by Robert MacLachlan and William
Lott
8.1 Introduction to Aliens
Because of Lisp's emphasis on dynamic memory allocation and garbage
collection, Lisp implementations use unconventional memory
representations for objects. This representation mismatch creates
problems when a Lisp program must share objects with programs
written in another language. There are three different approaches
to establishing communication:
- The burden can be placed on the foreign
program (and programmer) by requiring the use of Lisp object
representations. The main difficulty with this approach is that
either the foreign program must be written with Lisp interaction in
mind, or a substantial amount of foreign “glue” code
must be written to perform the translation.
- The Lisp system can automatically convert
objects back and forth between the Lisp and foreign
representations. This is convenient, but translation becomes
prohibitively slow when large or complex data structures must be
shared.
- The Lisp program can directly manipulate
foreign objects through the use of extensions to the Lisp language.
Most Lisp systems make use of this approach, but the language for
describing types and expressing accesses is often not powerful
enough for complex objects to be easily manipulated.
CMUCL relies primarily on the automatic conversion and direct
manipulation approaches: Aliens of simple scalar types are
automatically converted, while complex types are directly
manipulated in their foreign representation. Any foreign objects
that can't automatically be converted into Lisp values are
represented by objects of type alien-value.
Since Lisp is a dynamically typed language, even foreign objects
must have a run-time type; this type information is provided by
encapsulating the raw pointer to the foreign data within an
alien-value object.
The Alien type language and operations are most similar to those of
the C language, but Aliens can also be used when communicating with
most other languages that can be linked with C.
8.2 Alien Types
Alien types have a description language based on nested list
structure. For example:
struct foo {
int a;
struct foo *b[100];
};
has the corresponding Alien type:
(struct foo
(a int)
(b (array (* (struct foo)) 100)))
8.2.1 Defining Alien Types
Types may be either named or anonymous. With structure and union
types, the name is part of the type specifier, allowing recursively
defined types such as:
(struct foo (a (* (struct foo))))
An anonymous structure or union type is specified by using the name
nil. The with-alien macro defines a local scope which
“captures” any named type definitions. Other types are
not inherently named, but can be given named abbreviations using
def-alien-type.
[Macro]
alien:def-alien-type name type
This macro globally defines name as a shorthand for the Alien type type. When introducing global structure and union
type definitions, name may be nil, in which case the name to define is taken from the
type's name.
8.2.2 Alien Types and Lisp Types
The Alien types form a subsystem of the CMUCL type system. An
alien type specifier provides a way to use
any Alien type as a Lisp type specifier. For example
(typep foo '(alien (* int)))
can be used to determine whether foo is a
pointer to an int. alien type specifiers can be used in the same ways as
ordinary type specifiers (like string.) Alien
type declarations are subject to the same precise type checking as
any other declaration (section See section 4.5.2.)
Note that the Alien type system overlaps with normal Lisp type
specifiers in some cases. For example, the type specifier
(alien single-float) is identical to
single-float, since Alien floats are
automatically converted to Lisp floats. When type-of is called on an Alien value that is not
automatically converted to a Lisp value, then it will return an
alien type specifier.
8.2.3 Alien Type Specifiers
Some Alien type names are Common Lisp symbols, but the names are
still exported from the alien package, so it
is legal to say alien:single-float. These are
the basic Alien type specifiers:
[Alien type]
* type
A pointer to an object of the specified type. If type is
t, then it means a pointer to anything,
similar to “void *” in ANSI C.
Currently, the only way to detect a null pointer is:
(zerop (sap-int (alien-sap ptr)))
See section 6.5
[Alien type]
array type {dimension}*
An array of the specified dimensions,
holding elements of type type. Note that
(* int) and (array int)
are considered to be different types when type checking is done;
pointer and array types must be explicitly coerced using cast.
Arrays are accessed using deref, passing the
indices as additional arguments. Elements are stored in
column-major order (as in C), so the first dimension determines
only the size of the memory block, and not the layout of the higher
dimensions. An array whose first dimension is variable may be
specified by using nil as the first
dimension. Fixed-size arrays can be allocated as array elements,
structure slots or with-alien variables.
Dynamic arrays can only be allocated using make-alien.
[Alien type]
struct name {(field type {bits})}*
A structure type with the specified name
and fields. Fields are allocated at the
same positions used by the implementation's C compiler. bits is intended for C-like bit field support, but
is currently unused. If name is
nil, then the type is anonymous.
