SRFI 50: Mixing Scheme and C

by Richard Kelsey and Michael Sperber

status: withdrawn (2005-12-20)

keywords: Operating System

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Abstract

This SRFI describes an interface for calling C functions from Scheme, calling Scheme functions from C, and allocating storage in the Scheme heap. Scheme manages stub functions in C that negotiate between the calling conventions of Scheme and C and the memory allocation policies of both worlds.

The following facilities are available for interfacing between Scheme and C:

• Scheme code can call C functions.
• The external interface provides full introspection for all Scheme objects. External code may inspect, modify, and allocate Scheme objects arbitrarily.
• External code may signal errors to the Scheme system.
• External code may call back into Scheme. Scheme correctly unrolls the process stack on non-local exits.
• External modules may register bindings of names to values with a central registry accessible from Scheme. Conversely, Scheme code can register shared bindings for access by C code.

The interface is closely based on that of Scheme 48 and scsh.