Hello all,

FFI was *a little *complexer than I had thought. And the Tesseract api was
not helping either. But now I think I'm getting closer to make the example
Ben proposed (https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract/wiki/APIExample,
the C-program using the C-API) work in Squeak.

Just one thing I cannot find an example for. I have to create the
ExternalStructure classes for the structures PIXMAP and RGBA_QUAD.
RGBA_QUAD is easy, but the PIXMAP-structure starts with an array of
RGBA_QUADs.  RGBA_QUAD[] does not seem to be working as a type
specification, and RGBA_SQUAD* will reserve place for the first element,
but not the whole array. Is there an example for such structures?

>From the Header file:

00101 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html>
struct PixColormap
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html>00102
{00103 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#a2a14164dbec38ebab11eee1bea569cbc>
    void            *array
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#a2a14164dbec38ebab11eee1bea569cbc>;
    /* colormap table (array of RGBA_QUAD)     */00104
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#ac40f93eac5fc385f43e17d0b537e40e2>
    l_int32 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a9085c7874153c280a4171244aa052e4e>
         depth <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#ac40f93eac5fc385f43e17d0b537e40e2>;
    /* of pix (1, 2, 4 or 8 bpp)               */00105
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#ad4398c00071558f7821c82c897548fa8>
    l_int32 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a9085c7874153c280a4171244aa052e4e>
         nalloc
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#ad4398c00071558f7821c82c897548fa8>;
   /* number of color entries allocated       */00106
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#a99005f6c729d84e55143a208b61f99bf>
    l_int32 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a9085c7874153c280a4171244aa052e4e>
         n <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html#a99005f6c729d84e55143a208b61f99bf>;
        /* number of color entries used            */00107 };00108
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/pix_8h.html#ab2fccb09f9188d3e2cc90f8df11b7de7>
typedef struct PixColormap
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html>  PIXCMAP
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_pix_colormap.html>;00109
00110 00111     /* Colormap table entry (after the BMP version).00112
    * Note that the BMP format stores the colormap table exactly00113
    * as it appears here, with color samples being stored
sequentially,00114      * in the order (b,g,r,a). */00115
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html> struct
RGBA_Quad <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html>00116
{00117 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a57ceb621e5e83bc2d8b9d78cc426cefd>
    l_uint8 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a7ed60554e7d6dd89aca643189b1e70ad>
    blue <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a57ceb621e5e83bc2d8b9d78cc426cefd>;00118
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a32f8a3f2225995fcedfb6d80bb480c05>
    l_uint8 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a7ed60554e7d6dd89aca643189b1e70ad>
    green <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a32f8a3f2225995fcedfb6d80bb480c05>;00119
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a9ad88fbc3a671fbe8406e608b59563fa>
    l_uint8 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a7ed60554e7d6dd89aca643189b1e70ad>
    red <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a9ad88fbc3a671fbe8406e608b59563fa>;00120
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a0811097c12e668433c357edcb973da76>
    l_uint8 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/environ_8h.html#a7ed60554e7d6dd89aca643189b1e70ad>
    reserved <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html#a0811097c12e668433c357edcb973da76>;00121
};00122 <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/pix_8h.html#ac4b7ee5b0e033dd9df33e464059cdf87>
typedef struct RGBA_Quad
<https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html>
RGBA_QUAD <https://tpgit.github.io/Leptonica/struct_r_g_b_a___quad.html>;



Op zo 4 nov. 2018 om 06:15 schreef Kjell Godo <squeaklist at gmail.com>:

> Can i just write a simple C shared library or DLL which calls the C++ ? So
> you are repackaging the C++ as a C library? I can’t see how this tack could
> fail to work. Just repackage C++ as C.
>
> You would have to come up with a procedural less OOP-ish API i guess.  You
> could have C API functions F which take an Object as F’s first input and in
> this way each C++ Method becomes a C function. You only need wrap as much
> of the C++ API as you want to use and each C function just calls its C++
> Method so making the wrappers is highly simple and mechanical i should
> think. it could even be automated. But i know some C++ but have never made
> anything in it.
>
> I suppose that if Smalltalk cannot contain a C++ Object then you could
> make a C struct which can be in Smalltalk and you have the API function
> copy this struct into the C++ Object then act on it then copy the Object
> data back into the struct which is in Smalltalk. But that’s a lot of work.
> Surely you can have a pointer to a C++ Object in Smalltalk.
>
> Maybe it would be better to have a separate C++ program P that you
> communicate with by sockets using Object handles H which are just Integer
> Array indexes into an Array of Objects in P? i suppose there could be a
> shared lib L that FFI could call which could call back program P if sockets
> were too slow or something.
>
> I guess Dolphin can  input a Smalltalk BlockClosure B into an FFI call to
> L which could input B into program P which could call B to get back into
> Dolphin but i haven’t tried it myself.
>
> I guess there is a Smalltalk interface to Python via a socket and then
> from Python to C++ is easy? Seems like a code generator that has all this
> stuff figured out could be good. I think VisualWorks is probably good at
> connecting to C++ via FFI. What about chicken scheme or any of the C based
> Schemes? What about Smalltalk/X?
>
> borgLisp is an idea to make multiple Lisp dialects each isomorphic to its
> target language like C or C++ or Python or Ruby or Prolog or java or C# or
> Scheme or Rust etc any language can have an isomorphic Lisp dialect
> targeting it in order to bind all the languages into a single borgLisp
> where you can mix and match all the languages together. Where each Lisp
> dialect is just a simple Lisp code generator. And so once all the languages
> are in Lisp then all the Lisp things can be used to mix and match all the
> languages together and using Nix to set up and configure everything so
> everything works together one click like. all the different languages. so
> they can all work together in an easy generative format. So every language
> becomes Lisp and Lisp becomes every language. Using code generation you
> could even make a Debugger in Lisp and Smalltalk which could source debug
> any language like the Smalltalk debugger does for Smalltalk.
>
> but i guess this is off the topic
>
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 06:07 Ben Coman <btc at openinworld.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 at 18:44, Edwin Ancaer <eancaer at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello list,
>>>
>>> As I'm looking at a way to automate the search of documents in my humble
>>> administration, I read some articles about OCR. I came along an article
>>> about using Python with Tesseract, to transform an scan of a document into
>>> text, that is searchable.
>>>
>>> My question now is if I can do something similar with Squeak. To my
>>> inexperienced eye, it seems like I should use FFI to call the functions in
>>> the Tesseract API, but this API is in  C++, and I don't know if it is
>>> possible to use FFI to call C++ functions?
>>>
>>
>> You are right C++ is difficult because of the name mangling of function
>> symbols,
>> but good fortune I notice Tesseract has C bindings...
>>     https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract#for-developers
>>     https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract/blob/master/src/api/capi.h
>> so it looks like you are in the clear.
>>
>>
>> Or should I forget the API and use OSProcess to start the tesseract
>>> program?
>>>
>>
>> FFI will be more flexible.
>>
>>
>> Could anyone point me in the right direction, or just tell  if the whole
>>> idea is insane?
>>>
>>
>> I think its a great idea and actually Tesseract FFI is something I've
>> wanted to play with before but not had the time.
>> I'd be interested to hear how you go with it.
>>
>> cheers -ben
>>
>> 1q
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