Re: Powerloom API

On Dec 10, 2007, at 6:43 AM, Rera wrote:

> Be patient with me, I'm an absolute beginners in programming (with C 
> ++).
> What I need to load in my own code to use PowerLoom C++ functions?
> Which files have I to include?

Well, if you are an absolute beginner with C++, then I would  
recommend that you use the Java version of PowerLoom and do your  
programming in Java.  The interfacing methods and general programming  
will be a lot easier.

The PowerLoom developers do not develop directly in C++.  When we use  
C++, we do it through the use of our Stella language instead, so that  
makes things a bit tricky to describe the method manually, since I  
don't actually do anything that way.

A basic outline would be that you will need to make sure that you  
have the proper pathways set up for include files as well as  
libraries.  Note also that PowerLoom depends on use of the Boehm GC  
code for C++ (included with the Stella component).  For some idea of  
what those would need to look like, you can examine the Makefile that  
comes in the PowerLoom distribution.  It is quite complicated, but if  
you want to do your development in C++ you will need to be able to  
understand things along that line.  Since we don't actually develop  
using the C++ translation of our code, we don't have any instructions  
on how to set up an IDE to work with the code.

Some of the flags and settings are OS-specific.  Look for them in the  
Makefile.  As a starter, you can run make in the native/cpp/powerloom  
directory and examine the form of the compiler calls.  You will need  
to mimic that when creating the code that you will want to run.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but we just don't have instructions  
for what you want to do.

That's why I suggest going with Java.  The setup is much simpler with  
only the need to include the PowerLoom.jar file in the classpath.