Janet 1.7.0-f7ee8bd Documentation
(Other Versions: 1.6.0 1.5.1 1.5.0 1.4.0 1.3.1)

Writing C Functions

The most common task in creating native extensions for Janet is writing functions in C that can be called from Janet. These functions, called C Functions, often follow a template to ensure consistent and safe behavior.

  1. Assert the arity. This prevents callers from calling the function with the wrong arity
  2. Extract arguments. This does type checking on arguments and unwraps Janet values into C values for processing.
  3. Function logic.
  4. Return value or panic

While not all C functions need to follow this pattern exactly, many functions can written in this manner, and the C API was designed with this use in mind. Most of the core's C functions were written in this style. Functions written like this will also give consistent error messages when called improperly, creating a better experience for users.

C Function Signature

All C Functions must conform to the JanetCFunction type defined in janet.h. argc is the number of arguments the function was called with, and argv is an array of arguments with length argc. Any API call that may re-size the stack can invalidate argv, so calls to janet_pcall, janet_call, janet_continue, and janet_fiber_* should happen after all arguments have been extracted from argv.

static Janet cfun_myfunc(int32_t argc, Janet *argv);

Asserting Arity

Janet comes with 2 arity-asserting API functions. These functions simply check the value of argc and provide helpful error messages if it is invalid.

void janet_arity(int32_t argc, int32_t min, int32_t max);
void janet_fixarity(int32_t argc, int32_t arity);

Use janet_arity to ensure that the arity is in a range between min and max, inclusive. A value of -1 for max will disable the maximum, allowing variadic arguments.

Functions that are single arity should use janet_fixarity, which is equivalent to janet_arity(argc, arity, arity), but provides a slightly nicer error message.

Extracting Arguments

For many wrappers, the most laborious task is safely converting Janet values into C types in a safe and flexible manner. We would like to verify that all arguments are of the correct type, and only then unwrap them and assign them to C variables. The C API provides a number of utility functions that both typecheck and unwrap values in one operation, making this boilerplate a bit more natural.

These utility functions will have the signature type janet_get##type(const Janet *argv, int32_t n), and extract the nth argument passed to argv while asserting the argument is a compatible type and converting it for you. If the argument is the wrong type, a descriptive error will be raised, indicating a type error in the nth argument. These functions will not bounds check the argv array, so be sure to check your arity before calling these functions.

Getter functions

double janet_getnumber(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetArray *janet_getarray(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
const Janet *janet_gettuple(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetTable *janet_gettable(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
const JanetKV *janet_getstruct(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
const uint8_t *janet_getstring(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
const char *janet_getcstring(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
const uint8_t *janet_getsymbol(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
const uint8_t *janet_getkeyword(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetBuffer *janet_getbuffer(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetFiber *janet_getfiber(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetFunction *janet_getfunction(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetCFunction janet_getcfunction(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
int janet_getboolean(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
void *janet_getpointer(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);

int32_t janet_getnat(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
int32_t janet_getinteger(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
int64_t janet_getinteger64(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
size_t janet_getsize(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetView janet_getindexed(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetByteView janet_getbytes(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
JanetDictView janet_getdictionary(const Janet *argv, int32_t n);
void *janet_getabstract(const Janet *argv, int32_t n, const JanetAbstractType *at);
JanetRange janet_getslice(int32_t argc, const Janet *argv);
int32_t janet_gethalfrange(const Janet *argv, int32_t n, int32_t length, const char *which);
int32_t janet_getargindex(const Janet *argv, int32_t n, int32_t length, const char *which);
uint64_t janet_getflags(const Janet *argv, int32_t n, const char *flags);

Another common pattern is to allow nil for some arguments, and use a default value if nil or no value is provided. C Functions should try to be consistent with the idea that not providing an optional argument is the same as setting it to nil. API functions in the family type janet_opt##type(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, type dflt) work similar to the normal argument getter functions. Note that the signature is different as they take in the value of argc. These functions perform bounds checks on the argument array (assuming n >= 0), which is why they take in argc as a parameter.

