An even more modest proposal...

Brad Roberts braddr at puremagic.com
Mon May 15 22:15:26 PDT 2006


On Tue, 16 May 2006, Ben Cooley wrote:

> Allow D to import a GCC-XML or an alternative xml file with the class hierarchy,
> structure layout, members, methods, and macros defined in a c or cpp header, and
> be able to access members, call non-inlined methods, or auto-generate a .cpp
> file with cpp code or functions for inline methods calls or template
> instantiations in D.
> 
> This would eliminate the need for D to be responsible for parsing Cpp, and
> directly provide the D with the information it needed to interoperate with
> existing C or Cpp libraries and code.  The responsibility of generating that
> file would be from an externally supported Cpp parser like GCC XML, Elsa, or
> Swig.
> 
> D = Cpp/CLI ....  XML = CLI.  That would be an apples to apples comparison.
> 
> How you generate that XML file is your problem.

I invite you to do it and show us that it's as easy and possible as you 
claim.  The problems are enormously technically complex, as quite a few 
people have said several times already.  It's incredibly unlikely that 
anyone is going to do this just because you want it done.

I could repeat a number of the already covered topics, but it's obvious 
you aren't willing to accept them.  Please, prove everyone wrong and get 
it working.

I'll even suggest a relatively low barrier to entry:  Show that you can 
call a c++ class (no inheritance involved) with an api that takes a 
std::string and throws that string back to the caller as an exception.  
The caller has to be able to catch that std::string.

Later,
Brad



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