[Swig-user] Same data structure, multiple modules

[Dustin J. M. <du...@zm...>]

I'm building a Perl interface to Amanda, and it's taking the form of a
collection of Perl modules, e.g., Amanda::Changer, Amanda::Device,
etc.  I've run into a bit of a problem with shared datatypes, though,
and I'd appreciate any pointers from folks who have solved this
before.

In more detail, the problem is that I have a struct, dumpfile_t, which
I would like to wrap with a Perl shadow class, but which is returned
from functions in more than one module.  For example,
Amanda::Device::seek_file returns a dumpfile_t *, as does
Amanda::Holding::get_dumpfile.  I'd like to be able to pass either of
these to functions in other modules expecting a dumpfile_t.

I can put the shadow class in a dedicated module (e.g.
Amanda::Datatypes::dumpfile_t) without much trouble.  The problem is
getting Amanda::Device and Amanda::Holding to bless their returned
objects with that class, and making sure that other modules will
recognize the resulting object as a dumpfile_t object for conversion
back to a C pointer.

Any advice?

Dustin

-- 
Storage Software Engineer
http://www.zmanda.com