If a named Alien struct specifier is passed
to def-alien-type or
with-alien, then this
defines, respectively, a new global or local Alien structure type.
If no fields are specified, then the
fields are taken from the current (local or global) Alien structure
type definition of name.
[Alien type]
union name {(field type {bits})}*
Similar to struct, but defines a union type.
All fields are allocated at the same offset, and the size of the
union is the size of the largest field. The programmer must
determine which field is active from context.
[Alien type]
enum name {spec}*
An enumeration type that maps between integer values and keywords.
If name is nil,
then the type is anonymous. Each spec is
either a keyword, or a list (keyword value). If
integer is not supplied, then it defaults
to one greater than the value for the preceding spec (or to zero if
it is the first spec.)
[Alien type]
signed {bits}
A signed integer with the specified
number of bits precision. The upper limit on integer precision is
determined by the machine's word size. If no size is specified, the
maximum size will be used.
[Alien type]
integer {bits}
Identical to signed—the distinction between signed and integer is purely
stylistic.
[Alien type]
unsigned {bits}
Like signed, but
specifies an unsigned integer.
[Alien type]
boolean {bits}
Similar to an enumeration type that maps
0 to nil and all other
values to t. bits
determines the amount of storage allocated to hold the truth
value.
[Alien type]
single-float
A floating-point number in IEEE single
format.
[Alien type]
double-float
A floating-point number in IEEE double
format.
[Alien type]
function result-type {arg-type}*
A Alien function that takes arguments
of the specified arg-types and returns a
result of type result-type. Note that the
only context where a function type is
directly specified is in the argument to alien-funcall (see section alien-funcall.) In all other
contexts, functions are represented by function pointer types:
(* (function ...)).
[Alien type]
system-area-pointer
A pointer which is represented in Lisp as
a system-area-pointer object (see
section 6.5.)
8.2.4 The C-Call Package
The c-call package exports these
type-equivalents to the C type of the same name: char, short, int, long, unsigned-char, unsigned-short,
unsigned-int, unsigned-long, float, double. c-call also exports these
types:
[Alien type]
void
This type is used in function types to
declare that no useful value is returned. Evaluation of an
alien-funcall form will return zero
values.
[Alien type]
c-string
This type is similar to (* char), but is interpreted as a null-terminated
string, and is automatically converted into a Lisp string when
accessed. If the pointer is C NULL (or 0),
then accessing gives Lisp nil.
Assigning a Lisp string to a c-string
structure field or variable stores the contents of the string to
the memory already pointed to by that variable. When an Alien of
type (* char) is assigned to a c-string, then the c-string
pointer is assigned to. This allows c-string
pointers to be initialized. For example:
(def-alien-type nil (struct foo (str c-string)))
(defun make-foo (str) (let ((my-foo (make-alien (struct foo))))
(setf (slot my-foo 'str) (make-alien char (length str))) (setf (slot
my-foo 'str) str) my-foo))
Storing Lisp nil writes C NULL to the c-string
pointer.
8.3 Alien Operations
This section describes the basic operations on Alien values.
8.3.1 Alien Access Operations
[Function]
alien:deref pointer-or-array &restindices
This function returns the value pointed to by an Alien pointer or
the value of an Alien array element. If a pointer, an optional
single index can be specified to give the equivalent of C pointer
arithmetic; this index is scaled by the size of the type pointed
to. If an array, the number of indices must be the same as the
number of dimensions in the array type. deref
can be set with setf to assign a new
value.
[Function]
alien:slot struct-or-union
slot-name
This function extracts the value of slot slot-name from the an Alien struct or union. If struct-or-union is a pointer to a structure or
union, then it is automatically dereferenced. This can be set with
setf to assign a new value. Note that
slot-name is evaluated, and need not be a
compile-time constant (but only constant slot accesses are
efficiently compiled.)
8.3.2 Alien Coercion Operations
[Macro]
alien:addr alien-expr
This macro returns a pointer to the location specified by
alien-expr, which must be either an Alien
variable, a use of deref, a use of slot, or a use of extern-alien.
[Macro]
alien:cast alien
new-type
This macro converts alien to a new Alien
with the specified new-type. Both types
must be an Alien pointer, array or function type. Note that the
result is not eq to the argument, but does
refer to the same data bits.
[Macro]
alien:sap-alien sap
type
[Function]
alien:alien-sap alien-value
sap-alien converts sap (a system area pointer see
section 6.5) to
an Alien value with the specified type.
type is not evaluated.
alien-sap returns the SAP which points to
alien-value's data.
