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.TH swig 1 "19 Jun 2008" "swig 1.3.35" "User commands"

.SH NAME

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swig <options> filename

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.SH SYNOPSIS

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/usr/bin/swig -help   [ For commandline help ]

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.SH DESCRIPTION

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\fBswig\fR - The Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator (swig) is an open source code interface compiler that connects programs written in C and C++ with scripting languages such as Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl. It works by taking the declarations found in C/C++ header files and using them to generate the wrapper code that scripting languages need to access the underlying C/C++ code. In addition, SWIG provides a variety of customization features that let you tailor the wrapping process to suit your application.

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SWIG is used in a number of ways:

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Building more powerful C/C++ programs. Using SWIG, you can replace the main() function of a C program with a scripting interpreter from which you can control the application. This adds quite a lot of flexibility and makes the program "programmable." That is, the scripting interface allows users and developers to easily modifiy the behavior of the program without having to modify low-level C/C++ code. The benefits of this are numerous. In fact think of all of the large software packages that you use every day---nearly all of them include special a macro language, configuration language, or even a scripting engine that allows users to make customizations.

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Rapid prototyping and debugging. SWIG allows C/C++ programs to be placed in a scripting environment that can be used for testing and debugging. For example, you might test a library with a collection of scripts or use the scripting interpreter as an interactive debugger. Since SWIG requires no modifications to the underlying C/C++ code, it can be used even if the final product does not rely upon scripting.

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Systems integration. Scripting languages work fairly well for controlling and gluing loosely-coupled software components together. With SWIG, different C/C++ programs can be turned into scripting language extension modules. These modules can then be combined together to create new and interesting applications.

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Construction of scripting language extension modules. SWIG can be used to turn common C/C++ libraries into components for use in popular scripting languages. Of course, you will still want to make sure that no-one else has already created a module before doing this. 

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.SH "SEE ALSO"

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Installed documentation: /usr/share/swig/1.3.35/doc

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Additional online documentation in HTML and PDF formats for swig:

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User Manual: http://www.swig.org/Doc1.1/HTML/Contents.html

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Developer Doc: http://www.swig.org/Doc1.3/index.html 

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Quick start Tutorial: http://www.swig.org/tutorial.html

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SWIG WIKI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIG

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The Latest full source download: http://www.swig.org/download.html

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.SH AUTHOR

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\fBswig\fR was originally written by Dave Beazley, and is now maintained and developed by an team of developers see: http://www.swig.org/guilty.html.  Further details are available at \fIhttp://www.swig.org/index.html\fR.  swig is released under the \fIswig License\fR.

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