Calling blocks directly

Hello, 

I am trying to write a full-program optimizer for GNURadio flow graphs in C++. For this purpose, I need to call GNURadio blocks separately inside my program.

I have 2 questions:

1. How to directly feed a local vector input to a block? 
2. How can I set a local array as the output array of the used block?  

I would like to mention that I want to do this directly, without using GNU Radio specific functions such as connect(), because I will be using only certain blocks, whose operation I find useful for my application. 

Thank you in advance!

Andra