<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><div class="">On Sep 8, 2015, at 12:55 AM, Eric Christopher via llvm-dev <<a href="mailto:llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org" class="">llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org</a>> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="">On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 5:37 PM Lang Hames <<a href="mailto:lhames@gmail.com" class="">lhames@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class="">Hi Jauhien,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A few people have requested a C API for ORC. I don't think ORC's ready for a stable C API, but I'm not opposed to providing C bindings that will probably be reasonably stable in practice (though with no guarantees). I've actually already knocked up some trivial prototype bindings for Hayden Livingston that could serve as a base (see attached).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The next question is where unstable bindings should live. Juergen, Eric, anyone else who wants to weigh in: I looked back over the C API thread, but I don't think we settled on a home for this kind of thing. Any thoughts? I could see either introducing a new include directory (something along the lines of include/llvm/llvm-c-bindings) or a new c-bindings project on <a href="http://llvm.org/" target="_blank" class="">llvm.org</a>. The former would put all LLVM developers on the hook for maintaining the bindings, the latter would leave maintenance to users of the bindings project, and any volunteers. I prefer the second option: I don't think core developers should be on the hook for maintaining unstable bindings - that kind of special treatment should be reserved for the stable API.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We hadn't figured out a location. I was the one that wanted to move stable to a new directory and Jim wanted to move unstable. I think either will work ultimately, just a matter of personal preference in the "when do we count restart".</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That said, as long as you put a comment at the top saying that the ORC bindings are unstable and put them in a new file I'm not opposed to just putting them in llvm-c for now. I also don't think I'm going to win the argument of "stable moves" so if you'd like to make a new unstable directory I'm perfectly happy with that direction too.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thoughts?</div></div></div></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div>+1 to putting it in llvm-c for now (but also for good).</div><div><br class=""></div><div>I really think the existing LLVM-C APIs should all be considered "reasonably stable in practice", not "absolutely 100% stable forever". "Reasonably stable in practice" means to me: if you need to remove a function, then, ok, do that. But make a reasonable effort to avoid doing so first, for users' sake. And don't change the ABI of existing functions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div>And thus, if ORC is at that level (probably is?), I think it should just go in there with all the rest of them.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>BTW, have a patch: <a href="http://reviews.llvm.org/D12685" class="">http://reviews.llvm.org/D12685</a> saying that in more words.</div></body></html>