CHAPTER 10

Writing C Modules 

with Inline::C

I

NLINE

::C

1 PROVIDES

 a new way to write Perl modules with C. Instead of separating 

out the Perl and C parts of your module into different files, you can include them 

both in the same file. Instead of learning a new programming language (XS), you 

can create C functions in pure C. If this sounds pretty great, it is! My prediction is 

that the majority of new C modules will be written using Inline::C. It's easy, it 

works, and what more could you ask for?

Inline::C is essentially a compiler for XS. You give Inline::C some C code. Inline::C 

takes that code, parses it, and produces an XS wrapper to make that code callable 

from Perl. This XS code is written out to disk in a special temporary directory. Then 

Inline::C compiles the code using the normal XS tools: ExtUtils::MakeMaker, 

xsubpp, and your system's C compiler This compiled code is saved to disk and then 

loaded into memory.

Since the compiled code is saved to disk, it can be reused as long as the C code 

hasn't changed. This magic is accomplished by using Digest::MD5 to produce a 

fingerprint of your code. When that fingerprint is changed, the code is automatically 

recompiled the next time it's passed to Inline::C.

Inline::C Walkthrough

Here's a simple example script that uses Inline::C to print out  Just Another Perl 

Hacker :

#!/usr/bin/perl  w

use Inline C => <