlib/\fR" now contain exactly one package\&. .IP [10] Bugfix: Fixed issue #62, a few \fBdict exists\fR commands operating on a fixed string instead of a variable\&. .IP [11] Bugfix: Fixed issue #56\&. Release builders are reminded to run the tests\&. .IP [12] Bugfix: Fixed issue #55\&. For FreeBSD critcl's platform package now identifies the Kernel ABI version\&. Initialization of the cache directory now also uses \fBplatform::identify\fR for the default path, instead of \fBplatform::generic\fR\&. .IP [13] Bugfix: Fixed issue #58\&. Simplified the setup and use of md5\&. Critcl now makes use of its own package for md5, using itself to built it\&. There is no chicken/egg problem with this as the \fB-pkg\fR mode used for this does not use md5\&. That is limited to mode \fIcompile & run\fR\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.15" .IP [1] Fixed version number bogosity with \fB3\&.1\&.14\fR\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.14" .IP [1] Fixed issue #36\&. Added message to target \fBall\fR of the Makefile generated for TEA mode\&. Additionally tweaked other parts of the output to be less noisy\&. .IP [2] Accepted request implied in issue #54\&. Unconditionally save the compiler/linker build log into key \fBlog\fR of the dictionary returned by \fBcresults\fR, and save a copy of only the execution output in the new key \fBexl\fR ("execution log")\&. .IP [3] Fixed issue #53\&. Clarified the documentation of commands \fBcritcl::load\fR and \fBcritcl::failed\fR with regard to their results and the throwing of errors (does not happen)\&. .IP [4] Fixed issue #48\&. Modified mode "compile & run" to allow new declarations in a file, after it was build, instead of erroring out\&. The new decls are build when needed\&. Mode "precompile" is unchanged and will continue to trap the situation\&. .IP [5] Fixed issue #52\&. Updated the local Tcl/Tk headers to 8\&.4\&.20, 8\&.5\&.13, and 8\&.6\&.4\&. .IP [6] Fixed issue #45\&. New feature command \fBcritcl::cconst\fR\&. .IP [7] \fBcritcl::util\fR: New command \fBlocate\fR to find a file across a set of paths, and report an error when not found\&. This is for use in autoconf-like header-searches and similar configuration tests\&. .IP [8] Modified 'AbortWhenCalledAfterBuild' to dump the entire stack (info frame!)\&. This should make it easier to determine the location of the troubling declaration\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.13" .IP [1] Merged PR #43\&. Fixed bug loading adjunct Tcl sources\&. .IP [2] Fixes in documentation and generated code of package "critcl::enum"\&. Bumped to version 1\&.0\&.1\&. .IP [3] Fixes in documentation of package "critcl::bitmap"\&. .IP [4] New package "critcl::emap"\&. In essence a variant or cross of "critcl::bitmap" with behaviour like "critcl::enum"\&. .IP [5] Merged PR #49\&. Fixed documentation typo\&. .IP [6] Merged PR #46\&. Fixed documentation typo\&. .IP [7] Merged PR #47\&. Fixes to test results to match the accumulated code changes\&. Also made portable across Tcl versions (varying error syntax)\&. .IP [8] New predefined argument- and result-type "wideint" mapping to Tcl_WideInt\&. .IP [9] New predefined argument-type "bytes" mapping to tuple of byte-array data and length\&. Note: The existing "bytearray" type (and its aliases) was left untouched, to keep backward compatibility\&. .IP [10] Modified the internal interface between the Tcl shim and C function underneath "critcl::cproc" with respect to the handling of optional arguments\&. An optional argument "X" now induces the use of two C arguments, "X" and "has_X"\&. The new argument "has_X" is of boolean (int) type\&. It is set to true when X is set, and set to false when X has the default value\&. C code which cares about knowing if the argument is default or not is now able to check that quickly, without having to code the default value inside\&. NOTE: This change is visible in the output of the advanced commands "argcnames", "argcsignature", "argvardecls", and "argconversion"\&. .IP [11] Fixed issue #50 and documented the availability of variable "interp" (type Tcl_Interp*) within "critcl::cinit" C code fragments\&. Note that while the old, undocumented name of the variable, "ip", is still usable, it is deprecated\&. It will be fully removed in two releases, i\&.e\&. for release 3\&.1\&.15\&. The variable name was changed to be consistent with other code environments\&. .IP [12] Fixed issue #51\&. Disabled the generation of #line directives for "critcl::config lines 0" coming from template files, or code generated with them before the final value of this setting was known\&. .IP [13] Fixed