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Inline-API - How to bind a programming language to Perl using



    use Inline Foo;
    say_it('foo');  # Use Foo to print "Hello, Foo"

    foo-sub say_it {
        foo-my $foo = foo-shift;
        foo-print "Hello, $foo\n";


So you think Inline C is pretty cool, but what you really need is for Perl to work with the brand new programming language "Foo". Well you're in luck. has support for adding your own Inline Language Support Module (ILSM), like Inline::Foo.

Inline has always been intended to work with lots of different programming languages. Many of the details can be shared between implementations, so that Inline::Java has a similar interface to Inline::ASM. All of the common code is in

Language specific modules like Inline::Python are subclasses of They can inherit as much of the common behaviour as they want, and provide specific behaviour of their own. This usually comes in the form of Configuration Options and language specific compilation.

The Inline C support is probably the best boilerplate to copy from. Since version 0.30 all C support was isolated into the module Inline::C and the parsing grammar is further broken out into Inline::C::grammar. All of these components come with the Inline distribution.

This POD gives you all the details you need for implementing an ILSM. For further assistance, contact See "SEE ALSO" below.

We'll examine the joke language Inline::Foo which is distributed with Inline. It actually is a full functioning ILSM. I use it in Inline's test harness to test base Inline functionality. It is very short, and can help you get your head wrapped around the Inline API.

A Skeleton ^

For the remainder of this tutorial, let's assume we're writing an ILSM for the ficticious language Foo. We'll call it Inline::Foo. Here is the entire (working) implementation.

    package Inline::Foo;
    use strict;
    $Inline::Foo::VERSION = '0.01';
    @Inline::Foo::ISA = qw(Inline);
    require Inline;
    use Carp;

    # Register Foo as an Inline Language Support Module (ILSM)
    sub register {
        return {
            language => 'Foo',
            aliases => ['foo'],
            type => 'interpreted',
            suffix => 'foo',

    # Error messages
    sub usage_config {
        my ($key) = @_;
        "'$key' is not a valid config option for Inline::Foo\n";

    sub usage_config_bar {
        "Invalid value for Inline::Foo config option BAR";

    # Validate the Foo Config Options
    sub validate {
        my $o = shift;
        $o->{ILSM}{PATTERN} ||= 'foo-';
        $o->{ILSM}{BAR} ||= 0;
        while (@_) {
        my ($key, $value) = splice @_, 0, 2;
        if ($key eq 'PATTERN') {
            $o->{ILSM}{PATTERN} = $value;
        if ($key eq 'BAR') {
            croak usage_config_bar
              unless $value =~ /^[01]$/;
            $o->{ILSM}{BAR} = $value;
        croak usage_config($key);

    # Parse and compile Foo code
    sub build {
        my $o = shift;
        my $code = $o->{API}{code};
        my $pattern = $o->{ILSM}{PATTERN};
        $code =~ s/$pattern//g;
        $code =~ s/bar-//g if $o->{ILSM}{BAR};
        sleep 1;             # imitate compile delay
            package Foo::Tester;
            eval $code;
        croak "Foo build failed:\n$@" if $@;
        my $path = "$o->{API}{install_lib}/auto/$o->{API}{modpname}";
        my $obj = $o->{API}{location};
        $o->mkpath($path) unless -d $path;
        open FOO_OBJ, "> $obj"
          or croak "Can't open $obj for output\n$!";
        print FOO_OBJ $code;
        close \*FOO_OBJ;

    # Only needed for interpreted languages
    sub load {
        my $o = shift;
        open FOO_OBJ, "< $obj"
        my $code = join '', <FOO_OBJ>;
        close \*FOO_OBJ;
        eval "package $o->{API}{pkg};\n$code";
        croak "Unable to load Foo module $obj:\n$@" if $@;

    # Return a small report about the Foo code.
    sub info {
        my $o = shift;
        my $text = <<'END';
    This is a small report about the Foo code. Perhaps it contains
    information about the functions the parser found which will be
    bound to Perl. It will get included in the text produced by the
    Inline 'INFO' command.
        return $text;


Except for load(), the subroutines in this code are mandatory for an ILSM. What they do is described below. A few things to note:

  1. Inline::Foo must be a subclass of Inline. This is accomplished with:
  2. The line 'require Inline;' is not necessary. But it is there to remind you not to say 'use Inline;'. This will not work.
  3. Remember, it is not valid for a user to say:
        use Inline::Foo; will detect such usage for you in its import method, which is automatically inherited since Inline::Foo is a subclass.

  4. In the build function, you normally need to parse your source code. Inline::C uses Parse::RecDescent to do this. Inline::Foo simply uses eval. (After we strip out all occurances of 'foo-').