The type to sap-alien and the type of the alien-value to alien-sap must
some Alien pointer, array or record type.
8.3.3 Alien Dynamic Allocation
Dynamic Aliens are allocated using the malloc
library, so foreign code can call free on the
result of make-alien, and Lisp code can call
free-alien on objects allocated by foreign
code.
[Macro]
alien:make-alien type
{size}
This macro returns a dynamically allocated Alien of the specified
type (which is not evaluated.) The
allocated memory is not initialized, and may contain arbitrary
junk. If supplied, size is an expression
to evaluate to compute the size of the allocated object. There are
two major cases:
- When type is an
array type, an array of that type is allocated and a pointer to it is returned. Note that you must use
deref to change the result to an array before
you can use deref to read or write elements:
(defvar *foo* (make-alien (array char 10)))
(type-of *foo*) ==> (alien (* (array (signed 8) 10)))
(setf (deref (deref foo) 0) 10) ==> 10
If supplied, size is used as the first
dimension for the array.
- When type is any
other type, then then an object for that type is allocated, and a
pointer to it is returned. So (make-alien int) returns a (*
int). If size is specified, then a
block of that many objects is allocated, with the result pointing
to the first one.
[Function]
alien:free-alien alien
This function frees the storage for alien
(which must have been allocated with make-alien or malloc.)
See also with-alien,
which stack-allocates Aliens.
8.4 Alien Variables
Both local (stack allocated) and external (C global) Alien
variables are supported.
8.4.1 Local Alien Variables
[Macro]
alien:with-alien {(name type {initial-value})}* {form}*
This macro establishes local alien variables with the specified
Alien types and names for dynamic extent of the body. The variable
names are established as symbol-macros;
the bindings have lexical scope, and may be assigned with
setq or setf. This form
is analogous to defining a local variable in C: additional storage
is allocated, and the initial value is copied.
with-alien also establishes a new scope for
named structures and unions. Any type
specified for a variable may contain name structure or union types
with the slots specified. Within the lexical scope of the binding
specifiers and body, a locally defined structure type foo can be referenced by its name using:
(struct foo)
8.4.2 External Alien Variables
External Alien
names are strings, and Lisp names are symbols. When an external
Alien is represented using a Lisp variable, there must be a way to
convert from one name syntax into the other. The macros extern-alien, def-alien-variable
and def-alien-routine
use this conversion heuristic:
- Alien names are converted to Lisp names by
uppercasing and replacing underscores with hyphens.
- Conversely, Lisp names are converted to
Alien names by lowercasing and replacing hyphens with
underscores.
- Both the Lisp symbol and Alien string names
may be separately specified by using a list of the form:
(alien-string lisp-symbol)
[Macro]
alien:def-alien-variable name type
This macro defines name as an external
Alien variable of the specified Alien type. name and type are not evaluated. The Lisp name of the
variable (see above) becomes a global Alien variable in the Lisp
namespace. Global Alien variables are effectively “global
symbol macros”; a reference to the variable fetches the
contents of the external variable. Similarly, setting the variable
stores new contents—the new contents must be of the declared
type.
For example, it is often necessary to read the global C variable
errno to determine why a particular function
call failed. It is possible to define errno and make it accessible
from Lisp by the following:
(def-alien-variable "errno" int)
;; Now it is possible to get the value of the C variable errno simply by
;; referencing that Lisp variable:
;;
(print errno)
[Macro]
alien:extern-alien name
type
This macro returns an Alien with the specified type which points to an externally defined value.
name is not evaluated, and may be
specified either as a string or a symbol. type is an unevaluated Alien type
specifier.
8.5 Alien Data Structure Example
Now that we have Alien types, operations and variables, we can
manipulate foreign data structures. This C declaration can be
translated into the following Alien type:
struct foo {
int a;
struct foo *b[100];
};
<==>
(def-alien-type nil
(struct foo
(a int)
(b (array (* (struct foo)) 100))))
With this definition, the following C expression can be translated
in this way:
struct foo f;
f.b[7].a
<==>
(with-alien ((f (struct foo)))
(slot (deref (slot f 'b) 7) 'a)
;;
;; Do something with f...