issue with handling of namespaced package names in "critcl::iassoc"\&. Equivalent to a bug in "critcl::class" fixed for critcl 3\&.1\&.1, critcl::class 1\&.0\&.1\&. Note: "literals", "enum", "emap", and "bitmap" do not require a fix as they are all built on top of "iassoc"\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.12" .IP [1] Fixed issue 42\&. Clear ::errorInfo immediately after startup to prevent leakage of irrelevant (caught) errors into our script and confusing the usage code\&. .IP [2] Fixed issue 40\&. Keep the order of libraries, and allow duplicates\&. Both are things which are occasionally required for proper linking\&. .IP [3] Extended the utility package \fBcritcl::literals\fR to declare a cproc result-type for a pool\&. .sp Further fixed the generated header to handle multiple inclusion\&. .sp Bumped version to 1\&.1\&. .IP [4] Fixed issue with utility package \fBcritcl::bitmap\fR\&. .sp Fixed the generated header to handle multiple inclusion\&. .sp Bumped version to 1\&.0\&.1\&. .IP [5] Created new utility package \fBcritcl::enum\fR for the quick and easy setup and use of mappings between C values and Tcl strings\&. Built on top of \fBcritcl::literals\fR\&. .IP [6] Added examples demonstrating the use of the utility packages \fBcritcl::literals\fR, \fBcritcl::bitmap\fR, and \fBcritcl::enum\fR .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.11" .IP [1] Fixed issue #37, via pull request #38, with thanks to Jos DeCoster\&. Information was stored into the v::delproc and v::clientdata arrays using a different key than when retrieving the same information, thus failing the latter\&. .IP [2] New convenience command \fBcritcl::include\fR for easy inclusion of headers and other C files\&. .IP [3] New command \fBcritcl::make\fR to generate a local header of other C files for use by other parts of a package through inclusion\&. .IP [4] New utility package \fBcritcl::literals\fR for quick and easy setup of and access to pools of fixed Tcl_Obj* strings\&. Built on top of \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR\&. .IP [5] New utility package \fBcritcl::bitmap\fR for quick and easy setup and use of mappings between C bitsets and Tcl lists whose string elements represent that set\&. Built on top of \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.10" .IP [1] Fixed code version numbering forgotten with 3\&.1\&.9\&. .IP [2] Fixed issue #35\&. In package mode (-pkg) the object cache directory is unique to the process, thus we do not need content-hashing to generate unique file names\&. A simple counter is sufficient and much faster\&. .sp Note that mode "compile & run" is not as blessed and still uses content-hasing with md5 to ensure unique file names in its per-user object cache\&. .IP [3] Fixed issue where the \fBccommand\fR forgot to use its body as input for the UUID generation\&. Thus ignoring changes to it in mode compile & run, and not rebuilding a library for changed sources\&. Bug and fix reported by Peter Spjuth\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.9" .IP [1] Fixed issue #27\&. Added missing platform definitions for various alternate linux and OS X targets\&. .IP [2] Fixed issue #28\&. Added missing -mXX flags for linking at the linux-{32,64}-* targets\&. .IP [3] Fixed issue #29\&. Replaced the use of raw "cheaders" information in the processing of "cdefines" with the proper include directives derived from it\&. .IP [4] Fixed the issue behind rejected pull request #30 by Andrew Shadura\&. Dynamically extract the stubs variable declarations from the Tcl header files and generate matching variable definitions for use in the package code\&. The generated code will now be always consistent with the headers, even when critcl's own copy of them is replaced by system headers\&. .IP [5] Fixed issue #31\&. Accepted patch by Andrew Shadura, with changes (comments), for easier integration of critcl with OS package systems, replacing critcl's copies of Tcl headers with their own\&. .IP [6] Fixed issue #32\&. Merged pull request by Andrew Shadura\&. Various typos in documentation and comments\&. .IP [7] Fixed issue #34\&. Handle files starting with a dot better\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.8" .IP [1] Fixed issue with package indices generated for Tcl 8\&.4\&. Join the list of commands with semi-colon, not newline\&. .IP [2] Fixed issue #26 which brought up use-cases I had forgotten to consider while fixing bug #21 (see critcl 3\&.1\&.6)\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.7" .IP [1] Fixed issue #24\&. Extract and unconditionally display compiler warnings found in the build