Hi, I am new to mac and I can't get FFI to work in MacOSX. I am using the 3.6 carbon-classic vm. Im still a bit confused with Mach-O. I was used to good'ole elf and dlls.

In order to test I wrote a small example and compiled it both .bundle and .dylib following apple examples. I get the message "cannot find function address".I can use them from C via the NS way (bundle) and linking to a dylib, but cant get sq to find the symbols :(

THIS IS FOR THE DYLIB: this would be answer.c:

int get_answer() { return 42; }

this would be deep.c: #include <stdio.h> int main() { int answer; answer = get_answer(); printf("the answer is %d\n", answer); return 0; }

this would be the Makefile: answer.o: answer.c cc -fno-common -c answer.c

libanswer.dylib: answer.o cc -dynamiclib -install_name libanswer.dylib \ -o libanswer.dylib answer.o

deep.o: deep.c cc -fno-common -c deep.c

deep: deep.o libanswer.dylib $(LD) -o deep deep.o -L. -lanswer

FOR THE BUNDLE: cc -flat_namespace -bundle -undefined supress \ -o libanswer.bundle answer.o I then use NSLookupSymbol() and NSAddressOfSymbol() functions (after loading the file with other NS commands) in the deep.c file.

IN SQUEAK I can't get this to work:

self prueba <cdecl: short 'get_answer' (void) module:'libanswer'> ^self externalCallFailed

Question: which type of library does FFI use? .bundle or dylibs or both? Where does it look for it? putting it in the vm dir doesn't work, there is no ldconfig (ahhhh!)./system/library/frameworks doesent work either (copying my lib into it I mean) The thing is I need to use ODBC with squeak in my mac (Diego Gomez Deck's code I mean). In linux I simply symlinked libiodbc to the vm's directory. In OSX I got libiodbc.dylib only. Any help would be REALLY apreciated! thx in advance!

/diego

I'm sure I read somewhere is that the function call we make to get the address for a function name doesn't care if it's a bundle or dylib, or something. It does the right thing to resolve the address.

On Jun 9, 2004, at 10:28 PM, diego bart wrote:

In order to test I wrote a small example and compiled it both .bundle and .dylib following apple examples. I get the message "cannot find function address".I can use them from C via the NS way (bundle) and linking to a dylib, but cant get sq to find the symbols :(

-- ======================================================================== === John M. McIntosh johnmci@smalltalkconsulting.com 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ======================================================================== ===

I am using FFI in MacOSX, I simple create a framework in XCode then move the framework xxx.framework to /System/Library/Frameworks , this is a workaround because the other more correct locations: /Library/Frameworks or ~/Library/Frameworks are not working with the current VM.

In Squeak you define (for example):

macCallWith: ba with: res <cdecl: long 'testVF' (VFExternalStructure* VFExternalStructure*) module:'vftest.framework'> ^self externalCallFailed

Where VFExternalStructure is for example a subclass of ExternalData (or the other classes defined in FFI-Kernel).

Then call with (more examples): ba _ ByteArray new: 3456 withAll: 0. res _ ByteArray new: 2800 withAll: 0. [init data, etc...] pba _ VFExternalStructure fromHandle: ba type: ExternalType char. pres _ VFExternalStructure fromHandle: res type: ExternalType char. pBuff _ self macCallWith: pba with: pres.

This example is using ByteArrays (char* in C) you need to change with the other types of (external) data.

On 10/06/2004, at 11:02, Diego Tiscornia wrote:

John M McIntosh writes:

...

I'm sure I read somewhere is that the function call we make to get the address for a function name doesn't care if it's a bundle or dylib, or something. It does the right thing to resolve the address.

On Jun 9, 2004, at 10:28 PM, diego bart wrote:

...

In order to test I wrote a small example and compiled it both .bundle and .dylib following apple examples. I get the message "cannot find function address".I can use them from C via the NS way (bundle) and linking to a dylib, but cant get sq to find the symbols :(

Hi thank you for answering.

I already had SqueakFFIPrims.bundle. I think it came with the Carbon version, and the FFI examples work, but I can't get anything else to work with it :( I think I would get the "no function callout mechanism available" (or similar) exception hadn't I gotten the lib, at least this is what happens when you delete it.

Anyway I just in case downloaded the version you mentioned, but it doesnt work either :(

Javier Diaz-Reinoso Web: http://homepage.mac.com/javier_diaz_r/

On 10/06/04 13:02, "Diego Tiscornia" diegobt@hotmail.com wrote:

John M McIntosh writes:

...

I'm sure I read somewhere is that the function call we make to get the address for a function name doesn't care if it's a bundle or dylib, or something. It does the right thing to resolve the address.

On Jun 9, 2004, at 10:28 PM, diego bart wrote:

...

