Re: Objective-C programming

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 2005-09-30 20:45:59 +0000 Mehul N. Sanghvi <mehul.sanghvi@gmail.com> 
wrote:


> > Perhaps you can use ffi rather than ffcall ... it's an option at configure 
> > time.
>
> As far as I can tell, there isn't a ffi library on NetBSD, at least I don't 
> see on in /usr/pkgsrc.  Does it come as part of gnustep-base ?

No ... it's part of the gcc compiler distribution.

> > > Also, on NetBSD, there is something called gnustep-objc which according
> > > to the description, is the GCC/GNUstep Objective-C runtime.  Is this 
> > > something that I should have ?  Apparently all the functions have
> > > their names changed to the GNU naming convention.  Should I use this
> > > or the NeXT runtime ?   Do I even have that choice ?
> >
> > No ... you need the gnu runtime ... there is no NeXT runtime for sparc64 
> > afaik
>
> My mistake in how I worded the above.  Here is what it says in the package 
> description:
>
>    "The runtime is modeled after the NeXT Objective C runtime. That is, 
> most 
> functions have the semantics as it is known from the NeXT.  The names, 
> however, have changed.  All runtime API functions have names of lowercase 
> letters and underscores as opposed to the 'traditional' mixed case names."
>
> To me this means the following:
>
> gnustep-base API           gnustep-objc API
> ----------------           ----------------
> GSAtomicMallocZone         gs_atomic_malloc_zone
> GSBreakTime                gs_break_time
> GSCurrentThread            gs_current_thread
> GSDebugSet                 gs_debug_set
> NSAllocateObject           ns_allocate_object
> NSCopyObject               ns_copy_object
>
>
> Is my understanding correct ?

Well, the naming style is correct, but the functions you list are not part 
of the runtime library, they are base/foundation library functions.

> Is this what I want ?

I'm not sure what you mean ... you have no choice about function names.

> Or should I just
> install gnustep-base and gcc-objc and leave it at that (along with
> gnustep-make) ?

Yes.

> Based on what folks have said here, I believe that as long as I have
> gcc (with objc support), gnustep-make, and gnustep-base, I should be
> just fine, yes ?

Yes ... the objc runtime library comes as part of gcc

> cheers,
>
>      mehul
>
> p.s. This seems to be only there on NetBSD, and not on Debian.  Using
>      the packing list to look for files in Debian packages turned up
>      nothing.  Also, a quick look around the GNUstep download area
>      doesn't mention gnustep-objc although it seems to have come from
>      GNUstep FTP site, as per the NetBSD Makefile

Debian has gcc and the gnustep packages ... the names the used are probabaly 
different from the NetBSD ones though.