Re: Yet Another XS Tutorial

Problems:

Your code won't always compile. PPCODE cannot start with variable declarations as it can be preceded by non-declarations.

PPCODE:
    int i;
    f();
[download]

should be

PREINIT:
    int i;
PPCODE:
    f();
[download]

PPCODE:
    {
        int i;
        f();
    }
[download]

Your snippets don't handle magical variables (e.g. $1, %ENV) except sometimes by chance. e.g.
```
say lengths1(substr("abc", 0, 1));  # 0
[download]
```
lengths1 uses SvLEN when it should be usingSvCUR. e.g.
```
say lengths1("abc");  # 16
[download]
```

Your snippets suffer from The Unicode bug. e.g. After fixing the above problems,

$_="\x{A0}";               say lengths1($_), "=", length($_);  # 1=1
$_="\x{A0}\x{2660}"; chop; say lengths1($_), "=", length($_);  # 2=1
[download]

lengths1 uses type-based polymorphism —something which should be avoided in Perl— and does it "poorly". e.g. After fixing the above problems,
```
say lengths1(456), "=", length(456);  # 0=3
[download]
```

Comment on Re: Yet Another XS Tutorial Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Yet Another XS Tutorial by cdybedahl (Acolyte) on Dec 14, 2013 at 11:34 UTC
As you may have seen from the introductory text, the whole text is written while learning XS. Given that, pointing out problems with it as "You have the florbleblitz problem" is not terribly useful. It would be far more useful if you could provide explanations of what the problem is, why it is a problem and ideally some hints on how to fix it. Or, of course, links to existing texts with such information. This goes extra much for anything to do with magic, since the documentation included with Perl on that subject explicitly says that it's obsolete and should not be used.	[reply]
Re^3: Yet Another XS Tutorial by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 24, 2013 at 16:09 UTC
It would be far more useful if you could provide explanations of what the problem is, why it is a problem Each problem came with code to demonstrates it. and ideally some hints on how to fix it. Magic: Use `SvGETMAGIC(sv)` before reading from an SV. Use `SvSETMAGIC(sv)` after writing to an SV. Unicode bug: Just like numbers can be stored in a scalar in a number of ways, so can strings. Accessing a string's buffer without determining how data is stored in it is a bug. (This pretty much rules out using `char *` in XS function prototypes.) If you expect bytes, `SvPVbyte` will get them. If you expect text, `SvPVutf8` will get it encoded using utf8.	[reply] [d/l] [select]