[Ns-developers] Status of Python bindings

[craigdo@ee.washington.edu]

> >          - Function (return_type, name, args) -> Function (name,
> >         return_type,
> >         args). The same would hold for add_cpp_method, of course.
> > 
> > It occurred to me, since we're making API changes, would 
> this look to
> > strange to you:
> > 
> >     Function (name, args, return_type) 
> > 
> > This would allow me to make the return_type parameter 
> optional, which
> > would be equivalent to void, and so simplify considerably definition
> > of functions which do not return anything.  It would also make the
> > ordering more in line with UML method description, which are like:
> > 
> >    +methodName(parameters): return_type
> 
> I am a bit uneasy about this: C++ makes the definition of function
> _arguments_ optional (if none are defined, it is equivalent to 'void')
> but always requires the definition of the return type. So, 
> your proposal
> feels a bit awkward. Input from craig would be valuable.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

When I think of c++ bindings I think of taking a particular C++ function defined by a prototypical form and creating a function in
the target language that matches the c++ prototype in a way that makes sense in the target language.

This means that I think of it first from a c++-centric frame of mind (looking at the c++ function prototype) and then try and figure
out how it would look (in this case) in Python and generate the code to make it so.

So the declaration seems to me to be a statement of what the function prototype looks like in C++.  The return type is a required
part of the function prototype.  So I agree with Mathieu here  - in the declaration of the C++ function signature to your bindings
generator, you should have a required return_type just like your C++ function declaration has a required return type.

I would perhaps naively hope that the parameters in your declaration would appear in the same order as those in the C++ declaration.

  Function (return_type, name, {arg type, argument},  ...)

So I could just take a C++ declaration like,

  void funcname (T1 P1, T2 P2);

and almost mindlessly plug drop the pieces down into some Pythonic representation.

  DeclareFunction (void, funcname, {T1, P1}, {T2, P2})

-- Craig