I haven't used Inline::CPP or Inline::C for that matter.

Yes it can handle complex classes and data types.

What you are attempting to do is remotely possible, but it depends on what it is.

Asides from compiling this stuff and what not, you have to provide typemaps and wrapper functions to your legacy api, so you can access it from perl. This requires wrapping/translating perl data structures, into whatever your API takes.

I haven't done any of this, but you can find examples on the site.

Don't I sound convincing? ;)

Here's an example: Image::Filter::Blur draft

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