double janet_optnumber(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, double dflt);
const Janet *janet_opttuple(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const Janet *dflt);
const JanetKV *janet_optstruct(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const JanetKV *dflt);
const uint8_t *janet_optstring(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const uint8_t *dflt);
const char *janet_optcstring(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const char *dflt);
const uint8_t *janet_optsymbol(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const uint8_t *dflt);
const uint8_t *janet_optkeyword(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const uint8_t *dflt);
JanetFiber *janet_optfiber(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, JanetFiber *dflt);
JanetFunction *janet_optfunction(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, JanetFunction *dflt);
JanetCFunction janet_optcfunction(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, JanetCFunction dflt);
int janet_optboolean(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int dflt);
void *janet_optpointer(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, void *dflt);
int32_t janet_optnat(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int32_t dflt);
int32_t janet_optinteger(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int32_t dflt);
int64_t janet_optinteger64(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int64_t dflt);
size_t janet_optsize(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, size_t dflt);
void *janet_optabstract(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, const JanetAbstractType *at, void *dflt);

/* Mutable optional types specify a size default, and
 * construct a new value if none is provided */
JanetBuffer *janet_optbuffer(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int32_t dflt_len);
JanetTable *janet_opttable(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int32_t dflt_len);
JanetArray *janet_optarray(const Janet *argv, int32_t argc, int32_t n, int32_t dflt_len);

Panicking

If at any point during execution of the C function an error is hit, you may want to abort execution and raise an error. Errors should not be expected to be frequent, but they should not segfault the program, leak memory, or invoke undefined behavior. The C API provides a few janet_panic functions that will abort execution and jump back to a specified error point (the last call to janet_continue).

void janet_panicv(Janet message);
void janet_panic(const char *message);
void janet_panics(const uint8_t *message);
void janet_panicf(const char *format, ...);

Use janet_panicf to create descriptive, formatted error messages for functions. The format string is much like that of printf, but takes different escape sequences to make printing errors with Janet values possible. In general, it is less flexible that printf as it is specialized for displaying Janet values. Also note that these formatters are different than those used by buffer/format and string/format inside Janet.

FormatterDescriptionType
%f print a double double
%d print an integer long
%S print a Janet string-like const uint8_t *
%s print a NULL-terminated C string const char *
%c print a char long
%q print a quoted Janet string-like const uint8_t *
%t print the type of a Janet value Janet
%T print a Janet type JanetType
%v print a Janet value with (describe x) Janet
%V print a Janet value with (tostring x) Janet
%p pretty print a Janet value Janet
%P pretty print a Janet value with color Janet

Scratch Memory

Panicking is implement with C's setjmp and longjmp, which means that resources are not cleaned up when a panic happens. To avoid leaking memory, stick to using Janet's data structures, which are garbage collected, or use Janet's scratch memory API to allocate memory. The scratch memory API exposes functions similar to malloc and free, but the memory will be automatically freed on the next garbage collection cycle if janet_sfree is not called.

void *janet_smalloc(size_t size);
void *janet_srealloc(void *mem, size_t size);
void janet_sfree(void *mem);

Example

/* Set a value in an array with an index that wraps around */
static Janet cfun_array_ringset(int32_t argc, Janet *argv) {

    /* Ensure 3 arguments */
    janet_fixarity(argc, 3);

    /* Extract arguments */
    JanetArray *array = janet_getarray(argv, 0);
    int64_t index = janet_getinteger64(argv, 1);
    if (index < 0) {
        janet_panicf("expected non-negative 64 bit integer, got %v",
            argv[1]);
    }

    /* Set array[index % count] = argv[2] */
    int64_t count64 = (int64_t) array->count;
    int64_t mod_index = index % count64;
    array->data[mod_index] = argv[2];

    /* Return the original array */
    return janet_wrap_array(array);
}