{#import [qualified] modid#}

Is translated into the same syntactic form in Haskell, which implies that it may be followed by an explicit import list. Moreover, it implies that the module modid is also generated by C➔Haskell and instructs the tool to read the file modid.chi.

If an explicit output file name is given (--output option), this name determines the basename for the .chi file of the currently translated module.

Currently, only pointer hooks generate information that is stored in a .chi file and needs to be incorporated into any client module that makes use of these pointer types. It is, however, regarded as good style to use import hooks for any module generated by C➔Haskell.

{#context [lib = lib] [prefix = prefix]#}

Context hooks define a set of global configuration options. Currently, there are two parameters which are both strings

Both parameters are optional. An example of a context hook is the following:

{#context prefix = "gtk"#}

If a binding module contains a binding hook, it must be the first hook in the module.

{#type ident#}

A type hooks maps a C type to a Haskell type. As an example, consider

type GInt = {#type gint#}

The type must be a defined type, primitive types, such as int, are not admissible.

{#sizeof ident#}

A sizeof hooks maps a C type to its size in bytes. As an example, consider

gIntSize :: Int
gIntSize  = {#sizeof gint#}

The type must be a defined type, primitive types, such as int, are not admissible. The size of primitive types can always be obtained using Storable.sizeOf.

{#enum cid [as hsid] {alias1 , ... , aliasn}
  [with prefix = pref] [deriving (clid1 , ... , clidn)]#}

Rewrite the C enumeration called cid into a Haskell data type declaration, which is made an instance of Enum such that the ordinals match those of the enumeration values in C. This takes explicit enumeration values in the C definitions into account. If hsid is given, this is the name of the Haskell data type. The identifiers clid1 to clidn are added to the deriving clause of the Haskell type.

By default, the names of the C enumeration are used for the constructors in Haskell. If alias1 is underscoreToCase, the original C names are capitalised and the use of underscores is rewritten to caps. If it is upcaseFirstLetter or downcaseFirstLetter, the first letter of the original C name changes case correspondingly. It is also possible to combine underscoreToCase with one of upcaseFirstLetter or downcaseFirstLetter. Moreover, alias1 to aliasn may be aliases of the form cid as hsid, which map individual C names to Haskell names. Instead of the global prefix introduced by a context hook, a local prefix pref can optionally be specified.

As an example, consider

{#enum WindowType {underscoreToCase} deriving (Eq)#}

Many C libraries do not use enum types, but macro definitions to implement constants. c2hs provides enum define hooks generate a haskell datatype from a collection of macro definitions.

{#enum define hsid {alias1 , ... , aliasn} [deriving (clid1 , ... , clidn)]#}

Create a haskell datatype hsid, with nullary constructors as given by the aliases alias1 through aliasn. Each alias has to be of the form macrodef as hsid, where hsid is the name of the nullary haskell constructor, and macrodef the C macro which the haskell constructor should map to. The deriving part is handled as in ordinary enum hooks.

Here's an example

#define X 0
#define Y 1

{#enum define Axis {X as Axis0, Y as Axis1} deriving (Eq,Ord) #}

{#call [pure] [unsafe] [interruptible] cid [as (hsid | ^)]#}

A call hook rewrites to a call to the C function cid and also ensures that the appropriate foreign import declaration is generated. The tags pure and unsafe specify that the external function is purely functional and cannot re-enter the Haskell runtime, respectively. The interruptible flag is intended to be used in conjunction with the InterruptibleFFI extension. If hsid is present, it is used as the identifier for the foreign declaration, which otherwise defaults to the cid. When instead of hsid, the symbol ^ is given, the cid after conversion from C's underscore notation to a capitalised identifier is used.