log\&. Prevents users from missing warnings which, while not causing the build to fail, may still indicate problems\&. .IP [2] New feature\&. Output hook\&. All non-messaging user output is now routed through the command \fBcritcl::print\fR, and users are allowed to override it when using the critcl application-as-package\&. .IP [3] New feature, by Ashok P\&. Nadkarni\&. Platform configurations can inherit values from configurations defined before them\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.6" .IP [1] Fixed issue #21\&. While the multi-definition of the stub-table pointer variables was ok with for all the C linkers seen so far C++ linkers did not like this at all\&. Reworked the code to ensure that this set of variables is generated only once, in the wrapper around all the pieces to assemble\&. .IP [2] Fixed issue #22, the handling of the command identifier arguments of \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR, \fBcritcl::cproc\fR, and \fBcritcl::cdata\fR\&. We now properly allow any Tcl identifier and generate proper internal C identifiers from them\&. .sp As part of this the signature of command \fBcritcl::name2c\fR changed\&. The command now delivers a list of four values instead of three\&. The new value was added at the end\&. .sp Further adapted the implementation of package \fBcritcl::class\fR, a user of \fBcritcl::name2c\fR\&. This package is now at version 1\&.0\&.6 and requires critcl 3\&.1\&.6 .sp Lastly fixed the mis-handling of option \fB-cname\fR in \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR, and \fBcritcl::cproc\fR\&. .IP [3] Fixed issue #23\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.5" .IP [1] Fixed issue #19\&. Made the regular expression extracting the MSVC version number more general to make it work on german language systems\&. This may have to be revisited in the future, for other Windows locales\&. .IP [2] Fixed issue #20\&. Made option -tea work on windows, at least in a unix emulation environment like msys/mingw\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.4" .IP [1] Bugfix in package \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. Generate a dummy field in the class structure if the class has no class variables\&. Without this change the structure would be empty, and a number of compilers are not able to handle such a type\&. .IP [2] Fixed a typo which broke the win64 configuration\&. .IP [3] Fixed issue #16, a typo in the documentation of command \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.3" .IP [1] Enhancement\&. In detail: .IP [2] Added new argument type "pstring", for "Pascal String", a counted string, i\&.e\&. a combination of string pointer and string length\&. .IP [3] Added new methods \fBcritcl::argtypesupport\fR and \fB::critcl::argsupport\fR to define and use additional supporting code for an argument type, here used by "pstring" above to define the necessary structure\&. .IP [4] Semi-bugfixes in the packages \fBcritcl::class\fR and \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR\&. Pragmas for the AS meta data scanner to ensure that the template files are made part of the package\&. Versions bumped to 1\&.0\&.4 and 1\&.0\&.1 respectively\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.2" .IP [1] Enhancement\&. In detail: .IP [2] Extended \fBcritcl::cproc\fR to be able to handle optional arguments, in a limited way\&. This is automatically available to \fBcritcl::class\fR cproc-based methods as well\&. .IP [3] Bugfix in \fBlassign\fR emulation for Tcl 8\&.4\&. Properly set unused variables to the empty string\&. Bumped version of emulation package \fBlassign84\fR to 1\&.0\&.1\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1\&.1" .IP [1] Bugfixes all around\&. In detail: .IP [2] Fixed the generation of wrong#args errors for \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and derived code (\fBcritcl::class\fR cproc-based methods)\&. Use NULL if there are no arguments, and take the offset into account\&. .IP [3] Fixed the handling of package names by \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. Forgot that they may contain namespace separators\&. Bumped to version 1\&.0\&.1\&. .IP [4] Extended a \fBcritcl::class\fR generated error message in instance creation for clarity\&. Bumped to version 1\&.0\&.2\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.1" .IP [1] Added a new higher-level package \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR\&. .sp This package simplifies the creation of code associating data with an interpreter via Tcl's \fBTcl_(Get|Set)AssocData()\fR APIs\&. The user can concentrate on his data