)
Or consider this example of an external C variable and some
accesses:
struct c_struct {
short x, y;
char a, b;
int z;
c_struct *n;
};
extern struct c_struct *my_struct;
my_struct->x++;
my_struct->a = 5;
my_struct = my_struct->n;
which can be made be manipulated in Lisp like this:
(def-alien-type nil
(struct c-struct
(x short)
(y short)
(a char)
(b char)
(z int)
(n (* c-struct))))
(def-alien-variable "my_struct" (* c-struct))
(incf (slot my-struct 'x))
(setf (slot my-struct 'a) 5)
(setq my-struct (slot my-struct 'n))
8.6 Loading Unix Object Files
CMUCL is able to load foreign object files at runtime, using the
function load-foreign. This function is able
to load shared libraries (that are typically named
.so
) via the dlopen mechanism. It can also load
.a
or .o
object files by calling the
linker on the files and libraries to create a loadable object file.
Once loaded, the external symbols that define routines and
variables are made available for future external references (e.g.
by extern-alien.) load-foreign must be run before any of the defined
symbols are referenced.
Note that if a Lisp core image is saved (using save-lisp), all loaded foreign
code is lost when the image is restarted.
[Function]
ext:load-foreign files
&key :libraries
:base-file :env
files is a simple-string or list of simple-strings specifying the names of the object
files. If files is a simple-string, the
file that it designates is loaded using the platform's dlopen
mechanism. If it is a list of strings, the platform linker
ld is invoked to transform the object files
into a loadable object file. libraries is
a list of simple-strings specifying libraries
in a format that the platform linker expects. The default value for
libraries is ("-lc") (i.e., the standard C library). base-file is the file to use for the initial symbol
table information. The default is the Lisp start up code:
path:lisp. env
should be a list of simple strings in the format of Unix
environment variables (i.e., A=B, where
A is an environment variable and
B is its value). The default value for
env is the environment information
available at the time Lisp was invoked. Unless you are certain that
you want to change this, you should just use the
default.
8.7 Alien Function Calls
The foreign function call interface allows a Lisp program to call
functions written in other languages. The current implementation of
the foreign function call interface assumes a C calling convention
and thus routines written in any language that adheres to this
convention may be called from Lisp.
Lisp sets up various interrupt handling routines and other
environment information when it first starts up, and expects these
to be in place at all times. The C functions called by Lisp should
either not change the environment, especially the interrupt entry
points, or should make sure that these entry points are restored
when the C function returns to Lisp. If a C function makes changes
without restoring things to the way they were when the C function
was entered, there is no telling what will happen.
8.7.1 The alien-funcall Primitive
[Function]
alien:alien-funcall alien-function &rest
arguments
This function is the foreign function call primitive: alien-function is called with the supplied
arguments and its value is returned. The
alien-function is an arbitrary run-time
expression; to call a constant function, use extern-alien or def-alien-routine.
The type of alien-function must be
(alien (function ...)) or (alien (* (function ...))), See section 8.2.3. The function type is used to
determine how to call the function (as though it was declared with
a prototype.) The type need not be known at compile time, but only
known-type calls are efficiently compiled. Limitations:
- Structure type return values are not
implemented.
- Passing of structures by value is not
implemented.
Here is an example which allocates a (struct
foo), calls a foreign function to initialize it, then returns
a Lisp vector of all the (* (struct foo))
objects filled in by the foreign call:
;; Allocate a foo on the stack.
(with-alien ((f (struct foo)))
;;
;; Call some C function to fill in foo fields.
(alien-funcall (extern-alien "mangle_foo" (function void (* foo)))
(addr f))
;;
;; Find how many foos to use by getting the A field.
(let* ((num (slot f 'a))
(result (make-array num)))
;;
;; Get a pointer to the array so that we don't have to keep
;; extracting it:
(with-alien ((a (* (array (* (struct foo)) 100)) (addr (slot f 'b))))
;;
;; Loop over the first N elements and stash them in the
;; result vector.
(dotimes (i num)
(setf (svref result i) (deref (deref a) i)))
result)))
8.7.2 The def-alien-routine Macro
[Macro]
alien:def-alien-routine name result-type
{(aname atype {style})}*
This macro is a convenience for automatically generating Lisp
interfaces to simple foreign functions. The primary feature is the
parameter style specification, which translates the C
pass-by-reference idiom into additional return values.
name is usually a string external symbol,
but may also be a symbol Lisp name or a list of the foreign name
and the Lisp name. If only one name is specified, the other is
automatically derived, (see section 8.4.2.)
result-type is the Alien type of the
return value. Each remaining subform specifies an argument to the
foreign function. aname is the symbol
name of the argument to the constructed function (for
documentation) and atype is the Alien
type of corresponding foreign argument. The semantics of the actual
call are the same as for alien-funcall. style should
be one of the following:
- :in
- specifies that the argument is passed by value.