As an example, consider

sin :: Float -> Float
sin  = {#call pure sin as "_sin"#}

{#fun  [pure] [unsafe] [interruptible] cid [as (hsid | ^)]
[ctxt =>] { parm1 , ... , parmn } -> parm

Function hooks are call hooks including parameter marshalling. Thus, the components of a function hook up to and including the as alias are the same as for call hooks. However, an as alias has a different meaning; it specifies the name of the generated Haskell function. The remaining components use literals enclosed in backwards and foward single quotes (` and ') to denote Haskell code fragments (or more precisely, parts of the Haskell type signature for the bound function). The first one is the phrase ctxt preceding =>, which denotes the type context. This is followed by zero or more type and marshalling specifications parm1 to parmn for the function arguments and one parm for the function result. Each such specification parm has the form

[inmarsh [* | -]] hsty[&] [outmarsh [*] [-]]

where hsty is a Haskell code fragment denoting a Haskell type. The optional information to the left and right of this type determines the marshalling of the corresponding Haskell value to and from C; they are called the in and out marshaller, respectively.

Each marshalling specification parm corresponds to one or two arguments of the C function, in the order in which they are given. A marshalling specification in which the symbol & follows the Haskell type corresponds to two C function arguments; otherwise, it corresponds only to one argument. The parm following the left arrow -> determines the marshalling of the result of the C function and may not contain the symbol &.

The *- output marshal specification is for monadic actions that must be executed but whose results are discarded. This is very useful for e.g. checking an error value and throwing an exception if needed.

Both inmarsh and outmarsh are identifiers of Haskell marshalling functions. By default they are assumed to be pure functions; if they have to be executed in the IO monad, the function name needs to be followed by a star symbol *. Alternatively, the identifier may be followed by a minus sign -, in which case the Haskell type does not appear as an argument (in marshaller) or result (out marshaller) of the generated Haskell function. In other words, the argument types of the Haskell function is determined by the set of all marshalling specifications where the in marshaller is not followed by a minus sign. Conversely, the result tuple of the Haskell function is determined by the set of all marshalling specifications where the out marshaller is not followed by a minus sign. The order of function arguments and components in the result tuple is the same as the order in which the marshalling specifications are given, with the exception that the value of the result marshaller is always the first component in the result tuple if it is included at all.

For a set of commonly occuring Haskell and C type combinations, default marshallers are provided by C➔Haskell if no explicit marshaller is given. The out marshaller for function arguments is by default void-. The defaults for the in marshallers for function arguments are as follows:

The defaults for the out marshaller of the result are the converse of the above; i.e., instead of the with functions, the corresponding peek functions are used. Moreover, when the Haskell type is (), the default marshaller is void-.

As an example, consider

{#fun notebook_query_tab_label_packing as ^
  `(NotebookClass nb, WidgetClass cld)' => 
  {notebook `nb'                , 
   widget   `cld'               , 
   alloca-  `Bool'     peekBool*, 
   alloca-  `Bool'     peekBool*,
   alloca-  `PackType' peekEnum*} -> `()'#}

which results in the Haskell type signature

notebookQueryTabLabelPacking :: (NotebookClass nb, WidgetClass cld)
			     => nb -> cld -> IO (Bool, Bool, PackType)

which binds the following C function:

void gtk_notebook_query_tab_label_packing (GtkNotebook *notebook,
					   GtkWidget   *child,
					   gboolean    *expand,
					   gboolean    *fill,
					   GtkPackType *pack_type);

{#get apath#}

A get hook supports accessing a member value of a C structure. The hook itself yields a function that, when given the address of a structure of the right type, performs the structure access. The member that is to be extracted is specified by the access path apath. Access paths are formed as follows (following a subset of the C expression syntax):

For example, we may have

visualGetType              :: Visual -> IO VisualType
visualGetType (Visual vis)  = liftM cToEnum $ {#get Visual->type#} vis

{#set apath#}

Set hooks are formed in the same way as get hooks, but yield a function that assigns a value to a member of a C structure. These functions expect a pointer to the structure as the first and the value to be assigned as the second argument. For example, we may have

