[plug] Reading a horrible C file in PHP.

[Lance Duivenbode]

I'm not sure about your situation, but I have had to use C based CGI a few 
times in the last couple of months. Though I prefer PHP / Perl / Python, some 
environments don't always have an interpreter!

It is a monumental pain though - especially with all that extra checking you 
have to do to ensure you don't have buffer overflows etc. Not to mention 
debugging :(

Lance

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006 02:09 pm, Shayne O'Neill wrote:
> Aye. Problem is, I don't have the luxury to change the damn C cgi's, and
> ultimately all I really do have the luxury of is running some php
>
> Things took a twist for the more interesting today when I built a swig
> wrapper for the c cgi (its shockingly easy, you just copy the apropriate
> .h bits into the .i file, swig -python blah.i gcc <all your stuff and
> the wrapper> ld <all the resulting stuff> and load it in python, and as
> it pans out the c source I have doesn't actually work with the .dat
> files. Doh.
>
> I still can not fathom why anyone would use C to write a web app
> anymore. Segfault hell!
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On
> Behalf Of Lance Duivenbode
> Sent: Tuesday, 8 August 2006 9:48 AM
> To: plug at plug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [plug] Reading a horrible C file in PHP.
>
> Alternatively you could just write a custom PHP extension. I have done
> this in the past and while it's not simple, I wouldn't say it's overly
> difficult if you've got some C experience. The only problem would be
> trying to convince the hosting company to let you use it.
>
> In terms of simplicity, I'm with Kirk on this one. Converting to some
> other format (CSV,XML, etc) is probably the most time efficient and
> effective way to do things.
>
> Lance
>
> On Mon, 7 Aug 2006 06:05 pm, Shayne O'Neill wrote:
> > I have infact been eyeing off writing a swig wrapper for the function
> > (I've done a fair bit with python and swig), but honestly its goofy as
> >
> > hell, and I wonder whether it'd be kosher with the hosting company.
> >
> > Hmm. Must think thru.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On
> > Behalf Of Kirk Turner
> > Sent: Monday, 7 August 2006 4:49 PM
> > To: plug at plug.org.au
> > Subject: Re: [plug] Reading a horrible C file in PHP.
> >
> > On 8/7/06, Shayne O'Neill <shayneo at bestflights.com.au> wrote:
> > > Ok. I've been tasked to convert this horrible C cgi to php.
> > >
> > >
> > > The stupid thing reads in a data file like this;-
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > Nasty huh?
> >
> > Its not exactly a nasty way - as more an efficient way - unless as you
> >
> > have to read it in another language that doesn't support structs. Its
> > essentially just writing out memory for the struct directly in a form
> > of binary serialisation (you'll see this in many a C data function).
> >
> > However that said it should be fairly straight forward in the way it
> > is handled looking at it (and a hexdump -C should reveal some of this
>
> too).
>
> > It should look something like this:
> >
> > flightid - an int coming from 32 bytes (byte order and size will
> > depend on the platform) name - the next 256 bytes, you'll need to
> > search for the 0x00 byte (NULL, or \0 character) and termiate the
> > string there - how to convert it into a php string you'll have to work
> >
> > out, php is not my strong point.
> > price - next 128 bytes
> > description - next 65535 bytes
> > 50x depature struct following the same process
> >
> > and then repeat ad nauseum for each part.
> >
> > You might find it easier to convert the data in C itself into a format
> >
> > that is a bit more compatible with PHP (XML for example) or if you
> > need to have compatability between C and PHP write an extension in php
> >
> > to load it (there might already be one that converts structs to php
> > classes for example?)
> >
> > Kirk
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>
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