while all the necessary boilerplate C code to support this is generated by the package\&. .sp This package uses several of the new features which were added to the core \fBcritcl\fR package, see below\&. .IP [2] Added the higher-level package \fBcritcl::class\fR\&. .sp This package simplifies the creation of C level objects with class and instance commands\&. The user can write a class definition with class- and instance-variables and -methods similar to a TclOO class, with all the necessary boilerplate C code to support this generated by the package\&. .sp This package uses several of the new features which were added to the core \fBcritcl\fR package, see below\&. .IP [3] Extended the API for handling TEApot metadata\&. Added the command \fBcritcl::meta?\fR to query the stored information\&. Main use currently envisioned is retrieval of the current package's name by utility commands, for use in constructed names\&. This particular information is always available due to the static scan of the package file on execution of the first critcl command\&. .sp The new packages \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR and \fBcritcl::class\fR (see above) are users of this command\&. .IP [4] Extended the API with a command, \fBcritcl::name2c\fR, exposing the process of converting a Tcl name into base name, namespace, and C namespace\&. This enables higher-level code generators to generate the same type of C identifiers as \fBcritcl\fR itself\&. .sp The new package \fBcritcl::class\fR (see above) is a user of this command\&. .IP [5] Extended the API with a command, \fBcritcl::source\fR, executing critcl commands found in a separate file in the context of the current file\&. This enables easier management of larger bodies of code as it allows the user to split such up into easier to digest smaller chunks without causing the generation of multiple packages\&. .IP [6] Related to the previous item, extended the API with commands to divert collection of generated C code into memory\&. This makes it easier to use the commands for embedded C code in higher-level code generators\&. .sp See the section \fBAdvanced: Diversions\fR for details of the provided commands\&. .sp The new package \fBcritcl::class\fR (see above) is a user of these facilities\&. .IP [7] Extended the API with commands helping developers with the generation of proper C \fI#line\fR directives\&. This allows higher-level code generators to generate and insert their own directives, ensuring that compile errors in their code are properly attributed\&. .sp See the section \fBAdvanced: Location management\fR for details of the provided commands\&. .sp The new packages \fBcritcl::iassoc\fR and \fBcritcl::class\fR (see above) are users of these facilities\&. .IP [8] Extended the API with commands giving users the ability to define custom argument and result types for \fB::critcl::cproc\fR\&. .sp See the section \fBAdvanced: Extending cproc\fR for details of the provided commands\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.7" .IP [1] Fixed the code generated by \fBcritcl::c++command\fR\&. The emitted code handed a non-static string table to \fBTcl_GetIndexFromObj\fR, in violation of the contract, which requires the table to have a fixed address\&. This was a memory smash waiting to happen\&. Thanks to Brian Griffin for alrerting us to the general problem\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.6" .IP [1] Fixed github issue 10\&. The critcl application now delivers a proper exit code (1) on build failure, instead of always indicating success (status 0)\&. .IP [2] Fixed github issue 13\&. Handling of bufferoverflowU\&.lib for release builds was inconsistent with handling for debug builds\&. It is now identically handled (conditional) by both cases\&. .IP [3] Documentation cleanup, mainly in the installation guide, and the README\&.md shown by github .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.5" .IP [1] Fixed bug in the new code for #line pragmas triggered when specifying C code without leading whitespace\&. .IP [2] Extended the documentation to have manpages for the license, source retrieval, installer, and developer's guides\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.4" .IP [1] Fixed generation of the package's initname when the incoming code is read from stdin and has no proper path\&. .IP [2] Fixed github issue 11\&. Now using /LIBPATH instead of -L on Windows (libinclude configuration setting)\&. .IP [3] Extended critcl to handle -l:path format of -l options\&. GNU ld 2\&.22+ handles this by searching for the path as is\&. Good when specifying static libraries, as