[Gambas-devel] Gambas Development

[Benoit Minisini]

On Wednesday 23 August 2006 21:58, Scott, Vince wrote:
> Thanks for the awesome reply. I am a BIG fan of Gambas and would like to
> contribute more to the cause as time goes on. I'm sure you have seen a few
> of my email of the past several months asking questions. I have been
> programming in VB since it was introduced in the early 90's. I also have a
> strong C background. I would really like to see a website created better
> directed at Gambas users...sharing code, ideas, componants etc. I would
> even be interested in helping put that together. If you guys get a version
> to replace VB in Windows you will forever have my attention!
>
> I would really like to build a componant for Gambas. Do you have any
> detailed instructions on building one. The documentation is very weak.
>
> Thanks,
> Vince
>
>

I said I will update the documentation about how to write a component, but I 
didn't take the time to do that yet... Sorry for that.

Quickly:

First you must know how works autoconf & automake. Not in the full details...

Then you can look in the source directory of one component to see how the 
files are organized.

Then you have to understand:

* How to write the 'configure.ac' file of your component that detects the 
libraries and include files you need for your component.

* How to write the 'Makefile.am' files that list the source files to compile, 
and the compiler/linker flags needed for that.

* How to declare in your code the classes, methods, events, constants, 
properties you have implemented in your component.

* How to write the C/C++ implementation functions of the methods and 
properties.

...and so on.

To do that, you must use the Gambas Interpreter API, which is a bunch of 
functions that you use for communicating with the interpreter from your 
component code. 

The include file of this API is "gambas.h". This API is documented in the 
wiki, but it is not up to date.

I think by looking at a simple component, like gb.vb, you will have a first 
sight of what to do.

Of course I will answer your questions!

Regards,

-- 
Benoit Minisini