Excerpts from Stephen Bannasch's message of dom dic 13 05:23:50 +0100 2009:

> >I have a C++ function that takes a pointer to a buffer where the function stores a C-string.
> >
> >This is what I wrote and got working.
> >
> >  attach_function :GoIO_GetNthAvailableDeviceName, [:pointer, :int, :int, :int, :int], :int
> >
> >However if I use ffi-swig it generates a :string as the first parameter.
> >
> >  attach_function :GoIO_GetNthAvailableDeviceName, [ :string, :int, :int, :int, :int ], :int
> >
> >Is there anyway this could work? The function needs an address to a location to store a C-string.

> 
> 
> Looking more closely at ffi-swig it's type_spec.rb does expect:
> 
>   char *string;
> 
> to be turned into a :string.
> 
> I'm not much of a C programmer but is that correct? It seems in this case it
> should be a pointer.

Using char* rather than const char* for string it's not strictly incorrect 
IMHO. I'd say it's a bad practice so, in this case, the generator is 
favoring a bad practice. I was troubled about the behaviour to impose in 
cases like this since so many libraries I processed with the generator 
follow the bad practice. And I ended up with the conversion char* ->
:string.

That said, you need a different behaviour now so I should reconsider my 
choice. BTW, I'd like to read the opinion of the ML about this.

Cheers,
-- 
Andrea Fazzi @ alcacoop.it
Follow me on http://twitter.com/remogatto