plain -l looks for shared libraries in preference over static\&. critcl handles it now, as older GNU ld's do not understand it, nor the various vendor-specific linkers\&. .IP [4] Fixed github issue #12\&. Critcl now determines the version of MSVC in use and uses it to switch between various link debug options\&. Simplified the handling of bufferoverflowU\&.lib also, making use of the same mechanism and collapsing the two configurations sections we had back into one\&. .IP [5] Reworked the insertion of #line pragmas into the generated C code to avoid limitations on the line number argument imposed by various compilers, and be more accurate\&. .IP [6] Modified argument processing\&. Option -libdir now also implies -L for its argument\&. .IP [7] Extended handling of option -show (\fBcritcl::showconfig\fR) to list the path of the configuration file the data is coming from\&. Good for debugging configuration processing\&. .IP [8] Extended the build script with targets to regenerate the embedded documentation, and diagrams, and to generate a release\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.3" .IP [1] Fixed github issues 5 and 8, for the example build\&.tcl scripts\&. Working around a missing variable ::errorInfo\&. It should always be present, however there seem to be revisions of Tcl around which violate this assumption\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.2" .IP [1] Fixed issue in compile-and-run mode where commands put into the auto_index are not found by Tcl's [unknown] command\&. .IP [2] Fixed an array key mismatch breaking usage of client data and delete function for procedure\&. Reported by Jos DeCoster, with patch\&. .IP [3] Implemented a command line option \fB-L\fR, an equivalent of option \fB-I\fR, just for library search paths\&. .IP [4] Fixed github issues 5 and 8\&. Working around a missing variable ::errorInfo\&. It should always be present, however there seem to be revisions of Tcl around which violate this assumption\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3\&.0\&.1" .IP [1] Bugfixes all around\&. In detail: .IP [2] Fixed recording of Tcl version requirements\&. Keep package name and version together, unbreaking generated meta data and generated package load command\&. .IP [3] Fixed the build scripts: When installing, or wrapping for TEA, generate any missing directories .IP [4] Modified the build scripts to properly exit the application when the window of their GUI is closed through the (X) button\&. .IP [5] Removed an 8\&.5-ism (open wb) which had slipped into the main build script\&. .IP [6] Modified the example build scripts to separate the output for the different examples (and packages) by adding empty lines\&. .IP [7] stack::c example bugfix: Include API declarations for use in the companion files\&. .IP [8] Extended the documentation: Noted the need for a working installation of a C compiler\&. .IP [9] Extended the Windows target definitions and code to handle the manifest files used by modern MS development environments\&. Note that this code handles both possibilities, environment using manifests, and (old(er)) environments without\&. .IP [10] Extended the Windows 64bit target definitions and code to auto-detect the need for the helper library "bufferoverflowU\&.lib" and reconfigure the compile and link commands appropriately\&. We assume that the library must be linked when present\&. This should be no harm if the library is present, yet not needed\&. Just superfluous\&. We search for the library in the paths specified by the environment variable LIB\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 3" .IP [1] The command \fBcritcl::platform\fR was deprecated in version 2\&.1, superceded by \fBcritcl::targetplatform\fR, yet kept for compatibility\&. Now it has been removed\&. .IP [2] The command \fBcritcl::compiled\fR was kept with in version 2\&.1 with semantics in contradiction to its, for compatibility\&. This contradiction has been removed, changing the visible semantics of the command to be in line with its name\&. .IP [3] The change to version 3 became necessary because of the two incompatible visible changes above\&. .IP [4] Extended the application package with code handling a new option \fB-tea\fR\&. Specifying this option invokes a special mode where critcl generates a TEA package, i\&.e\&. wraps the input into a directory hierarchy and support files which provide it TEA-lookalike buildsystem\&. .sp This new option, and \fB-pkg\fR, exclude each other\&. If both are specified the last used option takes precedence\&. .sp The generated package directory hierarchy is mostly self-contained, but