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[[meta copyright="Copyright © 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
[[meta license="""[[toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[toggleable
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document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
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Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license
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[[meta title="Bindings to Other Programming Languages"]]
The main idea of the Hurd design is giving users the ability to easily
modify/extend the system's functionality ([[extensible_system|extensibility]]).
This is done by creating [[filesystem_translators|hurd/translator]] and other
kinds of Hurd servers.
However, in practice this is not as easy as it should, because creating
translators and other servers is quite involved -- the interfaces for doing
that are not exactly simple, and available only for C programs. Being able to
easily create simple translators in RAD languages is highly desirable, to
really be able to reap the advantages of the Hurd architecture.
Originally Lisp was meant to be the second system language besides C in the GNU
system; but that doesn't mean we are bound to Lisp. Bindings for any popular
high-level language, that helps quickly creating simple programs, are highly
welcome.
Several approaches are possible when creating such bindings. One way is simply
to provide wrappers to all the available C libraries ([[hurd/libtrivfs]], [[hurd/libnetfs]]
etc.). While this is easy (it requires relatively little consideration), it may
not be the optimal solution. It is preferable to hook in at a lower level, thus
being able te create interfaces that are specially adapted to make good use of
the features available in the respective language.
These more specialised bindings could hook in at some of the lower level
library interfaces ([[hurd/libports]], [[hurd/glibc]], etc.); use the
[[microkernel/mach/MIG]]-provided [[microkernel/mach/RPC]] stubs directly; or
even create native stubs directly from the interface definitions.
The task is to create easy to use Hurd bindings for a language of the student's
choice, and some example servers to prove that it works well in practice. This
project will require gaining a very good understanding of the various Hurd
interfaces. Skills in designing nice programming interfaces are a must.
There has already been some [earlier work on Python
bindings](http://www.sigill.org/files/pytrivfs-20060724-ro-test1.tar.bz2), that
perhaps can be re-used. Also some work on [Perl
bindings](http://www.nongnu.org/hurdextras/#pith) is availabled.
# Lisp
Most Lisp implementations provide a Foreign Function Interface (FFI) that
enables the Lisp code to call functions written in another language.
Specifically, most implementations provide an FFI to the C ABI (hence giving
access to C, Fortran and possibly C++).
Common Lisp has even a portability layer for such FFI,
[CFFI](http://common-lisp.net/project/cffi/), so that you can write bindings
purely in Lisp and use the same binding code on any implementation supported by
CFFI.
Many Scheme implementation also provide an FFI. [Scheme48](http://www.s48.org/)
is even the implementation used to run scsh, a Scheme shell designed to provide
instant access to POSIX functions.
[Guile](http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html) is the GNU project's
Scheme implementation, meant to be embeddable and provide access to C. At least
[Gambit](http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/),
[Chicken](http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/),
[Bigloo](http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Bigloo/) and
[PLT](http://www.plt-scheme.org/) are known to provide an FFI too.
With respect to the packaging and dependencies, the good news is that Debian
comes handy: 5 Common Lisp implementations are packaged, one of which has
already been ported to Hurd (ECL), and CFFI is also packaged. As far as Scheme
is concerned, 14 [R5RS](http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/)
implementations are provided and 1 [R6RS](http://www.r6rs.org/).
Possible mentors: Pierre THIERRY (nowhere_man) for Common Lisp or Scheme, and perhaps Python
Exercise: Write some simple program(s) using Hurd-specific interfaces in the
language you intend to work on. For a start, you could try printing the system
uptime. A more advanced task is writing a simple variant of the hello
translator (you can use the existing C imlementation as reference),
implementing only open() and read() calls. Don't only write an implementations
using the existing C libraries (libps, libtrivfs), but also try to work with
the MiG-generated stubs directly. If you are ambitious, you could even try to
write your own stubs...
*Status*: Flavio Cruz has completed [[Lisp_bindings|flaviocruz]] for GSoC 2008!
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