Can Mercury be used to build an API?

[Peter Ludemann]

	[This was originally mailed to fjh at cs.mu.oz.au, but since it seems
	of general interest, I'm forwarding it to mercury-users.  -fjh.]

I'm casting about for a higher-level language for producing a library
... it needs to be C/C++-callable.  I looked through the Mercury
manuals and found hints about calling Mercury from C but couldn't
figure out the details.

So, can I easily create a C-callable API with Mercury?
It wouldn't be acceptable to do
       start_mercury();  call();  call();  stop_mercury();
but it would be OK to do
       obj = create_my_api_object();
         call(obj, ...);
         call(obj, ...);
       destroy_my_api_object(obj);

[Assuming that create_my_api_object can create the Mercury
environment; and assuming that I could have multiple Mercury
environments if necessary, and that they would have fairly small
"footprints".]

thanks,

----
Peter Ludemann		+1.415.813.6806  (fax: +1.415.813.7499)
Software Architect	ludemann at inxight.com
InXight Software, Inc.	http://www.inxight.com
PAHV 105, 3400 Hillview  Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304