Language bindings: IOPy, TypeScript and Rust

Table of Contents

1. IOPy (Python)
2. TypeScript
3. Rust

This page is a quick orientation, not a full reference.

1. IOPy (Python)

IOPy is a Cython-based Python module that loads IOP DSO plugins and exposes their packages as Python classes, with full serialization and an IChannel RPC client and server:

import iopy

plugin = iopy.Plugin("/path/to/pkg-iop-plugin.so")
a      = plugin.mypkg.KeyFull(key="toto", aggrs=23)
ch     = plugin.connect("localhost:20001", _login="root", _password="1234")
res    = ch.mypkg_MyModule.myIface.myRpc(key="toto")

IOPy has its own reference: IOPy: the Python binding.

2. TypeScript

The TypeScript backend generates one .iop.ts module per package: plain interfaces and union types for static typing, plus *_Model Backbone classes registered by IOP fullname that load the package’s JSON description at module init and provide runtime packing and icQuery-based RPC calls. Consumption is therefore: import the generated module, type your data with the interfaces, and use the registered models for runtime interaction.

3. Rust

Rust support is emerging (the runtime module still marks itself work-in-progress) and comes in two parts.

Env context storage. The mutable part of the IOP environment — the context snapshot — is stored behind a lock-free ArcSwap in the libcommon-iop-arcswap crate. The C runtime calls into its FFI to acquire a snapshot, mutate a uniquely-owned copy and atomically install the new context; the iop_env_t struct itself stays plain C. This is what makes context snapshots cheap and thread-safe.

Consuming IOP from Rust. A crate binding a C library that exposes IOP types runs bindgen on the generated <pkg>.iop.h headers. The waf-cargo-build build-script helper then post-processes that output: it reads the @iop … annotations the C backend embeds in the headers and emits typed trait implementations onto the raw bindgen structs. The traits live in libcommon::iop (Base, Struct/CStruct, Union/CUnion, Enum/CEnum, plus a GenericStructUnion wrapper), which also provides Env/EnvCtx handles over iop_env_t and its snapshot.