[Kst] Re: Plugin Interface

[Andrew Walker]

Hi George,

I'm pretty happy with the interface as is now. My only complaint
would be when returing a large number of scalars. To my mind it
doesn't make sense to have the user enter a long list of scalar
names, so I typically return a lot of scalar values in a single
vector. This isn't ideal from the user's point of view, but
neither is the alternative.

Andrew

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: George Staikos <staikos at kde.org>
Date:  Mon, 16 Feb 2004 17:46:48 -0500

>
>
>   Barth and I discussed the idea of moving the plugin system to use variable 
>arguments as proposed by Jean Marc and Claude.  While it does sound nice, 
>there is one problem that we think might negate the value of this.  Plugins 
>[can] resize vectors, and they have to pass back the size of the vector to 
>Kst so it knows if it has been reallocated.  Kst tracks the size of vectors, 
>so it needs this information.  Plugins also need to know the size of incoming 
>vectors.  The solution that I can think of would look like this:
>
>int myPlug(double *array1, int insize1, double *array2, int insize2, double 
>scalar1, double **output1, int *size1, double **output2, int *size2, void 
>**local);
>
>The size arguments above make this format almost as much of a pain as the old 
>interface.  Is there a better solution?  Is this solution enough added value 
>to justify breaking all existing plugins?
>
>   Andrew: What do you think of the interface right now, and what do you think 
>would be better?
>
>   In addition, do you think it would be useful to have "constructors" and 
>"destructors" for plugins?  For instance, there could be two symbols in 
>each .so that are used for this, say "create()" and "destroy()".  This could 
>also be specified in the XML file if you want different names.
>
>   What are your thoughts?
>
>-- 
>George Staikos
>KDE Developer				http://www.kde.org/
>Staikos Computing Services Inc.		http://www.staikos.net/
>


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