On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Tom <
tmbdev@gmail.com> wrote:
> A simple API might have four functions (using Lua syntax to describe both
> Lua and C APIs):
>
> a = typed_vector(size,tcode) -- allocs 1D array of the given size and type
> a:size() -- returns the size of the 1D typed array
> a:type_code() -- returns the type of the 1D typed array
>
> a[index] -- needed only in Lua, for simple element access
> a:address_of() -- needed only in C, pointer access to elements
>
> Type codes would exist for common standard C types ("char", "uint", "float",
> ...), and common sized types ("uint8", "float32", "float64"), ...).
>
> Although such a simple API may mean that getting two libraries to talk to
> each other may involve extra copying, even with that, it's a lot faster and
> easier than having nothing at all. A more complex interface would be a Lua
> adaptation of a subset of the Python buffer and memory view APIs
> (
http://docs.python.org/c-api/buffer.html); they allow data to be exposed
> without copying, but at the cost of higher complexity.
>
> Tom
