This file describes the necessary functions and interfaces a language module needs to implement to take advantage of the run time type system. I assume you have read the run-time section of the Typemaps chapter in the SWIG documentation. Last updated: February 23, 2005 The file we are concerned with here should be named langrun.swg. A good example of a simple file is the Lib/mzscheme/mzrun.swg file. First, a few requirements and notes: 1) Every function in this file should be declared static. 2) It should be inserted into the runtime section of the _wrap file from your config file. The Lib/swigrun.swg file should be included before this file. That is, you need to have %runtime "swigrun.swg" %runtime "langrun.swg" 3) You must also include the swiginit.swg file in the init section of the wrapper. That is, you should have %insert(init) "swiginit.swg" 4) From module.cxx, you need to call the SwigType_emit_type_table function, as well as register types with SwigType_remember or SwigType_remember_clientdata 5) By convention, all functions in this file are of the form SWIG_Language_Whatever, and #defines are used to rename SWIG API functions to these function names 6) You need to call void SWIG_InitializeModule(void *clientdata) from your init function. 7) You need to implement the runtimeCode() and defaultExternalRuntimeFilename() functions inside module.cxx. runtimeCode should return all the language specific runtime code as a string, and defaultExternalRuntimeFilename should return a string for the default name of the external runtime header. This is usually "swigpyrun.h", where "py" is replaced by the language name. These two functions are used by the -external-runtime argument. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Required Functions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- swig_module_info *SWIG_GetModule(void *clientdata); void SWIG_SetModule(void *clientdata, swig_module_info *mod); The SetModule function should store the mod argument into some globally accessible variable in the target language. The action of these two functions is to provide a way for multiple modules to share information. The SetModule function should create a new global var named something like "swig_runtime_data_type_pointer" SWIG_RUNTIME_VERSION SWIG_TYPE_TABLE_NAME SWIG_RUNTIME_VERSION is currently defined as "2", and SWIG_TYPE_TABLE_NAME is defined by the -DSWIG_TYPE_TABLE=mytable option when compiling the wrapper. Alternatively, if the language supports modules, a module named "swig_runtime_data" SWIG_RUNTIME_VERSION can be created, and a global variable named "type_table" SWIG_TYPE_TABLE_NAME can be created inside it. The most common approach is to store the mod pointer in some global variable in the target language, but if the language provides an alternative place to store data (like the chicken module), then that is good too. The way the code is set up, SetModule should only be called when GetModule returns NULL, and if SetModule is called a second time, the behavior is undefined. Just make sure it doesn't crash in the random chance occurrence that SetModule is called twice. There are two options here. 1) The preferred approach is for GetModule and SetModule to not require a clientdata pointer. If you can at all avoid it, please do so. Here, you would write swig_module_info *SWIG_Language_GetModule(); void SWIG_Language_SetModule(swig_module_info *mod); and then add #define SWIG_GetModule(clientdata) SWIG_Language_GetModule() #define SWIG_SetModule(cd, ptr) SWIG_Language_SetModule(ptr) You would then call SWIG_InitializeModule(0) 2) If GetModule and SetModule need to take a custom pointer (most notably an environment pointer, see tcl or mzscheme), then you should write swig_module_info *SWIG_Language_GetModule(void *clientdata) void SWIG_Language_SetModule(void *clientdata, swig_module_info *mod); and also define #define SWIG_GetModule(cd) SWIG_Language_GetModule(cd) #define SWIG_SetModule(cd, ptr) SWIG_Language_SetModule(cd, ptr) #define SWIG_MODULE_CLIENTDATA_TYPE Whatever SWIG_MODULE_CLIENTDATA_TYPE should be defined to whatever the type of clientdata is. You would then call SWIG_InitializeModule(clientdata), and clientdata would get passed to GetModule and SetModule. clientdata will not be stored and will only be referenced during the InitializeModule call. After InitializeModule returns, clientdata does not need to be valid any more. This method is not preferred, because it makes external access to the type system more complicated. See the Modules chapter of the documentation, and read the "External access to the run-time" section. Then take a look at Lib/runtime.swg. Anybody that calls SWIG_TypeQuery needs to pass along the clientdata pointer, and that is the reason for defining SWIG_MODULE_CLIENTDATA_TYPE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Standard Functions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These functions are not required and their API is not formalized, but almost all language modules implement them for consistency across languages. Throughout this discussion, I will use LangType to represent the underlying language type (C_word in chicken, Scheme_Object * in mzscheme, PyObject * in python, etc) LangObj SWIG_NewPointerObj(void *ptr, swig_type_info *type, int flags); Create and return a new pointer object that has both ptr and type. For almost all language modules, flags is used for ownership. If flags==1, then the created pointer should be registered to be garbage collected. int SWIG_ConvertPtr(LangType obj, void **result, swig_type_info *type, int flags); Convert a language wrapped pointer into a void *. The pointer is returned in result, and the function should return 0 on success, non-zero on error. A sample ConvertPtr is given here: swig_cast_info *cast; if () { cast = SWIG_TypeCheck(, type); cast = SWIG_TypeCheckStruct(, type); if (cast) { *result = SWIG_TypeCast(cast, ); return 0; } } return 1; Either TypeCheck or TypeCheckStruct can be called, depending on how the pointer is wrapped in langtype. If obj stores the void pointer and the type name, then the TypeCheck function should be used, while if obj stores the void pointer and a pointer to the swig_type_info structure, then the TypeCheckStruct function should be called. The TypeCheckStruct is slightly faster, since it does a pointer comparison instead of a strcmp. The flag argument to ConvertPtr is used in some languages for disowning a pointer. If the wrapped C function is taking ownership of the pointer (that means, the wrapped C function is responsible for deleting the object), then that pointer should be removed from the garbage collector. We do that in the ConvertPtr function. The pointer is still valid in the target language, but when the target language type is garbage collected, it will not call the associated destructor. Languages have a special typemap called DISOWN that can be applied which passes this argument. All the languages have the flags argument for consistency, and the flags argument can be ignored or used for some other purpose. void *SWIG_MustGetPtr(LangType obj, swig_type_info *type, int flags, int argnum, const char *func_name) { void *result; if (SWIG_ConvertPtr(s, &result, type, flags)) { generate runtime type error ("Error in func_name, expected a" + type->str ? type->str : "void *" + "at argument number" + argnum); } return result; } This function is optional, and the number and type of parameters can be different, but is useful for typemap purposes: %typemap(in) SWIGTYPE *, SWIGTYPE &, SWIGTYPE [] { $1 = ($1_ltype)SWIG_MustGetPtr($input, $descriptor, 0, $argnum, FUNC_NAME); }