How do I interface D to a C library based on a DLL?

[torhu]

Christopher Grantham wrote:
> Hi,
>      I'm very new to D, I have worked with other typical languages 
> previously (C, C++, Java etc) and have some familiarity with .NET 
> (mainly Visual C++), I need to use a C API in the form of a DLL for my 
> uni work (research) and would like to try some experiments in D (I hate 
> VC++ - IJW & M$ interop be damned!), I have the interface (.h), .LIB and 
> .OBJ files as well as the DLL itself, but I'm not sure how to go about 
> using/Linking the API in D, I've used it in VS.NET (VC++) but want to 
> get away from it and use D if possible.
> The DLL is closed source/proprietary so I can only edit the interface; 
> I've read the 'Converting C .h files to D Modules' 
> (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/htomodule.html), 'Writing Win32 DLLs in 
> D'(http://www.digitalmars.com/d/dll.html), 'Converting C .h Files to D 
> Modules' (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/htomodule.html), and 'Interfacing 
> to C' (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/interfaceToC.html), however it isn't 
> clear from these articles (at least to a n00b like myself) how I can use 
> this C interfaced DLL in D code.
> So far I've tried converting the header to D (manually), which hasn't 
> worked (I get error: 138 data corruption), I think I should be able to 
> interface directly to the C code, but am not confident.
> If someone could assist/explain how to get D code working with a C 
> interface from a DLL, then I'd be most grateful.

It would be nice to know what you did when you got that error.  But in 
case you got it when trying to link with a lib file meant for a 
different linker, I'll explain how to get one that works with dmd.

Download:
ftp://ftp.digitalmars.com/bup.zip

In that zip, you'll find implib.exe.  It creates dmd-compatible import 
libs, based on DLL files.

implib /s thelib.lib thedll.dll

'thedll.lib' is the output, so move the lib file you've got somewhere 
else first.  Try linking with that file, if that's what you were doing.