1 The C-FFI Library

1.4 Basic options in C-FFI macros

The defining macros of the C-FFI share a consistent core set of options which are worth describing here:

A c-name argument. Every defining form allows you to specify the corresponding C entity through the keyword c-name:. It is optional in some forms but required in others. You can define types that have no named opposite number in C, and the c-name option is always optional in type definitions. On the other hand, you must always name an imported C function or variable so that Dylan knows the correct name from the compiled C library to link with.

: In general, any C entity you can declare in C using extern can only be found by the C-FFI if you pass a c-name argument to the corresponding C-FFI definition.

A pointer-type-name argument. All the type-defining forms allow you to name the type for a pointer to the type being defined. This is normally specified throughout the pointer-type-name: keyword option.