In order to test I wrote a small example and compiled it both .bundle and .dylib following apple examples. I get the message "cannot find function address".I can use them from C via the NS way (bundle) and linking to a dylib, but cant get sq to find the symbols :(

Hi thank you for answering.

I already had SqueakFFIPrims.bundle. I think it came with the Carbon version, and the FFI examples work, but I can't get anything else to work with it :( I think I would get the "no function callout mechanism available" (or similar) exception hadn't I gotten the lib, at least this is what happens when you delete it.

Anyway I just in case downloaded the version you mentioned, but it doesnt work either :(

Diego: Try this pre - alpha and thanks to John M McIntosh for clues to me. In a week end I try to complete Quickdraw api and do some tutorial and add to minnow. You can email me diret to edgardec2003@ciudad.com.ar.

Edgar

Hi Diego,

Thanks for posting your advice! I now almost have ODBC working on my Mac. I did see one typo in your instructions -

1 from a terminal create an odbc.framework directory. (sudo mkdir /System/Library/Frameworks/odbc.framework)

should I think say "libiodbc.framework", as that is the name used later. (The same is true for step 2.)

2 symlink the iodbc library into the newly created directory ln -s /usr/lib/libiodbc.dylib \ /System/Library/Frameworks/odbc.framework/libiodbc

I am still getting an error - maybe you have seen something like it. I have installed FreeTDS, to connect to an MS SQL Server, and have configured iODBC to use it. The connection works with iODBC's 'odbctest' program.

When I try to use my DSN from Squeak, I always get an ODBCError with no detailed error message, at initial connection time. Have you had this happen? What are some possible sources of trouble I could look for?

I think it is finding the library, as it gave me a different message when it could not.

Thanks much, Ben Schroeder

On 6/24/04 8:53 AM, "Diego Tiscornia" diegobt@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi ben, sorry I didn't answer before. Yes, you are right about the typo :/ thx Yes I think you got the FFi part working (for odbc, if you get that error) When you I got ODBCError, I debugged it and found out that the ODBCConnection object hadn't got an open connection, which meant it couldn't establish one, as my connection string was ok, (dsn, usr, pwd) it turned out the problem was with iodbc and/or odbc.ini. What does the debugger tell you?

By the way, I couldn't get the iodbc that shipped with mi mac to work, so I got bored and installed unixodbc from the fink distro, made that work and everything worked fine.

hope this helps!

Hi Diego,

Thanks for your reply. If I remember correctly, I did have something similar to what you say: the driver had allocated handles correctly but couldn't run SQLConnect. The connection string seemed to be correct.

I tried creating the connection using a plain C program, and it failed there too. The nearest I could tell, the FreeTDS library was having trouble dynamically loading the iodbc libraries that it needed.

Following a tip on another mailing list, I tried using the FreeTDS library as the ODBC library directly, rather than going through iodbc, as its interface is the same for at least many things. (That is to say, I made the symlink to the FreeTDS library file instead of to the iodbc one.)

This worked fine! (... at least for the few things I've tried.)

I don't think I need a driver manager right now, but if I do, I may try unixodbc - thanks for the tip.

I hope this helps anyone else trying to get this kind of thing working.

Thanks again for your installation notes and help!

Regards, Ben Schroeder

Success! Didn't change a thing, except having VMMaker already loaded. This time, the "initializing..." progress bar didn't even appear long enough to be noticeable, the various tests worked and I started playing around with the browser after putting the nib in the right place.

Third time lucky? (Versions were exact same ones you mentioned, all freshly downloaded)

Now I'll play around with it some more....I see you are using the threaded model...interesting...but it's so wonderful to finally have this in place!

Cheers,

Marcel

On 2 Jun 2004, at 02:41, Avi Bryant wrote:

On Jun 1, 2004, at 3:58 PM, Marcel Weiher wrote:

...

OK, loading this from the repository gets me an error about a dependency that needs to be resolved "SmartSyntaxInterpreterPlugin", which I can't find in a fresh 3.7 beta image. Googling reveals that this was a proposed rename of "TestInterpreterPlugin", which I can't find either, nor the "SmartInterpreterPlugin" that was suggested as a better idea.

SmartSyntaxInterpreterPlugin is part of VMMaker. But you're right that if you don't need to build the plugin, you can proceed through that warning.

...

So I tried loading it anyway, which proceeds, takes quite some time in downloading/installing and then seems to grind to a halt completely in initializing. Does this simply take a long time? Or do I need to resolve that reference? Or something else?

Hm, it went by relatively quickly for me (the actual load does take a while because of all the convenience stubs for FoundationKit and AppKit methods). I tried it on a fresh 5923 image, with the Squeak 3.7b-5 VM and the ObjectiveCPlugin already installed.

Which versions are you using?

Avi