5 Function and Macro Reference

allocate-foreign-object

Function

Summary

Allocates memory for an instance of a foreign object.

Package

fli

Signature

allocate-foreign-object &key type pointer-type initial-element initial-contents nelems => pointer

Arguments

type: An FLI type specifying the type of the object to be allocated. If type is supplied, pointer-type must not be supplied.
pointer-type: An FLI pointer type specifying the type of the pointer object to be allocated. If pointer-type is supplied, type must not be supplied.
initial-element: A keyword setting the initial value of every element in the newly allocated object to initial-element.
initial-contents: A list of forms which initialize the contents of each element in the newly allocated object.
nelems: An integer specifying how many copies of the object should be allocated. The default value is 1.

Values

pointer: A pointer to the specified type or pointer-type.

Description

The functionallocate-foreign-object allocates memory for a new instance of an object of type type or an instance of a pointer object of type pointer-type. Memory allocated in this manner must be explicitly freed usingfree-foreign-object once the object is no longer needed.

Example

In the following example a structure is defined and an instance with a specified initial value of 10 is created with memory allocated usingallocate-foreign-object. Thedereference function is then used to get the value thatpoint points to.

(fli:define-c-typedef LONG :long)

(setq point (fli:allocate-foreign-object
             :type 'LONG
             :initial-element 10))

(fli:dereference point)

See Also

allocate-dynamic-foreign-object
free-foreign-object