    An alternative parsing method that works well for many ILSMs (like Java and Python) is to use the language's compiler itself to parse for you. This works as long as the compiler can be made to give back parse information.

The Inline API ^

This section is a more formal specification of what functionality you'll need to provide to implement an ILSM.

When Inline determines that some Foo code needs to be compiled it will automatically load your ILSM module. It will then call various subroutines which you need to supply. We'll call these subroutines "callbacks".

You will need to provide the following 5 callback subroutines.

The register() Callback

This subroutine receives no arguments. It returns a reference to a hash of ILSM meta-data. Inline calls this routine only when it is trying to detect new ILSM-s that have been installed on a given system. Here is an example of the has ref you would return for Foo:

     language => 'Foo',
     aliases => ['foo'],
     type => 'interpreted',
     suffix => 'foo',

The meta-data items have the following meanings:


This is the proper name of the language. It is usually implemented as Inline::X for a given language 'X'.


This is a reference to an array of language name aliases. The proper name of a language can only contain word characters. [A-Za-z0-9_] An alias can contain any characters except whitespace and quotes. This is useful for names like 'C++' and 'C#'.


Must be set to 'compiled' or 'interpreted'. Indicates the category of the language.


This is the file extension for the cached object that will be created. For 'compiled' languages, it will probably be 'so' or 'dll'. The appropriate value is in

For interpreted languages, this value can be whatever you want. Python uses pydat. Foo uses foo.

The validate() Callback

This routine gets passed all configuration options that were not already handled by the base Inline module. The options are passed as key/value pairs. It is up to you to validate each option and store its value in the Inline object (which is also passed in). If a particular option is invalid, you should croak with an appropriate error message.

The build() Callback

This subroutine is responsible for doing the parsing and compilation of the Foo source code. The Inline object is passed as the only argument. All pertinent information will be stored in this object. build() is required to create a cache object of a specific name, or to croak with an appropriate error message.

This is the meat of your ILSM. Since it will most likely be quite complicated, it is probably best that you study an existing ILSM like Inline::C.

The load() Callback

This method only needs to be provided for interpreted languages. It's responsibility is to start the interpreter.

For compiled languages, the load routine from is called which uses DynaLoader to load the shared object or DLL.

The info() Callback

This method is called when the user makes use of the INFO shortcut. You should return a string containing a small report about the Inlined code.

The Inline Object ^ creates a hash based Perl object for each section of Inlined source code it receives. This object contains lots of information about the code, the environment, and the configuration options used.

This object is a hash that is broken into several subhashes. The only two subhashes that an ILSM should use at all are $o->{API} and $o->{ILSM}. The first one contains all of the information that Inline has gather for you in order for you to create/load a cached object of your design. The second one is a repository where your ILSM can freely store data that it might need later on.

This section will describe all of the Inline object "API" attributes.

The code Attribute

This the actual source code passed in by the user. It is stored as one long string.

The language Attribute

The proper name of the language being used.

The language_id Attribute

The language name specified by the user. Could be 'C++' instead of 'CPP'.

The module Attribute

This is the shared object's file name.

The modfname Attribute

This is the shared object's file name.

The modpname Attribute

This is the shared object's installation path extension.

The version Attribute

The version of being used.

The pkg Attribute

The Perl package from which this invocation pf Inline was called.

The install_lib Attribute

This is the directory to write the shared object into.

The build_dir Attribute

This is the directory under which you should write all of your build related files.

The script Attribute

This is the name of the script that invoked Inline.

The location Attribute

This is the full path name of the executable object in question.

The suffix Attribute

This is the shared library extension name. (Usually 'so' or 'dll').

The Inline Namespace ^ has been set up so that anyone can write their own language support modules. It further allows anyone to write a different implementation of an existing Inline language, like C for instance. You can distribute that module on the CPAN.

If you have plans to implement and distribute an Inline module, I would ask that you please work with the Inline community. We can be reached at the Inline mailing list: (Send mail to to subscribe). Here you should find the advice and assistance needed to make your module a success.

The Inline community will decide if your implementation of COBOL will be distributed as the official Inline::COBOL or should use an alternate namespace. In matters of dispute, I (Brian Ingerson) retain final authority. (and I hope not to need use of it :-) Actually retains the final authority.

But even if you want to work alone, you are free and welcome to write and distribute Inline language support modules on CPAN. You'll just need to distribute them under a different package name.


For generic information about Inline, see Inline.


For information on supported languages and platforms see Inline-Support.

Inline's mailing list is

To subscribe, send email to


Brian Ingerson <>


Copyright (c) 2000-2002. Brian Ingerson.

Copyright (c) 2008, 2010-2012. Sisyphus.



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