[Vm-dev] Re: [Pharo-project] Alien FFI

John M McIntosh johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com
Mon Nov 24 08:13:17 UTC 2008


Ok, after much mindless poking, cross checking and testing, retesting,  
writing sunits today I  can say the Alien FFI logic is mostly ported  
into Pharo.

In the http://www.squeaksource.com/Alien.html MC library

I would suggest someone with an eye towards "Compiler, CompileMethod,  
ParseNode" carefully look at the changes in "Alien-Core" to ensure  
I've not trashed some important part of the Pharo Compiler or Traits.  
I can't say if the changes are destructive or passive?

you will find:

For VMMaker folks

Alien-VMMaker-Support   which provides the changes to the latest  
VMMaker  from squeaksource to build a Alien aware VM.
Alien-VMMaker-Plugins   which is the plugin logic

For users of Alien

Alien-Core-First		- 	Load this first otherwise you'll get a parsing  
error later
Alien-Core			-   	Load this next, Compiler changes etc..
Alien-LibC			-	LibC support for os-x/unix/windows
Alien-CoreTest		-	SUnits

Optional stuff then is

Alien-MacOSX-Core	-	Objective-C interface
Alien-MacOSX-AppKit-	Objective-C application api
Alien-MacOSX-Examples- Objective-C examples
Alien-Win32			-	Windows examples.

Lastly load

Alien-Last-Class-Initialize	-	To ensure all the initializers were run,  
just in case MC loses it's mind...


Oh and you need a plugin and a VM.   It's midnight again and I don't  
have one compiled up for distribution, Monday's chore...
Anyway you should be able to load the source code, point/learn about  
how it's used.

Someone will have to build a Unix one, and a Windows one.

For the moment there is NO powerpc version since that requires a bit  
of icky assembler. Same for the iPhone btw (icky ARM assembler).

On 23-Nov-08, at 4:20 AM, Stéphane Ducasse wrote:

> the future looks shining :)
>
> Stef

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John M. McIntosh <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com>
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
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