NAME

Inline::SLang::Config - How to configure Inline::SLang

DESCRIPTION

The Inline documentation describes how you can configure the Inline-specific options. Please review that document if you are unfamiliar with the way Inline works (in particular the section on "Configuration Options"). This document describes the options that are available to configure the S-Lang interface.

***
*** One possible option would be to allow the S-Lang code
*** to be byte-compiled, which may provide a speed-improvement
*** when loading. However, the speed improvement may not be
*** worth the extra effort/checks necessary in the code.
***

BIND_NS - what namespaces should be searched?

Note that this option does not work correctly in versions 1.4.2 and earlier of the S-Lang library; I believe this is due to issues with the namespace support that were fixed in version 1.4.3 but can not be certain of this.

This option - which takes either a string or a reference to an array of strings - specifies the S-Lang namespaces which are searched for functions to bind to Perl. The accepted values are:

"Global"

Binds functions in the Global namespace only. This is the default value.

"All"

Binds functions in all the namespaces that are defined at the time of compilation. You can not use the namespace renaming feature discussed below with this option (so "All=foo" does not work).

This option is only available if you compiled against version 1.4.7 or higher of the S-Lang library. The code dies when an earlier version is used.

Array reference

If an array reference is given then it should contain the names of the namespaces to search for S-Lang functions. In most case you will want to ensure that "Global" is contained in the list.

The default behaviour is for functions in the "Global" namespace to be bound to the Perl main package (so they can be used without any package specifier) while functions in other namespaces are placed into the Perl package whose name equals that of the S-Lang namespace (see below for examples). This can be changed by supplying strings matching "foo=bar", which says to bind functions from the foo namespace into the Perl package bar. So,

BIND_NS => [ "Global=foo", "foo" ],

will bind all S-Lang functions into the foo package.

Note that no checks are made for over-writing functions when they are bound to Perl. Also, if you are using this functionality you should probably be using the 2-argument form of S-Lang's import and evalfile commands instead.

The following examples are also available from the examples/ directory of the package.

Example of using a single namespace:

use Inline 'SLang' => Config => BIND_NS => ["foo"];
use Inline 'SLang' => <<'EOS1';
 define fn_in_global(x) { "in global"; }
 implements( "foo" );
 define fn_in_foo(x) { "in foo"; }
EOS1

# this works
printf "I am %s\n", foo::fn_in_foo("dummyval");

# this does not work since fn_in_global is in the
# Global namespace which was not given to the
# BIND_NS option
printf "I am %s\n", fn_in_global("dummyval");

Example of using multiple namespaces:

use Inline 'SLang' => Config => BIND_NS => [ "Global", "foo" ];
use Inline 'SLang' => <<'EOS1';
 define fn_in_global(x) { "in global"; }
 implements( "foo" );
 define fn_in_foo(x) { "in foo"; }
EOS1

# this works
printf "I am %s\n", foo::fn_in_foo("dummyval");

# as does this
printf "I am %s\n", fn_in_global("dummyval");

Example of renaming a namespace:

use Inline 'SLang' => Config => BIND_NS => [ "Global", "foo=bar" ];
use Inline 'SLang' => <<'EOS1';
 define fn_in_global(x) { "in global"; }
 implements( "foo" );
 define fn_in_foo(x) { "in foo"; }
EOS1

# this works
printf "I am %s\n", bar::fn_in_foo("dummyval");

# as does this
printf "I am %s\n", fn_in_global("dummyval");

Example of using all namespaces:

use Inline 'SLang' => Config => BIND_NS => "All";
use Inline 'SLang' => <<'EOS1';
 define fn_in_global(x) { "in global"; }
 implements( "foo" );
 define fn_in_foo(x) { "in foo"; }
EOS1

# this works
printf "I am %s\n", foo::fn_in_foo("dummyval");

# as does this
printf "I am %s\n", fn_in_global("dummyval");

BIND_SLFUNCS - which S-Lang intrinsic functions to bind?

This option is used to give a list of S-Lang intrinsic functions which are to be bound to Perl. The default value is [], i.e. no functions.

Note that there are no checks on whether it makes sense to bind the specified function, or whether it conflicts with an existing Perl function.

Example of binding an intrinsic command into main:

use Inline 'SLang' => Config => BIND_SLFUNCS => ["typeof"];
use Inline 'SLang' => "define get_typeof(x) { typeof(x); }";

# both return
#  The S-Lang type of 'foo' is String_Type
printf "The S-Lang type of 'foo' is %s\n", get_typeof("foo");
printf "The S-Lang type of 'foo' is %s\n", typeof("foo");

Example of binding an intrinsic command into the foo package:

use Inline 'SLang' => Config =>
  BIND_NS => "Global=foo",
  BIND_SLFUNCS => ["typeof"];
use Inline 'SLang' => "define pointless() { return NULL; }";

# This also prints
#  The S-Lang type of 'foo' is String_Type
printf "The S-Lang type of 'foo' is %s\n", foo::typeof("foo");

What functions and namespaces have been bound to Perl?

The info option of Inline can be useful to see what has (and has not) been bound to Perl. As an example try:

perl -MInline=info <<FOO
use Inline SLang;
# let's not actually do anything
__END__
__SLang__
variable foobar = "a string";
define foo()  { return foobar; }
define bar(x) { foobar = x; }
FOO

The relevant part of the output (as of version 0.05 of Inline::SLang) is:

Configuration details
---------------------

Version of S-Lang library:
        compiled against 1.4.8
        using            1.4.8

The following S-Lang namespaces have been bound to Perl:

  2 functions from namespace Global are bound to package main
        bar()
        foo()

Any S-Lang intrinsic functions bound to Perl are indicated using the format S-Lang name() -> Perl name(), even when the Perl and S-Lang names match (this may change).

SEE ALSO

Inline::SLang, Inline

AUTHOR, COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, and WARRANTY

See the Inline::SLang documentation.