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Translation Routines

The translation routines allow conversion of data between different data types and different host representations. See Section , Data Types and Host Representations, for more information on when and how to call these routines.

These routines all take a translation buffer as an argument. This is an opaque structure that is at least 12 integers (usually 48 bytes) long that will describe the translation. The internals of the buffer are unknown to the application; it is a private RTL data structure. One of five routines must be called first to set up this buffer. Then, x/ zvtrans can be called as often as necessary to perform the translation. You may have several translations available at once by using different translation buffers.

The first integer in the buffer is special. If it is NULL (0) after the setup routine has been called, then no translation is needed. x/ zvtrans will simply move the data in this case, but you can decide to forego calling x/ zvtrans if it would be more efficient. This first integer is the only item an application may look at in the translation buffer. Using any other knowledge about the internals of the buffer may cause your program to break in the future, as the structure may change without notice.

The translation routines are:

• x/ zvtrans: Translate data types and host representations.
• x/ zvtrans_in: Set up a translation buffer for input from a (potentially) foreign host.
• x/ zvtrans_inb: Set up a translation buffer for input from the binary labels of a file.
• x/ zvtrans_inu: Set up a translation buffer for input from a file.
• x/ zvtrans_out: Set up a translation buffer for output to a (potentially) foreign host.
• x/ zvtrans_set: Set up a translation buffer for native data type conversion.

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• x/ zvtrans
• x/ zvtrans_in
• x/ zvtrans_inb
• x/ zvtrans_inu
• x/ zvtrans_out
• x/ zvtrans_set