{#set sockaddr_in.sin_family#} addr_in (cFromEnum AF_NET)

{#pointer [*] cid [as hsid] [foreign | stable] [newtype | ->
hsid2] [nocode]#}

A pointer hook facilitates the mapping of C to Haskell pointer types. In particular, it enables the use of ForeignPtr and StablePtr types and defines type name translations for pointers to non-basic types. In general, such a hook establishes an association between the C type cid or *cid and the Haskell type hsid, where the latter defaults to cid if not explicitly given. The identifier cid will usually be a type name, but in the case of *cid may also be a struct, union, or enum tag. If both a type name and a tag of the same name are available, the type name takes precedence. Optionally, the Haskell representation of the pointer can be by a ForeignPtr or StablePtr instead of a plain Ptr. If the newtype tag is given, the Haskell type hsid is defined as a newtype rather than a transparent type synonym. In case of a newtype, the type argument to the Haskell pointer type will be hsid, which gives a cyclic definition, but the type argument is here really only used as a unique type tag. Without newtype, the default type argument is (), but another type can be specified after the symbol ->.

For example, we may have

{#pointer *GtkObject as Object newtype#}

This will generate a new type Object as follows:

newtype Object = Object (Ptr Object)

which enables exporting Object as an abstract type and facilitates type checking at call sites of imported functions using the encapsulated pointer. The latter is achieved by C➔Haskell as follows. The tool remembers the association of the C type *GtkObject with the Haskell type Object, and so, it generates for the C function

void gtk_unref_object (GtkObject *obj);

the import declaration

foreign import gtk_unref_object :: Object -> IO ()

This function can obviously only be applied to pointers of the right type, and thus, protects against the common mistake of confusing the order of pointer arguments in function calls.

However, as the Haskell FFI does not permit to directly pass ForeignPtrs to function calls or return them, the tool will use the type Ptr HsName in this case, where HsName is the Haskell name of the type. So, if we modify the above declaration to be

{#pointer *GtkObject as Object foreign newtype#}

the type Ptr Object will be used instead of a plain Object in import declarations; i.e., the previous import declaration will become

foreign import gtk_unref_object :: Ptr Object -> IO ()

To simplify the required marshalling code for such pointers, the tool automatically generates a function

withObject :: Object -> (Ptr Object -> IO a) -> IO a

As an example that does not represent the pointer as an abstract type, consider the C type declaration:

typedef struct {int x, y;} *point;

We can represent it in Haskell as

data Point = Point {x :: Int, y :: Int}
{#pointer point as PointPtr -> Point#}

which will translate to

data Point = Point {x :: Int, y :: Int}
type PointPtr = Ptr Point

and establish a type association between point and PointPtr.

If the keyword nocode is added to the end of a pointer hook, C➔Haskell will not emit a type declaration. This is useful when a C➔Haskell module wants to make use of an existing type declaration in a binding not generated by C➔Haskell (i.e., where there are no .chi files).

{#class [hsid1 =>] hsid2 hsid3#}

Class hooks facilitate the definition of a single inheritance class hierachy for external pointers including up and down cast functionality. This is meant to be used in cases where the objects referred to by the external pointers are order in such a hierachy in the external API - such structures are encountered in C libraries that provide an object-oriented interface. Each class hook rewrites to a class declaration and one or more instance declarations.

All classes in a hierarchy, except the root, will have a superclass identified by hsid1. The new class is given by hsid2 and the corresponding external pointer is identified by hsid3. Both the superclass and the pointer type must already have been defined by binding hooks that precede the class hook.

The pointers in a hierachy must either all be foreign pointers or all be normal pointers. Stable pointers are not allowed. Both pointer defined as newtypes and those defined by type synonyms may be used in class declarations and they may be mixed. In the case of synonyms, Haskell's usual restrictions regarding overlapping instance declarations apply.

