CWrap - higher abstraction level for calling C functions

[Denis Shelomovskij]

20.02.2012 19:34, Gour пишет:
> On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:02:49 +0400
> Denis Shelomovskij<verylonglogin.reg at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> Hello Denis,
>
>> D has complete (IMHO) compiler support for calling C functions (using
>> extern(C)). But there is a lack of library support.
>
> I'm glad you're working on (another) bindings tool being aware that it's
> not reasonable that D will cover all our library needs.
>
> Otoh, I'm also concerned that using just wrappers over C code would
> erode (potential) type-safety and advantage of using D in the first
> place. (In our app we envision to use wXD for GUI, need bindings for 3rd
> party C lib, using one of Sqlite3 wrappers...)
>
>> Once original function is properly described in IDL, CWrap gives the
>> fallowing advantages:
>
> If we eliminate htod which is Windows only and considering that manual
> wrapping is not very attractive option, along with your list which sound
> quite goo, my question is what would be some of pro/cons of CWrap in
> comparison with e.g. SWIG and it's D support as well as with dstep
> (https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dstep) if our main objective would be
> to keep some of D's advantages such as having higher-level (D-ish) API,
> exception handling (insted of error-checking), type-safety etc.
> available in our D bindings of C lib(s)?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour
>

OK, I'm here again. Jacob Carlborg is right - CWrap is a different tool 
so it's incorrect to compare it with SWIG/dstep. It's developed as a 
high performance backend for other tools or for manual wrapping a couple 
of functions, not for translating entire *.h files or creating class 
hierarchy.

Let's imagine there is no std.file, no std.windows.charset, and no 
std.windows.registry. Look at my WinAPI examples - it will be easier and 
more robust to write IDL descriptions by hands (because you should read 
specs for every WinAPI function at least once) and use generated 
wrappers than to write lots of boring code to converts strings/check 
errors. E.g. I did it already (CWrap WinAPI examples) and it wasn't too 
long compared with reading specs.

Or let's imagine one will have to finally revise Phobos to stop 
producing garbage and/or make D usable without GC. He will kill himself 
if he want to write optimal-performance garbage-less calls to WinAPI or 
will spend lot of time by writing non-optimal. Or he will just use CWrap 
generated code.