-Appendix A. Creating a language binding for cairo

- While cairo is implemented and C, and has a C API, it is expected - that many users of cairo will be using it from languages other - than C. The glue that connects the core cairo library to another - language is known as a language - binding. This appendix attempts to collect together - issues that come up when creating a language bindings for cairo - and present standardized solutions to promote consistency among - the different language bindings. -

-General considerations

- The naming of the central cairo_t type is a - special exception. The object is “a cairo context” not “a - cairo”, and names such as cairo_t rather than - cairo_context_t and - cairo_set_source() rather than - cairo_context_set_source() are simply - abbreviations to make the C API more palatable. In languages - which have object-oriented syntax, this abbreviation is much - less useful. In fact, if ‘Cairo’ is used as a namespace, then - in many languages, you'd end up with a ridiculous type name - like ‘Cairo.Cairo’. For this reason, and for inter-language - consistency all object-oriented languages should name this - type as if it were cairo_context_t. -

- The punctuation and casing of the type names and - method names of cairo should be changed to match the general - convention of the language. In Java, where type names are written - in StudlyCaps and method names in javaCaps, cairo_font_extents_t - will become FontExtents and - cairo_set_source(cr,source), - cr.setSource(source). - As compared to changing the punctuation, and casing, much - more reluctance should be used in changing the method names - themselves. Even if get is usually omitted from getters in - your language, you shouldn't bind cairo_get_source() as - cr.source(). -