ooc libraries (.use files)

Installing ooc libs

Let’s say you want to install ooc-cairo:

There are several ways

• Either: copy the ooc-cairo directory to /usr/lib/ooc/ and you’re all set.
• Or: ln -s /path/to/ooc-cairo /usr/lib/ooc/ and you’re good.
• If you don’t want to put your libs in /usr/lib/ooc/, adjust the OOC_LIBS environment variable (in the /usr/bin/ooc launcher script, for example, or in /etc/environment, or in your Makefile, or..)

Example - gtk hello world

Let’s take a simple GTK hello world:

use gtk

import gtk/[Gtk, Window, Button]

main: func {
    Window new("Hi, world =)") setUSize(400, 200).
           connect("delete_event", exit).
           showAll()
    Gtk main()
}

exit: extern func

‘use gtk’ will instruct the ooc compiler to search for a file named ‘gtk.use’

Search paths

The standard search path is /usr/lib/ooc/, but can be adjusted by setting the OOC_LIBS environment variable

So in our case, let’s say we have installed ooc-gtk and ooc-gdk in /usr/lib/ooc/, the compiler will find gtk.use in /usr/lib/ooc/ooc-gtk, which is fine.

Content of a .use file

gtk.use contains something like:

Name: GTK+ 2.0
Version: head
Origin: git://github.com/nddrylliog/ooc-gtk.git
Description: GNU User interface Toolkit
Pkgs: gtk+-2.0
Includes: gtk/gtk.h, gdk/gdk.h
Requires: gdk
SourcePath: .

The format is very similar to .pc files from the pkg-config tool, but it serves a higher purpose =)

Valid directives in .use files

The Name and Description directives are merely for humans

Version contains the name of this specific version. This can be 0.1, or 2.12, or 3.7-alpha, or head. The head version makes clear that this usefile describes the bleeding-edge version of the package, usually located in a git repository.

The Origin directive lets us know how to get the sourcecode. This can be an ordinary url (http://myserver.com/packages/ooc-gtk.tar.gz, ftp://.../ooc-gtk.tar.gz) or a git:// url, usually for the head version.

The Pkgs directive defines which pkg-config package to use. This allows to portably define include paths, library paths (-I and -L for gcc) for libs with .pc files.

For libraries without .pc files, you can also use Libs, IncludePaths and LibPaths directives.

The Includes directive add ‘include’ statements automatically in file using the lib.

Requires allow to specify dependencies between libraries. Since ooc-gtk requires ooc-gdk, gtk.use has Requires: gdk, and then gdk.use will be found and used too!

The SourcePath directive allows to add directories to the sourcepath. For most libraries this will be ‘.’ or ‘source/’, relative to the location of the .use file. But you can also use absolute paths.

Lines starting with ‘#’ are comments. They are ignored.

Known issues / possible improvements

There should be some versioning support, both in the ‘Requires’ .use directive and the ‘use’ statement in ooc code, e.g. in gtk-helloworld.ooc:

use gtk >= 2.10

and in gtk.use:

Requires: gdk >= 2.10