Re: [Vala] Vapi bindings and a weird C-pattern

[Al Thomas <astavale yahoo co uk>]

> From: Daniel Brendle <grindhold skarphed org>

> Sent: Sunday, 15 May 2016, 0:52
> Subject: [Vala] Vapi bindings and a weird C-pattern
>
> I want to write VAPI bindings for liborient [0].

For reference this is:
https://github.com/dam2k/liborient/blob/master/include/liborient/liborient.h



> A typical method-definition looks like this:> 
> long o_bin_dataclustercount(orientdb *o, orientdb_con *c, struct timeval
> *timeout, int nonblocking, short clusternumber);
>
> In Vala I'd like to use the lib like this:
> var handle = new OrientDB();
> var connection = handle.connect("foo","bar");
> connection.dataclustercount(sometimeval, 1, 1);

The only thing I could think of was connection being a nested class.
Similar to an iterator:
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/Tutorial#CA-da256d2dad8b53fad2ae12a6292bfe22240a3fb5

Not sure if this works with a VAPI, but I would like to know if it does.

> Under the given circumstances I have the feeling that the best thing one
> can achieve is something like this:
>
> var handle = new OrientDB();
> var connection = Connection.connect(handle, "foo", "bar")
> handle.dataclustercount(connection, sometimeval, 1, 1);
>
> Am I right? Is there any possibility to cover this C-Pattern?


That would be my understanding as well. 


> Second question: The library imports <sys/time.h> at some point and uses
> the timeval definition from in there in method signatures. How can i

> write equivalent Vala Types to write Vala signatures for them?

I believe timeval is Posix only, so you need:
http://valadoc.org/#!api=posix/Posix.timeval
Al