An even more modest proposal...

[Kyle Furlong]

James Dunne wrote:
> Thomas Kuehne wrote:
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>> Brad Roberts schrieb am 2006-05-16:
>>
>>> 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'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.
>>
>>
>> Ben, in case you don't have the resources I'd be interested to solve
>> Brad's challenge. As the scale of problems is definitely beyond spare 
>> time
>> development, this would have to be paid development.
>>
>> Thomas
>>
>>
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> 
> Nothing is beyond the scale of spare time development :)
> 

It just depends how long such a project is willing to sit in the queue! :-D

-- 
Kyle Furlong // Physics Undergrad, UCSB

"D is going wherever the D community wants it to go." - Walter Bright