[sword-devel] Sword API Questions / Proposal >> flatapi.cpp / flatapi.h

[Simon J Mackenzie]

Thanks for the reply.
I used bcd.gen (source available from
http://www.dsource.org/projects/bcd) to generate a d interface to the
flatapi funcions in libsword.so.
Here is a sample of the flatapi.d interface/bindings.

===flatapi.d=======================================================
module sword.flatapi;

//-----------------------------------------------------------------
// stringlist_iterator methods

extern (C) void stringlist_iterator_next(int hsli);
extern (C) char* stringlist_iterator_val(int hsli);

//-----------------------------------------------------------------
// listkey_iterator methods

extern (C) void listkey_iterator_next(int lki);
extern (C) char* listkey_iterator_val(int lki);

//-----------------------------------------------------------------
// modmap methods

extern (C) void ModList_iterator_next(int hmmi);
extern (C) int ModList_iterator_val(int hmmi);

//-----------------------------------------------------------------
// SWMgr methods

extern (C) int SWMgr_new(char filterType);
extern (C) int SWMgr_newEx(int hiconfig, int hisysconfig, char autoload,
int hfilterMgr);

===Etc===
===flatapi.d=======================================================

To tidy things up I could also place a d class wrapper around these
calls to libsword.so.

Cheers
Simon

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 21:18:23 +1000, "Jonathan Morgan"
<jonmmorgan at gmail.com> said:
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Simon J Mackenzie <smackoz at fastmail.fm>
> wrote:
> > Appreciate the prompt reply!
> >
> > On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 17:13:46 +1000, "Ben Morgan" <benpmorgan at gmail.com> said:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Some answers below...
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 4:45 PM, Simon J Mackenzie <smackoz at fastmail.fm>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> I have been attempting to familiarise myself with flatapi.cpp/h for a
> >> small in house project but have come up with a few questions about the Sword
> >> API, particularly flatapi.cpp/h.
> >>
> >> 1) The function listkey_getVerselistIterator in flatapi currently accepts
> >> two parameters but I fail to see the difference / dissimilarity between the
> >> two parameters "char * list" and "char * key"? Could someone please point me
> >> in the right direction? Thank you.
> >
> > The list is the actual text you want parsed. The key is some form of
> > context. Thus a list of "6:1-12" and a key of "John 3:16" will give John
> > 6:1-12.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Thank you this all makes sense now.
> >>
> >> 2) Is there any reason why the function listkey_getVerselistIterator in
> >> flatapi.h does not accept a boolean flag for normalising a bible reference
> >> such as "John 6:1,12-16"?
> >> The current call to listkey_getVerselistIterator produces a "verses" array
> >> containing [John 6:1, John 6:12] and not [John 6:1, John 6:12, John 6:13,
> >> John 6:14, John 6:15, John 6:16] as would be expected.
> >
> > Currently the flatapi does not allow proper parsing of biblical references.
> > Even with your proposed change, it will not allow you to get at what you
> > want.
> > The listkey that is returned in the contains keys.
> >
> > Using the mod I proposed provides me enough to work with. An array of single
> > verse entries I can use to extract some biblical text.
> >
> > Each key is either a single verse (such as John 6:1)
> > or a contiguous range of verses (such as John 6:12-16)
> >
> > Thus under python you can do:
> >>>> lk=vk.ParseVerseList("John 6:1,12-16", "", True)
> >>>> lk.getElement(0).getRangeText()
> > 'John 6:1'
> >>>> lk.getElement(1).getRangeText()
> > 'John 6:12-John 6:16'
> >
> > However, the flatapi implementation uses getText, not getRangeText, so it
> > doesn't return the ranges. Updating it to do this should result in it
> > working. Note that the boolean flag you are wanting added controls whether
> > the ranges appear, or just the first verse in each range.
> >
> > However, I don't believe the flatapi bindings  are used at all, and are not
> > likely to be updated. They implement a very small portion of the bindings.
> > I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to do, but trying to do it using
> > one of the three methods below is likely to work much better:
> > a) Python with the swig bindings - this is the approach BPBible uses.
> > b) using c++ - like almost all Sword clients do
> > c) using java, with either JSword (like BibleDesktop) or the corba bindings
> > (as the web interface does (I believe))
> >
> > d) using the flatapi bindings with D programming language, see
> > www.digitalmars.com.
> >
> > For my joint managed congregarions here in Thailand I print the Lectionary
> > Readings for each Sunday. This is currently done manually and is time
> > comsuming and inefficient use of my time. In my spare time I've began
> > writing a small program in D to extract a set of Lectionary readings
> > (already working) for a given range of Sundays (tabulated text file of
> > Lectionary readings) and format the extracted Lectionary readings (working
> > on this now) for import into OOo Writer for final layout and printing with a
> > minimum of user intervention. This has also been an opportunity for me to
> > evaluate the D programming language for future projects (I used to be a
> > programmer in my former life) which has been an enoyable experience.
> >
> > As I was looking over the flatapi code I started thinking ahead and was
> > wondering what the status of this code was. Your comment confirmed that
> > flatapi.cpp/h is far from complete but it is sufficeint for the needs of my
> > current small project. What the future holds remains to be seen.
> 
> It seems likely that SWIG bindings will be better maintained than
> flatapi.  If your needs are simple, then flatapi is fine.  But you may
> want to consider moving to a SWIG based solution if your needs are
> likely to go beyond flatapi.  There appears to be some support for D
> and SWIG at http://www.wikiservice.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?DwithSwig, but
> of course I can't tell you whether it will actually work with Sword.
> If it does, then you will get a much greater coverage of the Sword
> API.
> 
> Jon
> 
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