Using D in Games and bindings to c++ libraries

[rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On 06/08/2016 10:53 PM, Neurone wrote:
> On Saturday, 6 August 2016 at 08:04:45 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>> On 06/08/2016 6:28 PM, Neurone wrote:
>>> On Saturday, 6 August 2016 at 04:01:03 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>>>> You can safely forget about RakNet by the looks.
>>>>
>>>> "While I still get some inquiries, as of as of March 13, 2015 I've
>>>> decided to stop licensing so I can focus on changing the world through
>>>> VR."
>>>>
>>>> So based upon this, what would you like to do? Scratch or another
>>>> pre-existing protocol like proto-buffers?
>>>
>>> It is a mature library, which has been open sourced under the BSD
>>> license when Oculus baught it. Hence why I want to use this instead of
>>> reinventing the wheel.
>>
>> They really need to update its old website then.
>>
>> I've had a look at the code, its mostly classes and is very c style.
>> You won't have trouble making bindings.
>>
>> The main steps if you want to give it a go are:
>> 1. Compile via MSVC (either 32 or 64bit are fine) can be static of
>> dynamic
>> 2. Compile D with -m32mscoff or -m64 and link against above binary
>>
>> You will almost definitely want to use 64bit binaries not 32bit if you
>> use dub.
>>
>> I know there is a D target for SWIG but I have never really used it.
>> But I do not believe you need any magical tool to do the binding
>> creation for you. The headers should convert over nicely as is for you.
>
> Do I use the DMD compiler? Also, would Dub not work with 64-bit
> executables? I still need to use 32-bit to support systems that aren't
> 64-bit yet.

Yes to dmd.

$ dub build --arch=x86_64

For 32bit I use a hack of a workaround to make it work recursively.

$ DFLAGS="-m32mscoff" ; dub build

Sadly this is not full proof or much help.

The reason why you must use -m32mscoff or -m64 is to use the COFF binary 
format as OMF (which is default for 32bit) will not link against any 
binaries produced by MSVC.

Of course if you can build it as a shared library and get an OMF import 
library you're good to go as well. But just easier to keep everything 
the same.

> Also, is it possible to use D like a traditional scripting language? The
> use case is adding content to the server (which may contain D scripts)
> without restarting it for a full recompile.

I would not attempt this. Its not worth your time or worry. Instead I 
would use D for infrastructure but Lua for logic that is likely to 
change often.