Hello, MPIR-developers!
I want to inform you about new MPIR-related project called X-MPIR. The
idea is to develop a whole set of bindings for a wide set of
programming languages using automatic translation.
MPIR/GMP have overwhelming API - hundreds of functions with lots of
parameters. It is hard to manually write wrapper even for one
programming language. However, API is quite regular and code
generation will easily solve this problem - it doesn't matter 20 or
200 functions to generate, once you have described them in regular
form. Almost all popular languages can have their MPIR interface with
just a tiny bit of programming.
I've created small proof-of-concept interface generator for C# (under
Win32/Win64). All significant MPIR functions are implemented, 220 in
total.
>>> STRUCTURE
>From the end user's point of view wrapper consists of one C# unit -
xmpir.cs, and two DLL's - xmpir32.dll and xmpir64.dll. If you want to
use MPIR from C# you just have to include xmpir.cs into you project
and to place DLL's into binaries folder. Interface is very similar to
the original one.
Deep in the project internals we have:
* mpir.x - formal description of MPIR interface
* xgen_core.php and xgen_wrapper.php - interface generator. It is
written in PHP because this language is very similar to C and have a
lot of text-processing functions.
* computer-generated file: xmpir.c, which must be linked against
static MPIR library. xmpir32.dll and xmpir64.dll are just xmpir.c
compiled with 32 or 64-bit compilers.
* computer-generated file: xmpir.cs, C# wrapper itself.
>>> FEATURES AND FUTURE
Essential features of the new interface are:
* automatic switching between 32-bit and 64-bit dynamic libraries. C#
is designed to be platform-agnostic, i.e. carefully written C#
program should be able to be executed without recompilation
under any OS - 32-bit or 64-bit. However, this goal is hard to
achieve when you use external libraries written using native code.
New interface solves this problem.
* solution of some 32/64-bit issues. X-MPIR ABI isn't changed when you
migrate from 32-bit OS to 64-bit one. For example, X-MPIR always
accepts 64-bit bitcounts (but raises an exception when you try to
specify values which don't fit into the current machine word)
* similarity to the original interface
* easy to use. This interface is intended to be shipped in the
precompiled form - to ease installation for those who is unfamiliar
with C.
Future development:
* c# interface under Linux/Mono in the same "no recompilation of C#
program needed" way.
* interfaces for another programming languages. Java, Python,
FreePascal... Something else?
* some way of errors handling - current version of interface doesn't
handle divisions by zero and memory allocation errors
* automatic switching to either 32 or 64-bit libraries may be extended
to the automatic selection of the optimized library. We can choose
between libraries optimized for P4, Core, Core 2, AMD - all in the
runtime, without recompilation of application.
>>> LIMITATIONS
Limitations and drawbacks:
* printf-like input/output functions were not included in the new
interface. It is hard to interface such functions in the
interoperable way
* new interface have constant performance penalty which is about 300
CPU cycles per function call ('constant' = it is approximately same
for all functions)
>>> DOWNLOAD
New interface (C# file, precompiled "Generic C" DLLs, code generator)
can be downloaded from http://www.alglib.net/x/xmpir/xmpir-0.1.zip
>>> LICENSE
License is LGPL 3, both for the core part (DLLs) and for the client
part (xmpir.cs). That is because I want to keep things simple for the
first time and to synchronize overall license with MPIR's one.
However I think that the client part of the wrapper may be licensed
under terms which are different from LGPL 3 (but are compatible with
LGPL 3). LGPL requirements may be satisfied even with non-LGPL license
for xmpir.cs (I am talking about permission to use shared library
mechanism to distribute the rest of the application under non-LGPL
license).
>>> EXAMPLE
Here is example of a simple C# program which uses new interface:
> using System;
> using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
> using System.Diagnostics;
> class MyClass
> {
> [STAThread]
> static void Main(string[] args)
> {
> mpir.mpz_t f = mpir.mpz_init_set_ui(1);
> int i;
> for(i=2; i<=30; i++)
> mpir.mpz_mul_si(f, f, i);
> System.Console.Write("30! = ");
> System.Console.WriteLine(mpir.mpz_get_string(10,f));
> mpir.mpz_clear(f);
> }
> }
Anybody interested to participate? There are several difficulties
which slow down development. For example, manual takes too much time
because English isn't my native language (I haven't started working
on manual yet). Maybe someone wants to help?
--
With best regards,
Sergey mailto:[email protected]
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