# TRAMPOLINE manual page

- Name
- Synopsis
- Description
- See also
- Bugs
- Porting
- Author
- Acknowledgements

## Name

trampoline - closures as first-class C functions

## Synopsis

    #include <trampoline.h>
    function = alloc_trampoline(address, variable, data);
    free_trampoline(function);
    is_trampoline(function)
    trampoline_address(function)
    trampoline_variable(function)
    trampoline_data(function)

## Description

These functions implement closures as first-class C functions. A closure consists of a regular C function and a piece of data which gets passed to the C function when the closure is called.

Closures as first-class C functions means that they fit into a function pointer and can be called exactly like any other C function. `function = alloc_trampoline(address, variable, data)` allocates a closure. When function gets called, it stores data in the variable variable and calls the C function at address. The function at address is responsible for fetching data out of variable immediately, before execution of any other function call.

This is much like gcc's local functions, except that the GNU C local functions have dynamic extent (i.e. are deallocated when the creating function returns), while trampoline provides functions with indefinite extent: `function` is only deallocated when `free_trampoline(function)` is called.

`is_trampoline(function)` checks whether the C function `function` was produced by a call to `alloc_trampoline`. If this returns true, the arguments given to `alloc_trampoline` can be retrieved:

- `trampoline_address(function)` returns address,
- `trampoline_variable(function)` returns variable,
- `trampoline_data(function)` returns data.

## See also

`gcc`(1), `varargs`(3), `callback`(3)

## Bugs

Passing the data through a global variable is not reentrant. Don't call trampoline functions from within signal handlers. This is fixed in the `callback`(3) package.

## Porting

The way gcc builds local functions is described in the gcc source, file `gcc-2.6.3/config/cpu/cpu.h`.

## Author

Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>

## Acknowledgements

Many ideas were cribbed from the gcc source.

Last modified: 25 October 1997.