This is the default. :in arguments have no
corresponding return value from the Lisp function.
- :out
- specifies a pass-by-reference output value. The
type of the argument must be a pointer to a fixed sized object
(such as an integer or pointer). :out and
:in-out cannot be used with pointers to
arrays, records or functions. An object of the correct size is
allocated, and its address is passed to the foreign function. When
the function returns, the contents of this location are returned as
one of the values of the Lisp function.
- :copy
- is similar to :in, but
the argument is copied to a pre-allocated object and a pointer to
this object is passed to the foreign routine.
- :in-out
- is a combination of :copy
and :out. The argument is copied to a
pre-allocated object and a pointer to this object is passed to the
foreign routine. On return, the contents of this location is
returned as an additional value.
Any efficiency-critical foreign interface function should be inline
expanded by preceding def-alien-routine with:
(declaim (inline lisp-name))
In addition to avoiding the Lisp call overhead, this allows
pointers, word-integers and floats to be passed using
non-descriptor representations, avoiding consing (see
section 5.11.2.)
8.7.3 def-alien-routine Example
Consider the C function cfoo with the
following calling convention:
/* a for update
* i out
*/
void cfoo (char *str, char *a, int *i);
which can be described by the following call to def-alien-routine:
(def-alien-routine "cfoo" void
(str c-string)
(a char :in-out)
(i int :out))
The Lisp function cfoo will have two
arguments (str and a) and two return values (a and i).
8.7.4 Calling Lisp from C
CMUCL supports calling Lisp from C via the def-callback macro:
[Macro]
alien:def-callback name
(return-type {(arg-name
arg-type)}*) &body body
This macro defines a Lisp function that
can be called from C and a Lisp variable. The arguments to the
function must be alien types, and the return type must also be an
alien type. This Lisp function can be accessed via the callback macro.
name is the name of the Lisp function. It
is also the name of a variable to be used by the callback macro.
return-type is the return type of the
function. This must be a recognized alien type.
arg-name specifies the name of the
argument to the function, and the argument has type arg-type, which must be an alien type.
[Macro]
alien:callback callback-symbol
This macro extracts the appropriate
information for the function named callback-symbol so that it can be called by a C
function. callback-symbol must be a
symbol created by the def-callback
macro.
[Macro]
alien:callback-funcall callback-name &restargs
This macro does the necessary stuff to
call the callback named callback-name
with the given arguments.
8.7.5 Callback Example
Here is a simple example of using callbacks.
(use-package :alien)
(use-package :c-call)
(def-callback foo (int (arg1 int) (arg2 int))
(format t "~&foo: ~S, ~S~%" arg1 arg2)
(+ arg1 arg2))
(defun test-foo ()
(callback-funcall foo 555 444444))
In this example, the callback function foo is
defined which takes two C int parameters and
returns a int. As this shows, we can use
arbitrary Lisp inside the function.
The function test-foo shows how we can call
this callback function from Lisp. The macro callback extracts the necessary information for the
callback function foo which can be converted
into a pointer which we can call via alien-funcall.
The following code is a more complete example where a foreign
routine calls our Lisp routine.
(use-package :alien)
(use-package :c-call)
(def-alien-routine qsort void
(base (* t))
(nmemb int)
(size int)
(compar (* (function int (* t) (* t)))))
(def-callback my< (int (arg1 (* double))
(arg2 (* double)))
(let ((a1 (deref arg1))
(a2 (deref arg2)))
(cond ((= a1 a2) 0)
((< a1 a2) -1)
(t +1))))
(defun test-qsort ()
(let ((a (make-array 10 :element-type 'double-float
:initial-contents '(0.1d0 0.5d0 0.2d0 1.2d0 1.5d0
2.5d0 0.0d0 0.1d0 0.2d0 0.3d0))))
(print a)
(qsort (sys:vector-sap a)
(length a)
(alien-size double :bytes)
(alien:callback my<))
(print a)))
We define the alien routine, qsort, and a
callback, my<, to determine whether two
double's are less than, greater than or equal
to each other.
The test function test-qsort shows how we can
call the alien sort routine with our Lisp comparison routine to
produce a sorted array.
