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On 9/27/2010 10:48 AM, Rob Kendrick wrote:
Not anywhere near five lines if you're doing anything complex; just exposing one function? Sure. No point in adding complexity. For functions where I need variable parameters or similar, I still use the C interface. But if you're exposing nearly a hundred class member functions with varying parameters to Lua (e.g., Playground SDK)? I'd recommend a wrapper every time.> Sorry, but this is a completely wrong answer. The C interface is FAR > from trivial for many developers. I can use it fluently, and I still > wouldn't expose more than a few functions to Lua if I had to wrap > every one in the standard C interface. Conversely, the number of people who turn up on #lua because they can't get some automatic binding tool or C++ wrapper to do what they want is astonishing. Especially when doing it using the C API is often a 5-line job, most of which is boilerplate.
AND...the wrappers available leave some usability (or performance) to be desired. On this we can agree. :( In this particular case, the LuaPlus Call Dispatcher (which can be used without using LuaPlus, btw) is one of the easier to understand -- its interface looks very much like the standard Lua C interface, only it can takes class member functions and a "this" pointer instead of only global C functions.
And I want my C++ objects to be accessible in Lua, so I can still extend and process the objects at the C++ level. Different goals certainly result in different conclusions.(I'm very much of the opinion that the vast majority of a binding should be done in Lua, exposing only function calls, not functionality, via the API.)
Tim