Native modules

[mbekkomo]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

FFI is one of a way to access native functions, but it's limitations are limited access to the VM and stacks, and you can't create a native Arturo type.

Describe the solution you'd like

The solution to that is to implement a native modularisation. I have something like this in my mind.

// arturo_lib.c
#include <arturo.h> // Exported Arturo C APIs

int lib_Foo(arturo_VM* vm) {
  const char *_ =  arturo_popArgString(vm);

  arturo_pushString(vm, "foo");

  return 1; // required args
}

const *arturo_RegFunc funcs = {
  {"foo", foo},
  {NULL, NULL},
};

void arturo_nativeOpen(arturo_VM* vm) {
  arturo_registerFuncs(funcs);
}

Run cc arturo_lib.c -fPIC -shared -larturo -o lib.so

;; `import` accepts `native` attribute to import native modules
;; `import.native` will search `lib.dll` in Windows, `lib.so` in Linux, and `lib.dylib` in MacOS on specified search paths
lib: import.native "lib"

print (lib\foo "foo")

Describe alternatives you've considered

–

Additional context

You can take a look at Lua C API for reference.

[github-actions]

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