8.7.6 Accessing Lisp Arrays
Due to the way CMUCL manages memory, the amount of memory that can
be dynamically allocated by malloc or
make-alien is
limited1.
To overcome this limitation, it is possible to access the content
of Lisp arrays which are limited only by the amount of physical
memory and swap space available. However, this technique is only
useful if the foreign function takes pointers to memory instead of
allocating memory for itself. In latter case, you will have to
modify the foreign functions.
This technique takes advantage of the fact that CMUCL has
specialized array types (see section 5.11.8) that match
a typical C array. For example, a (simple-array
double-float (100)) is stored in memory in essentially the
same way as the C array double x[100] would
be. The following function allows us to get the physical address of
such a Lisp array:
(defun array-data-address (array)
"Return the physical address of where the actual data of an array is
stored.
ARRAY must be a specialized array type in CMUCL. This means ARRAY
must be an array of one of the following types:
double-float
single-float
(unsigned-byte 32)
(unsigned-byte 16)
(unsigned-byte 8)
(signed-byte 32)
(signed-byte 16)
(signed-byte 8)
"
(declare (type (or (simple-array (signed-byte 8))
(simple-array (signed-byte 16))
(simple-array (signed-byte 32))
(simple-array (unsigned-byte 8))
(simple-array (unsigned-byte 16))
(simple-array (unsigned-byte 32))
(simple-array single-float)
(simple-array double-float)
(simple-array (complex single-float))
(simple-array (complex double-float)))
array)
(optimize (speed 3) (safety 0))
(ext:optimize-interface (safety 3)))
;; with-array-data will get us to the actual data. However, because
;; the array could have been displaced, we need to know where the
;; data starts.
(lisp::with-array-data ((data array)
(start)
(end))
(declare (ignore end))
;; DATA is a specialized simple-array. Memory is laid out like this:
;;
;; byte offset Value
;; 0 type code (should be 70 for double-float vector)
;; 4 4 * number of elements in vector
;; 8 1st element of vector
;; ... ...
;;
(let ((addr (+ 8 (logandc1 7 (kernel:get-lisp-obj-address data))))
(type-size
(let ((type (array-element-type data)))
(cond ((or (equal type '(signed-byte 8))
(equal type '(unsigned-byte 8)))
1)
((or (equal type '(signed-byte 16))
(equal type '(unsigned-byte 16)))
2)
((or (equal type '(signed-byte 32))
(equal type '(unsigned-byte 32)))
4)
((equal type 'single-float)
4)
((equal type 'double-float)
8)
(t
(error "Unknown specialized array element type"))))))
(declare (type (unsigned-byte 32) addr)
(optimize (speed 3) (safety 0) (ext:inhibit-warnings 3)))
(system:int-sap (the (unsigned-byte 32)
(+ addr (* type-size start)))))))
We note, however, that the system function system:vector-sap will do the
same thing as above does.
Assume we have the C function below that we wish to use:
double dotprod(double* x, double* y, int n)
{
int k;
double sum = 0;
for (k = 0; k < n; ++k) {
sum += x[k] * y[k];
}
return sum;
}
The following example generates two large arrays in Lisp, and calls
the C function to do the desired computation. This would not have
been possible using malloc or make-alien since we need about 16 MB of memory to hold
the two arrays.
(alien:def-alien-routine "dotprod" c-call:double
(x (* double-float) :in)
(y (* double-float) :in)
(n c-call:int :in))
(defun test-dotprod ()
(let ((x (make-array 10000 :element-type 'double-float :initial-element 2d0))
(y (make-array 10000 :element-type 'double-float :initial-element 10d0)))
(sys:without-gcing
(let ((x-addr (sys:vector-sap x))
(y-addr (sys:vector-sap y)))
(dotprod x-addr y-addr 10000)))))
In this example, we have used sys:vector-sap
instead of array-data-address, but we could
have used (sys:int-sap (array-data-address
x)) as well.
Also, we have wrapped the inner let
expression in a sys:without-gcing that
disables garbage collection for the duration of the body. This will
prevent garbage collection from moving x and
y arrays after we have obtained the (now
erroneous) addresses but before the call to dotprod is made.
