SWIG typedef recognition - swig

Question

I am trying too use my C++ class in PHP. in my C++ code I have declared the typedef as:
typedef unsigned char byte;
so I intended to let SWIG consider my typedef in wrapper class, my interface file is something like this:
%module xxx
typedef unsigned char byte;
%include "xxx.h"
....
%{
typedef unsigned char byte;
#include "xxx.h"
%}
and in my test code I refer to type as:
byte *data;
but I've got the following error:
Fatal error: Class 'unsigned_char' not found in xxx.php
P.S: I also include "stdint.i" in my interface file but got the same error
Any ideas?

Answer 1

I can confirm that the interface you've shown is viable and works for simple cases, e.g. I wrote the following header file to test:
byte *make() { return NULL; }
void consume(byte *data) {}
And used the interface:
%module xxx
typedef unsigned char byte;
%include "xxx.h"
%{
typedef unsigned char byte;
#include "xxx.h"
%}
Which I was able to compile and test with the following PHP:
<?php
include("xxx.php");
$r = xxx::make();
xxx::consume($r);
?>
and it worked as expected.
A few points to note from that though:
In general I would be inclined to write the code you want passed through to the module (i.e. the bits inside the %{ %} before your %include.
Rather than using your own typedef for byte I'd be inclined to use one of the standard int types, e.g. uint8_t
It's not clear from your question quite how you intend to use byte *data - presumably it's an array in which case you'll want to add a little more code to your interface. (Or better still use std::vector<byte> since it's C++):
%module xxx
%{
typedef unsigned char byte;
#include "xxx.h"
%}
%include <carrays.i>
%array_class(byte,ByteArray);
typedef unsigned char byte;
%include "xxx.h"
Which can then be used in PHP as:
$a = new ByteArray(100);
$a->setitem(0, 1);
$a->setitem(1, 2); //...
xxx::consume($a->cast());
ByteArray is a utility class provided by SWIG to hold and wrap a raw C array of bytes.