Introduction to cbind and cplbind

The C/C++BIND facility is only available on Windows and Solaris. It provides tools for automatically generating Lisp code for calling foreign functions using information obtained by scanning C header files.

The code for C/C++BIND is in a directory on Distribution CD Two, in cbind/sun/ and cbind/windows/. In this document, we describe the directory and provide pointers to the more detailed documentation, cbind.html, which describes the facility for C code, and cplbind.html, which describes the facility for C++ code.

The version for CBIND is 1.6.3 and that for C++BIND is 1.6.3. The version of the shared code used by both is again 1.6.3. (The release numbers happen to be all the same, but that might change.)

You must download the software from ftp://ftp.franz.com/pub/acl81/cbind_windows.zip (for Windows). Unpack the files in the Allegro directory and a cbind/windows directory will be added. The file README.txt in each directory has detailed information on the files in each directory.

This software is being delivered AS IS with NO GUARANTEES. We welcome any comments about this software. Please see introduction.html for information on contacting Franz Inc.

This C/C++BIND software requires Allegro CL version 6.0 or later. The rest of this tool is contained in this directory.

Part of this tool is built from GCC, the C compiler from the GNU Project. In keeping with the GNU License, the source to the GNU tools used for this software is available upon request without cost via ftp. The source files that have been modified from the GNU tools for this software are included in this directory.

Another tool for generating foreign function code, separate from CBIND, is SWIG. This information is repeated from the release notes. SWIG is a software development tool that reads C/C++ header files and generates the wrapper code needed to make C and C++ code accessible from other languages. See http://www.swig.org. See this tech corner article and this one for specific information on the interface to Allegro CL and information on downloading the software. (The SWIG software is not included with the distribution because it is regularly updated. Users should always get the latest update.)

Copyright (c) 2023, Franz Inc. Lafayette, CA., USA. All rights reserved.