extend.pod - Parrot extension system
This is a rough version of the extension documentation for Parrot. It should be cleaned up and made into a PDD before final release.
The extension API for Parrot is a simple, somewhat abstract, interface to Parrot for code written in C or other compiled languages. It provides about equivalent access to Parrot that bytecode programs have.
The API presents to C programs about the same interface presented to bytecode programs--that is, a C extension can see everything that a bytecode program can see, including Parrot's base architecture, registers, stacks, and whatnot. This view isn't required, however, and often extension code won't need or want to know what Parrot's internal structures look like. For this reason the functions in the extension API are divided into two broad groups, one that has no particular knowledge of the internals and one that does.
The stability of the two API groups is guaranteed separately. Group 1, the internals unaware group, should be good basically forever. Group 2, the internals aware group, is only guaranteed for the lifetime of the current architecture. (It's likely that both groups will last equally long; however, the Group 1 interface could reasonably be emulated on a different engine, while the Group 2 interface is more closely tied to Parrot).
These functions are the ones that are largely unaware of the structure and architecture of Parrot. They deal mainly in data as abstract entities, and Parrot itself as a black box that, at best, can make subroutine or method calls. This is sufficient for many extensions which act as black box processing units and in turn treat Parrot itself as a black box.
Returns a Parrot_STRING that represents the string value of the PMC.
Returns the integer value of the PMC.
Returns the numeric value of the PMC.
Returns a C-string (char *) that represents the string value of the PMC. The memory the char * points to is a copy of the original value, and changing it will not change the original in any way.
This memory will not be reclaimed by garbage collection, nor may it be returned to the system with free. It must be returned with Parrot_free_cstring.
free
Parrot_free_cstring
Returns a C-string (char *) that represents the string value of the PMC. The memory the char * points to is a copy of the original value, and changing it will not change the original in any way. The len parameter is the address of an integer that will get the length of the string as Parrot knows it.
len
The internals-aware functions are for those extensions that need to query or alter the state of Parrot's internals in some way.
"glossary.pod" in docs
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