Frequently asked questions about Eiffel

This page addresses some commonly asked questions about Eiffel and the ISE environment.

See also:

• For questions about abnormal behavior, the ISE Eiffel Support Page, including the Eiffel Knowledge Base.
• For examples of library usage, the examples page.

I don't quite understand how to use external C functions from Eiffel.

Read the technical note that explains everything there is to know about using external C functions.

Can I also use C++ classes from Eiffel?

Yes. See the technology paper that says it all about the C++ interface and the Legacy++ class wrapper.

What about calling Eiffel from C or C++?

CECIL (C-Eiffel Call-In Library) provides the needed facities. See the description in Eiffel: The Language and the on-line Cecil presentation, which includes downloadable examples (also available at ftp://ftp.eiffel.com/pub/examples/cecil).

Is there an EMACS mode for Eiffel?

Yes. Our FTP server has two files addressing this need. XEmacs distribution also contains a mode for Eiffel.

Does Eiffel support multi-threading?

Yes. ISE Eiffel has a powerful and flexible threading mechanism, applicable to the major threading models. See the presentation of the EiffelThreads library.

Is there a concurrency mechanism proposed for Eiffel?

Yes. An on-line technology paper presents the SCOOP mechanism. See also the extensive bibliography on other work on concurrency for Eiffel.

Is there any good reason why loop variants can only be integers?

Yes. This is explained in a short technical note which introduces some of the (simple) mathematical background.

If you have any interesting questions that you think would be useful additions to this page, then please email to webmaster@eiffel.com.