Re: [Help-smalltalk] Using Smalltalk as a scripting language

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 10/27/2009 09:30 PM, Roland Plüss wrote:
> On 10/26/2009 08:10 PM, Roland Plüss wrote:
> > > Why the gst_set_executable_path does not exist in gstpub.h
> > > I don't know.
> >
> > Just an old version of GST.
> It's 3.0.5 , that should not be too old shouldn't it?

No, but set_executable_path was added in 3.1. :-)

> > > from that time on I operate on the game object sending all kinds of
> > > messages. What goes for calling the initGame method I think I figured
> > > out from the docs how this is supposed to be done but what goes for
> > > loading the script files and parsing them I'm still at a loss.
> >
> > _gst_process_file works.  If the file is just a bunch of class and
> > method definition, it won't block.
> >
> > If the main program is written in Smalltalk, you actually want to make
> > it blocking though.
> What exactly you understand as a main program? What I want is to load
> only a bunch of classes with the script files. The main program is the
> game loop run inside the game engine (c++) which then occasionally sends
> messages to the game object ( which in turn is an instance of some game
> base class provided to the developer ). So if I get you correctly then I
> can simply call _gst_process_file for any single script file without
> getting a block.

Yes.  I now understand you.

> Is there a way to prevent this function call from ever
> blocking?

No, that's not possible.  You could run _gst_process_file in a separate 
thread though.  When _gst_process_file finishes, the thread would tell 
the main thread that it can execute Smalltalk code.  Until 
_gst_process_file finishes, the main thread could keep executing, but 
would not be able to execute Smalltalk code.

> I guess I posed the wrong question. I talk about the c functions in the
> gstpub.h file like for example _gst_process_file and company. I didn't
> find a man page or anything in the docs which outlines how to use these
> c functions or which kind of parameter values they know/accept.

The functions beginning with _gst_ are not public, only those beginning 
with gst_ are (each gst_ function has a private counterpart; they're 
exactly the same and are separated just for optimization purposes).

Most of these are documented in the info manual.  gst_process_file is an 
exception (it is documented by an example, but not in the function 
reference).

Paolo