Hello,
I'm playing with event loop libraries implemented in C (libev, libevent, etc... in my case libsystemd), but configuring them from Guile.
The qsort example in the documentation [1] seems safe because the qsort C function directly calls back, so the callback Scheme bindings stay referenced (by the Scheme code calling qsort) during all the C code execution.
Now, in C event loops the situation is different. There is one call to configure the event callback, in which the function and data pointers are lent to the loop; and then there is the main loop or the single iteration call.
The way I see it, suppose I add a timer. I call one C function passing a (proceudre->pointer) and an (scm->pointer). In a future time, those pointers will be used by the C event loop. If a garbage collection happens in the middle, the results of (procedure->pointer) and (scm->pointer) may have been reclaimed by the time the C event loop calls back.
However, I've tried forcing (gc) between the two steps mentioned and it looks to be working fine. I have also reviewed some of the code [2][3] and some additional weak references seem to be created.
I'll try a couple of combinations to see if I can "break" it, in order to learn the limitations of C calling Scheme within Guile. But if someone in the list has experienced with this already, I would very glad to read some advice about it.
Best regards.
References:
[2]
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/tree/libguile/foreign.c?h=stable-2.2#n185--
Isaac Jurado
"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding"
Leonardo da Vinci