define-foreign-function

Arguments

lisp-name

A symbol naming the defined Lisp function.

foreign-name

A string or a symbol specifying the foreign name of the function.

arg-name

A variable.

arg-type

A foreign type name.

value

A Lisp object.

value-type

A foreign type name.

lambda-list

The lambda list to be used for the defined Lisp function.

documentation

A documentation string for the foreign function.

result-type

A foreign type.

result-pointer

The name of the keyword argument that is added to the lambda-list of the Lisp function when the result-type is an aggregate type.

language

The language in which the foreign source code is written. The default is :ansi-c .

no-check

If nil , the types of the arguments provided when the Lisp function is called are compared with the expected types and an error is raised if they do not match. Setting no-check to t overrides this check.

If the compilation safety level is set to 0 then no-check is automatically set to t . The default value for no-check is nil .

calling-convention

Specifies the calling convention used on Windows.

module

A symbol or string naming the module in which the foreign symbol is defined.

Description

The macro define-foreign-function defines a Lisp function lisp-name which acts as an interface to a foreign language function, for example a C function. When the Lisp function is called its arguments are converted to the appropriate foreign representation before being passed to the specified foreign function. Once the foreign function exits, any return values are converted back from the foreign format into a Lisp format.

encoding specifies how the Lisp function name is translated into the function name in the foreign object code. Its values are interpreted as follows:

:source

foreign-name is the name of the function in the foreign source code. This is the default value of encoding when foreign-name is a string.

:object

foreign-name is the literal name of the function in the foreign object code.

:lisp

If foreign-name is a Lisp symbol, it must be translated and encoded. This is the default value of encoding if foreign-name is a symbol.

:dbcs

A suffix is automatically appended to the function name depending on the Windows operating system that LispWorks runs in. The suffix is "A " for Windows 95-based systems and "W " for Windows NT-based systems.

The number and types of the arguments of lisp-name must be given. Lisp arguments may take any name, but the types must be accurately specified and listed in the same order as in the foreign function, unless otherwise specified using lambda-list .

If the arg-name syntax of arg is used, then define-foreign-function assumes that it is of type :int . Otherwise arg-type or value-type specifies the foreign type of the argument.

If arg is of the form (:constant value value-type ) then value is always passed through to the foreign code, and arg is omitted from the lambda list of lisp-name .

If arg is &optional or &key , then the lambda list of the Lisp function lisp-name will contain these lambda-list-keywords too. Any argument following &optional or &key can use the
(( arg-name default ) arg-type ) syntax to provide a default value default for arg-name .

If arg is of the form (:ignore arg-type ) then nil is always passed through to the foreign code and arg is omitted from the lambda list of lisp-name . This is generally only useful when arg-type is a :reference-return type, where the value nil will be ignored.

When language is :ansi-c the foreign code is expected to be written in ANSI C. In particular single floats are passed through as single-floats whereas language :c causes them to be passed through as double floats. Similarly :c causes double floats to be returned from C and :ansi-c causes a single-floats to be returned. In both cases the type returned to Lisp is determined by result-type .

lambda-list allows you to define the order in which the Lisp function lisp-name takes its arguments to be different from the order in which the foreign function takes them, and to use standard lambda list keywords such as &optional even if they do not appear in args . If lambda-list is not supplied, the lambda list of lisp-name is generated from the list of arg s.

The :reference , :reference-pass and :reference-return types are useful with define-foreign-function . It is fairly common for a C function to return a value by setting the contents of an argument passed by reference (that is, as a pointer). This can be handled conveniently by using the :reference-return type, which dynamically allocates memory for the return value and passes a pointer to the C function. On return, the pointer is dereferenced and the value is returned as an extra multiple value from the Lisp function.

The :reference-pass type can be used to automatically construct an extra level of pointer for an argument. No extra results are returned.

The :reference type is like :reference-return but allows the initial value of the reference argument to be set.

result-type optionally specifies the type of the foreign function's return value. When result-type is an aggregate type, an additional keyword argument is placed in the lambda-list of the Lisp function. This keyword is named after the result-pointer argument or is called :result-pointer if unspecified. When calling the Lisp function, a foreign pointer must be supplied as the value of this keyword argument, pointing to an object of type result-type . The result of the foreign call is written into this object and the foreign pointer is returned as the primary value from the Lisp function. This allows the caller to maintain control over the lifetime of this object (in C this would typically be stored in a local variable). If result-type is :void or is omitted, then no value is returned.

calling-convention is ignored on non-Windows platforms, where there is no calling convention issue. On Windows, :stdcall is the calling convention used to call Win32 API functions and matches the C declarator "__stdcall" . This is the default value. :cdecl is the default calling convention for C/C++ programs and matches the C declarator"__cdecl" .

If module is the name of a module registered using register-module then that module is used to look up the symbol. Otherwise module should be a string, and a module named module is automatically registered and used to look up the symbol. Such automatically-registered modules have connection-style :manual - this prevents them being used by other define-foreign-function forms which do not specify a module.

Example

A simple example of the use of define-foreign-function is given in Defining a FLI function. More detailed examples are given in Advanced Uses of the FLI.

Here is an example using the :reference-return type.

Unix/Linux/Macintosh version:

int cfloor(int x, int y, int *remainder)

  int quotient = x/y;

  *remainder = x - y*quotient;

  return quotient;

Windows version:

__declspec(dllexport) int __cdecl cfloor(int x, int y, int *remainder)

  int quotient = x/y;

  *remainder = x - y*quotient;

  return quotient;

In this foreign function definition the main result is the quotient and the second return value is the remainder:

(fli:define-foreign-function cfloor

    ((x :int)

     (y :int)

     (rem (:reference-return :int)))

 :result-type :int)

(cfloor 11 5 t)

=>

2,1

This example illustrates a use of the lambda list keyword &optional and a default value for the optional argument:

(define-foreign-function one-or-two-ints

    ((arg-one :int)

     &optional

     ((arg-two 42) :int)))

The call (one-or-two-ints 1 2) passes 1 and 2.

The call (one-or-two-ints 1) passes 1 and 42.

LispWorks Foreign Language Interface User Guide and Reference Manual - 7 Dec 2011

define-foreign-function

Macro

Summary

Package

Signature

Arguments

Values

Description

Notes

Compatibility note

Example

See also