Janet 1.8.1-5b6b9f1 Documentation
(Other Versions: 1.7.0 1.6.0 1.5.1 1.5.0 1.4.0 1.3.1 )

Wrapping Types

Janet has several built-in fundamental data types. These data types are the bread and butter of the Janet C API, and most functions and macros in the API expect at least some of their arguments to be of these types. However, as Janet is a dynamically typed language, Janet internally uses a boxed representation of these types, simply called Janet.

Functions that are specific to a particular type expect the unboxed or unwrapped type, while operations that are generic to Janet values will typically expect a Janet. It is important to be able to convert between these two representations in order to interact with Janet from C.

Wrapping Functions

These functions convert a C type into a generic Janet value.

Janet janet_wrap_nil(void);
Janet janet_wrap_number(double x);
Janet janet_wrap_true(void);
Janet janet_wrap_false(void);
Janet janet_wrap_boolean(int x);
Janet janet_wrap_string(const uint8_t *x);
Janet janet_wrap_symbol(const uint8_t *x);
Janet janet_wrap_keyword(const uint8_t *x);
Janet janet_wrap_array(JanetArray *x);
Janet janet_wrap_tuple(const Janet *x);
Janet janet_wrap_struct(const JanetKV *x);
Janet janet_wrap_fiber(JanetFiber *x);
Janet janet_wrap_buffer(JanetBuffer *x);
Janet janet_wrap_function(JanetFunction *x);
Janet janet_wrap_cfunction(JanetCFunction x);
Janet janet_wrap_table(JanetTable *x);
Janet janet_wrap_abstract(void *x);
Janet janet_wrap_pointer(void *x);
Janet janet_wrap_integer(int32_t x);

Unwrapping Functions

These function convert from a Janet to a more specific C type. If the Janet being unwrapped is not actually the returned type, the behavior is undefined.

const JanetKV *janet_unwrap_struct(Janet x);
const Janet *janet_unwrap_tuple(Janet x);
JanetFiber *janet_unwrap_fiber(Janet x);
JanetArray *janet_unwrap_array(Janet x);
JanetTable *janet_unwrap_table(Janet x);
JanetBuffer *janet_unwrap_buffer(Janet x);
const uint8_t *janet_unwrap_string(Janet x);
const uint8_t *janet_unwrap_symbol(Janet x);
const uint8_t *janet_unwrap_keyword(Janet x);
void *janet_unwrap_abstract(Janet x);
void *janet_unwrap_pointer(Janet x);
JanetFunction *janet_unwrap_function(Janet x);
JanetCFunction janet_unwrap_cfunction(Janet x);
int janet_unwrap_boolean(Janet x);
double janet_unwrap_number(Janet x);
int32_t janet_unwrap_integer(Janet x);

Janet Types

Before unwrapping a Janet value, one should check the value is of the correct Janet type. Janet provides two macros for checking this, janet_checktype and janet_checktypes. These macros may be more efficient than the more obvious way of checking types via janet_type(x) == JANET_ARRAY, and so are preferred.

The enum JanetType represents the base type of a Janet value. There are are exactly 16 basic types.

typedef enum JanetType {
    JANET_NUMBER,
    JANET_NIL,
    JANET_BOOLEAN,
    JANET_FIBER,
    JANET_STRING,
    JANET_SYMBOL,
    JANET_KEYWORD,
    JANET_ARRAY,
    JANET_TUPLE,
    JANET_TABLE,
    JANET_STRUCT,
    JANET_BUFFER,
    JANET_FUNCTION,
    JANET_CFUNCTION,
    JANET_ABSTRACT,
    JANET_POINTER
} JanetType;

/* macro */
int janet_checktype(Janet x, JanetType type);

Checks the type x, and returns a non zero value if x is the correct type, and 0 otherwise. Usually, you will want to use this function before unwrapping a value.


/* macro */
int janet_checktypes(Janet x, int typeflags);

Similar to janet_checktype, but allows the programmer to check multiple types at once, in an efficient manner. typeflags should be a bit set of all of the types to check membership for. For example, to check if x is one of nil or a number, you would call

janet_checktypes(x, (1 << JANET_NIL) | (1 << JANET_NUMBER))

There are also several aliases so you don't need to do the shift yourself.

#define JANET_TFLAG_NIL (1 << JANET_NIL)
#define JANET_TFLAG_BOOLEAN (1 << JANET_BOOLEAN)
#define JANET_TFLAG_FIBER (1 << JANET_FIBER)
#define JANET_TFLAG_NUMBER (1 << JANET_NUMBER)
#define JANET_TFLAG_STRING (1 << JANET_STRING)
#define JANET_TFLAG_SYMBOL (1 << JANET_SYMBOL)
#define JANET_TFLAG_KEYWORD (1 << JANET_KEYWORD)
#define JANET_TFLAG_ARRAY (1 << JANET_ARRAY)
#define JANET_TFLAG_TUPLE (1 << JANET_TUPLE)
#define JANET_TFLAG_TABLE (1 << JANET_TABLE)
#define JANET_TFLAG_STRUCT (1 << JANET_STRUCT)
#define JANET_TFLAG_BUFFER (1 << JANET_BUFFER)
#define JANET_TFLAG_FUNCTION (1 << JANET_FUNCTION)
#define JANET_TFLAG_CFUNCTION (1 << JANET_CFUNCTION)
#define JANET_TFLAG_ABSTRACT (1 << JANET_ABSTRACT)
#define JANET_TFLAG_POINTER (1 << JANET_POINTER)

/* Some abstractions */
#define JANET_TFLAG_BYTES (JANET_TFLAG_STRING | JANET_TFLAG_SYMBOL | JANET_TFLAG_BUFFER | JANET_TFLAG_KEYWORD)
#define JANET_TFLAG_INDEXED (JANET_TFLAG_ARRAY | JANET_TFLAG_TUPLE)
#define JANET_TFLAG_DICTIONARY (JANET_TFLAG_TABLE | JANET_TFLAG_STRUCT)
#define JANET_TFLAG_LENGTHABLE (JANET_TFLAG_BYTES | JANET_TFLAG_INDEXED | JANET_TFLAG_DICTIONARY)
#define JANET_TFLAG_CALLABLE (JANET_TFLAG_FUNCTION | JANET_TFLAG_CFUNCTION | \
        JANET_TFLAG_LENGTHABLE | JANET_TFLAG_ABSTRACT)

The resulting call would look like:

janet_checktypes(x, JANET_TFLAG_NIL | JANET_TFLAG_NUMBER)

JANET_API JanetType janet_type(Janet x);

Returns the type of Janet value.