not fully\&. It requires not only a working installation of Tcl, but also working installations of the packages \fBmd5\fR and \fBcmdline\fR\&. Both of these are provided by the \fBTcllib\fR bundle\&. Not required, but recommended to have installed are any of the packages which can accelerate md5's operation, i\&.e\&. \fBcryptkit\fR, \fBtcllibc\fR, or \fBTrf\fR\&. .IP [5] Extended the critcl package with a new command \fBcritcl::scan\fR taking the path to a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file, statically scanning it, and returning license, version, a list of its companion files, list of imported APIs, and list of developer-specified custom configuration options\&. This data is the foundation for the TEA wrapping described above\&. .sp Note that this is a \fIstatic\fR scan\&. While the other build modes can (must) execute the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file and make platform-specific decisions regarding the assembled C code, companion files, etc\&. the TEA wrap mode is not in a position to make platform-specific decisions\&. It has to wrap everything which might conceivably be needed when actually building\&. Hence the static scan\&. This has however its own set of problems, namely the inability to figure out any dynamic construction of companion file paths, at least on its own\&. Thus: .IP [6] Extended the API used by critcl-based packages with the command \fBcritcl::owns\fR\&. While this command is ignored by the regular build modes the static scanner described above takes its arguments as the names of companion files which have to be wrapped into the TEA package and could not be figured by the scanner otherwise, like because of dynamic paths to \fBcritcl::tsources\fR, \fBcritcl::csources\fR, getting sourced directly, or simply being adjunct datafiles\&. .IP [7] Extended the API used by critcl-based packages with the command \fBcritcl::api\fR for the management of stubs tables, be it their use, and/or declaration and export\&. .sp Please see section \fIStubs Table Management\fR of the \fBcritcl\fR package documentation for details\&. .IP [8] Extended the API used by critcl-based packages with the command \fBcritcl::userconfig\fR for the management of developer-specified custom configuration options, be it their use and/or declaration\&. .sp Please see section \fICustom Build Configuration\fR of the \fBcritcl\fR package documentation for details\&. .IP [9] Extended the API used by critcl-based packages with the commands \fBcritcl::description\fR, \fBcritcl::summary\fR, \fBcritcl::subject\fR, \fBcritcl::meta\fR, and \fBcritcl::buildrequirement\fR for the declaration of TEApot meta data for/about the package\&. .sp Please see section \fIPackage Meta Data\fR of the \fBcritcl\fR package documentation for details\&. .PP .SH "CHANGES FOR VERSION 2\&.1" .IP [1] Fixed bug where \fBcritcl::tsources\fR interpreted relative paths as relative to the current working directory instead of relative to the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file using the command, as all other commands of this type do\&. .IP [2] Fixed internals, preventing information collected for multiple "\fI\&.critcl\fR" files to leak between them\&. Notably, \fBcritcl::tk\fR is not a global configuration option anymore\&. .IP [3] Fixed the command \fBcritcl::license\fR to be a null-operation in mode "compile & run", instead of throwing an error\&. .IP [4] Fixed the critcl application's interference with the "compile & run" result cache in \fB-pkg\fR mode by having it use a wholly separate (and by default transient) directory for that mode\&. .IP [5] Fixed bug where changes to a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file did not result in a rebuild for mode "compile & run"\&. All relevant API commands now ensure UUID changes\&. .IP [6] Fixed bug in the backend handling of \fBcritcl::debug\fR where the companion c-sources of a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file were not compiled with debug options, although the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file was\&. .IP [7] Fixed bug in \fBcritcl::debug\fR which prevented recognition of mode "all" when it was not the first argument to the command\&. .IP [8] Fixed bug in "\fIpreload\&.c\fR" preventing its compilation on non-windows platforms\&. .IP [9] Fixed long-standing bug in the handling of namespace qualifiers in the command name argument of \fBcritcl::cproc\fR and \fBcritcl::ccommand\fR\&. It is now possible to specify a fully qualified command name without issues\&. .IP [10] Extended/reworked \fBcritcl::tsources\fR to be the canonical way of declaring "\fI\&.tcl\fR" companion files even for mode "compile & run"\&. .IP [11] Extended/reworked \fBcritcl::tsources\fR to allow the use of a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file as its own Tcl companion file\&. .IP [12] Extended \fBcritcl::framework\fR to internally check for OS X build target, and to ignore the declaration if its not\&. .IP [13] Extended \fBcritcl::failed\fR to be callable more than once in a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. The first call forces the build, if it was not done already, to get the result\&. Further calls return the cached result of the first call\&. .IP [14] Extended the handling of environment variable CC in the code determining the compiler to use to deal with (i\&.e\&. remove) paths to the compiler, compiler file extensions, and compiler options specified after the compiler itself, leaving only the bare name of the compiler\&. .IP [15] Extended the code handling the search for preloaded libraries to print the paths it searched, making debugging of a search failure easier\&. .IP [16] A new command \fBcritcl::tcl\fR can be used to declare the version of Tcl minimally needed to build and run the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file and package\&. Defaults to 8\&.4 if not declared\&. Extended critcl to have the stubs and headers for all of Tcl 8\&.4, 8\&.5, and 8\&.6\&. .IP [17] A new command \fBcritcl::load\fR forces the build and load of a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file\&. This is the official way for overriding critcl's default lazy-build-&-load-on-demand scheme for mode "compile & run"\&. .sp \fINote\fR that after using \fBcritcl::load\fR / \fBcritcl::failed\fR in a "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file it is not possible to use critcl commands in that file anymore\&. Doing so will throw an error\&. .IP [18] Extended the generation of '#line' pragmas to use \fBinfo frame\fR (if available) to provide the C compiler with exact line numbers into the "\fI\&.critcl\fR" file for the reporting of warnings and errors\&. .IP [19] Extended \fBcritcl::check\fR with logging to help with debugging build-time checks of the environment, plus an additional optional argument to provide labeling\&. .IP [20] Added a new command \fBcritcl::checklink\fR which not only tries to check the environment via compiling the code, but also its linkability\&. .IP [21] Added a new command \fBcritcl::msg\fR for messaging, like command \fBcritcl::error\fR is for error reporting\&. Likewise this is a hook a user of the package is allowed to override\&. The default implementation, used by mode \fIcompile & run\fR does nothing\&. The implementation for mode \fIgenerate package\fR prints the message to stdout\&. .sp Envisioned use is for the reporting of results determined by \fBcritcl::check\fR and \fBcritcl::checklink\fR during building, to help with debugging when something goes wrong with a check\&. .IP [22] Exposed the argument processing internals of \fBcritcl::proc\fR for use by advanced users\&. The new commands are .RS .IP [1] \fBcritcl::argnames\fR .IP [2] \fBcritcl::argcnames\fR .IP [3] \fBcritcl::argcsignature\fR .IP [4] \fBcritcl::argvardecls\fR .IP [5] \fBcritcl::argconversion\fR .RE .IP Please see section \fIAdvanced Embedded C Code\fR of the \fBcritcl\fR package documentation for details\&. .IP [23] Extended the critcl package to intercept \fBpackage provide\fR and record the file -> package name mapping\&. Plus other internal changes now allow the use of namespaced package names while still using proper path names and init function\&. .IP [24] Dropped the unused commands \fBcritcl::optimize\fR and \fBcritcl::include\fR\&. .IP [25] Dropped \fB-lib\fR mode from the critcl application\&. .IP [26] Dropped remnants of support for Tcl 8\&.3 and before\&. .PP .SH AUTHORS Jean Claude Wippler, Steve Landers, Andreas Kupries .SH "BUGS, IDEAS, FEEDBACK" This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and other problems\&. Please report them at \fIhttps://github\&.com/andreas-kupries/critcl/issues\fR\&. Ideas for enhancements you may have for either package, application, and/or the documentation are also very welcome and should be reported at \fIhttps://github\&.com/andreas-kupries/critcl/issues\fR as well\&. .SH KEYWORDS C code, Embedded C Code, code generator, compile & run, compiler, dynamic code generation, dynamic compilation, generate package, linker, on demand compilation, on-the-fly compilation .SH CATEGORY Glueing/Embedded C code .SH COPYRIGHT .nf Copyright (c) Jean-Claude Wippler Copyright (c) Steve Landers Copyright (c) 2011-2015 Andreas Kupries .fi