The newly defined class has two members whose names are derived from the type name hsid3. The name of first member is derived from hsid3 by converting the first character to lower case. This function casts from any superclass to the current class. The name of the second member is derived by prefixing hsid3 with the from. It casts from the current class to any superclass. A class hook generates an instance for the pointer in the newly defined class as well as in all its superclasses.

As an example, consider

{#pointer *GtkObject newtype#}
{#class GtkObjectClass GtkObject#}

{#pointer *GtkWidget newtype#}
{#class GtkObjectClass => GtkWidgetClass GtkWidget#}

The second class hook generates an instance for GtkWidget for both the GtkWidgetClass as well as for the GtkObjectClass.

A Haskell binding module may include arbitrary C pre-processor directives using the standard C syntax. The directives are used in two ways: Firstly, they are included in the C header file generated by C➔Haskell in exactly the same order in which they appear in the binding module. Secondly, all conditional directives are honoured by C➔Haskell in that all Haskell binding code in alternatives that are discarded by the C pre-processor are also discarded by C➔Haskell. This latter feature is, for example, useful to maintain different bindings for multiple versions of the same C API in a single Haskell binding module.

In addition to C pre-processor directives, vanilla C code can be maintained in a Haskell binding module by bracketing this C code with the pseudo directives #c and #endc. Such inline C code is emitted into the C header generated by C➔Haskell at exactly the same position relative to CPP directives as it occurs in the binding module. Pre-processor directives may encompass the #include directive, which can be used instead of specifying a C header file as an argument to c2hs. In particular, this enables the simultaneous use of multiple header files without the need to provide a custom header file that binds them together. If a header file lib.h is specified as an argument to c2hs, the tool will emit the directive #include"lib.h" into the generated C header before any other CPP directive or inline C code.

As an artificial example of these features consider the following code:

#define VERSION 2

#if (VERSION == 1)
foo :: CInt -> CInt
foo = {#call pure fooC#}
#else
foo :: CInt -> CInt -> CInt
foo = {#call pure fooC#}
#endif

#c
int fooC (int, int);
#endc

One of two versions of the Haskell function foo (having different arities) is selected in dependence on the value of the CPP macro VERSION, which in this example is defined in the same file. In realistic code, VERSION would be defined in the header file supplied with the C library that is made accessible from Haskell by a binding module. The above code fragment also includes one line of inline C code that declares a C prototype for fooC.

The following grammar rules define the syntax of binding hooks:

hook     -> `{#' inner `#}'
inner    -> `import' ['qualified'] ident
          | `context' ctxt
          | `type' ident
          | `sizeof' ident
          | `enum' idalias trans [`with' prefix] [deriving]
          | `call' [`pure'] [`unsafe'] [`interruptible'] idalias
          | `fun' [`pure'] [`unsafe'] [`interruptible'] idalias parms
          | `get' apath
          | `set' apath
          | `pointer' ['*'] idalias ptrkind
          | `class' [ident `=>'] ident ident

ctxt     -> [`lib' `=' string] [prefix]
idalias  -> ident [(`as' ident | `^')]
prefix   -> `prefix' `=' string
deriving -> `deriving' `(' ident_1 `,' ... `,' ident_n `)'
parms    -> [verbhs `=>'] `{' parm_1 `,' ... `,' parm_n `}' `->' parm
parm     -> [ident_1 [`*' | `-']] verbhs [`&'] [ident_2 [`*'] [`-']]
apath    -> ident
          | `*' apath
          | apath `.' ident
          | apath `->' ident
trans    -> `{' alias_1 `,' ... `,' alias_n `}'
alias    -> `underscoreToCase' | `upcaseFirstLetter' | `downcaseFirstLetter'
          | ident `as' ident
ptrkind  -> [`foreign' | `stable'] ['newtype' | '->' ident]

Identifier ident follow the lexis of Haskell. They may be enclosed in single quotes to disambiguate them from C->Haskell keywords.