8.8 Step-by-Step Alien Example
This section presents a complete example of an interface to a
somewhat complicated C function. This example should give a fairly
good idea of how to get the effect you want for almost any kind of
C function. Suppose you have the following C function which you
want to be able to call from Lisp in the file test.c:
struct c_struct
{
int x;
char *s;
};
struct c_struct *c_function (i, s, r, a)
int i;
char *s;
struct c_struct *r;
int a[10];
{
int j;
struct c_struct *r2;
printf("i = %d\n", i);
printf("s = %s\n", s);
printf("r->x = %d\n", r->x);
printf("r->s = %s\n", r->s);
for (j = 0; j < 10; j++) printf("a[%d] = %d.\n", j, a[j]);
r2 = (struct c_struct *) malloc (sizeof(struct c_struct));
r2->x = i + 5;
r2->s = "A C string";
return(r2);
};
It is possible to call this function from Lisp using the file
test.lisp whose contents is:
;;; -*- Package: test-c-call -*-
(in-package "TEST-C-CALL")
(use-package "ALIEN")
(use-package "C-CALL")
;;; Define the record c-struct in Lisp.
(def-alien-type nil
(struct c-struct
(x int)
(s c-string)))
;;; Define the Lisp function interface to the C routine. It returns a
;;; pointer to a record of type c-struct. It accepts four parameters:
;;; i, an int; s, a pointer to a string; r, a pointer to a c-struct
;;; record; and a, a pointer to the array of 10 ints.
;;;
;;; The INLINE declaration eliminates some efficiency notes about heap
;;; allocation of Alien values.
(declaim (inline c-function))
(def-alien-routine c-function
(* (struct c-struct))
(i int)
(s c-string)
(r (* (struct c-struct)))
(a (array int 10)))
;;; A function which sets up the parameters to the C function and
;;; actually calls it.
(defun call-cfun ()
(with-alien ((ar (array int 10))
(c-struct (struct c-struct)))
(dotimes (i 10) ; Fill array.
(setf (deref ar i) i))
(setf (slot c-struct 'x) 20)
(setf (slot c-struct 's) "A Lisp String")
(with-alien ((res (* (struct c-struct))
(c-function 5 "Another Lisp String" (addr c-struct) ar)))
(format t "Returned from C function.~%")
(multiple-value-prog1
(values (slot res 'x)
(slot res 's))
;;
;; Deallocate result after we are done using it.
(free-alien res)))))
To execute the above example, it is necessary to compile the C
routine as follows:
cc -c test.c
In order to enable incremental loading with some linkers, you may
need to say:
cc -G 0 -c test.c
Once the C code has been compiled, you can start up Lisp and load
it in:
% lisp
;;; Lisp should start up with its normal prompt.
;;; Compile the Lisp file. This step can be done separately. You don't have
;;; to recompile every time.
* (compile-file "test.lisp")
;;; Load the foreign object file to define the necessary symbols. This must
;;; be done before loading any code that refers to these symbols. next block
;;; of comments are actually the output of LOAD-FOREIGN. Different linkers
;;; will give different warnings, but some warning about redefining the code
;;; size is typical.
* (load-foreign "test.o")
;;; Running library:load-foreign.csh...
;;; Loading object file...
;;; Parsing symbol table...
Warning: "_gp" moved from #x00C082C0 to #x00C08460.
Warning: "end" moved from #x00C00340 to #x00C004E0.
;;; o.k. now load the compiled Lisp object file.
* (load "test")
;;; Now we can call the routine that sets up the parameters and calls the C
;;; function.
* (test-c-call::call-cfun)
;;; The C routine prints the following information to standard output.
i = 5
s = Another Lisp string
r->x = 20
r->s = A Lisp string
a[0] = 0.
a[1] = 1.
a[2] = 2.
a[3] = 3.
a[4] = 4.
a[5] = 5.
a[6] = 6.
a[7] = 7.
a[8] = 8.
a[9] = 9.
;;; Lisp prints out the following information.
Returned from C function.
;;; Return values from the call to test-c-call::call-cfun.
10
"A C string"
*
If any of the foreign functions do output, they should not be
called from within Hemlock. Depending on the situation, various
strange behavior occurs. Under X, the output goes to the window in
which Lisp was started; on a terminal, the output will overwrite
the Hemlock screen image; in a Hemlock slave, standard output is
/dev/null by default, so any output is
discarded.
- 1
- CMUCL mmaps a large piece of memory for its own
use and this memory is typically about 256 MB above the start
of the C heap. Thus, only about 256 MB of memory can be
dynamically allocated. In earlier versions, this limit was closer
to 8 MB.