How to interface c++ and perl using XS? – Artificial Intelligence

This is a school thing.

Here’s the problem:

We’re working on a Bomberman clone, and we have to implement a scripting interface, allowing the user to make his own “artificial intelligence”.
We chose to use Perl. Right now, I build the perl module like this:

Here are the files (test purpose):

SaibApi.xs:

#ifdef  __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
#include "EXTERN.h"
#include "perl.h"
#include "XSUB.h"
#ifdef  __cplusplus
}
#endif
#include "ppport.h"
#include "SaibApi.hpp"

MODULE = SaibApi                PACKAGE = SaibApi

SaibApi *
SaibApi::new()

void
SaibApi::DESTROY()

void
SaibApi::PrintLol()

void
SaibApi::PrintPvar()

void
SaibApi::setLol(int arg)

SaibApi.hpp

#ifndef         SAIBAPI_HPP_
# define        SAIBAPI_HPP_

#include <iostream>

class           SaibApi {
public:
 SaibApi() {}
 ~SaibApi() {}
 void          PrintLol() { std::cout << "loln"; }
 void          PrintPvar() { std::cout << _lol << "n"; }
 void          setLol(int arg) {_lol = arg;}
private:
 int           _lol;
};

#endif          /* !SAIBAPI_HPP_ */

Makefike.PL:

use 5.014002;
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;

my $CC =                'g++';

# See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for details of how to influence
# the contents of the Makefile that is written.
WriteMakefile(
 NAME              => 'SaibApi',
 VERSION_FROM      => 'lib/SaibApi.pm', # finds $VERSION  
 PREREQ_PM         => {}, # e.g., Module::Name => 1.1
 ($] >= 5.005 ?     ## Add these new keywords supported since 5.005
 (ABSTRACT_FROM  => 'lib/SaibApi.pm', # retrieve abstract from module 
  AUTHOR         => 'Arkeopix <arkeopix@>') : ()),
 LIBS              => [''], # e.g., '-lm' 
 DEFINE            => '', # e.g., '-DHAVE_SOMETHING'
 INC               => '-I.', # e.g., '-I. -I/usr/include/other'
       # Un-comment this if you add C files to link with later:   
       # OBJECT            => '$(O_FILES)', # link all the C files too 
 CC                => $CC,
 LD                => '$(CC)',
 XSOPT             => '-C++',
 TYPEMAPS          => ['perlobject.map'],
);

For clarity purpose, i excluded typemaps files.

The module is correctly built and i’m able to instantiate the SaibApi class in perl.
Now our problem is that there is apparently no way to instantiate the class in c++ and in perl at the same time. What we’re trying to do is to give the user a simple API, allowing to get objects from our C++ code (lots of std::list containing maps, players etc…) via simple methods.

eg:

#! /usr/bin/perl -w
#use SaibApi;

my $ai = new SaibApi();
my @map = ai->GetMap();
# some more code here...

We’ve made a lot of research but the documentation about XS is a bit scarce. We’re stuck right now. How one would instantiate the class in c++ and in perl at the same time, allowing to set _lol in the c++ part and print it in the perl part without having to use the SetLol() method ? And if not possible, what are the alternatives ?