(j3.2006) TKR for C Interop

[Bill Long]

Aleksandar Donev wrote:

>The routines in the API for creating descriptors can include TKR information 
>as input. If the compiler uses these in the descriptor, it can put them in it 
>to get a "valid" descriptor. If it doesn't, it *can* throw them away. That 
>is, the descriptor does not need to store this information. There should be 
>no API routine to extract TKR info from a descriptor. We need a new API 
>routine to clone (copy) a descriptor, and than we are done.
>  
>

This is pretty consistent with what is planned.  The visible components 
of the C struct will include TKR components so that users use to set the 
values.  The vendor is free to ignore them in the routine that converts 
to the native dope vector. If the vendor does support such fields in the 
native dope vector, the c->f conversion routine is free to check for 
invalid settings and complain.  If the vendor does not support a field, 
it can be supplied as "not available" when going the other direction.  
Rather than have a separate routine to copy the C descriptor, the 
current plan is to include a visible component that has the total size 
of the struct (including the hidden components) in bytes.  This allows 
the user to use existing means (malloc, memcpy) to duplicate one. 

Cheers,
Bill



-- 
Bill Long                                   longb at cray.com
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