D/Objective-C Preliminary Design

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2010-11-04 13:08, Michel Fortin wrote:
> On 2010-11-04 07:37:25 -0400, Kagamin <spam at here.lot> said:
>
>> Do you require explicit selector declaration? I'm afraid, this will
>> lead to a large duplication:
>>
>> extern (Objective-C)
>> class NSComboBox : NSTextField
>> {
>> private void* _dataSource;
>>
>> void insertItemWithObjectValue(ObjcObject object, NSInteger atIndex)
>> [insertItemWithObjectValue:atIndex:];
>> void insertItemWithObjectValue(ObjcObject object)
>> [insertItemWithObjectValue:];
>> }
>>
>> comboBox.insertItemWithObjectValue(val, idx); // [comboBox
>> insertItemWithObjectValue:val atIndex:idx]
>> comboBox.insertItemWithObjectValue(val); // [comboBox
>> insertItemWithObjectValue:val]
>>
>> compiler can build selector automatically from function signature.
>
> More or less. You need to specify the selector explicitly only if you
> need the function to have specific selector. Otherwise the compiler will
> generate one for you.
>
> The compiler-generated selector will ensure that function overloading
> works by adding the mangled parameter types. As an exception for
> @property setters, the compiler will convert function 'name' to selector
> 'setName:' which should make properties work with key-value coding. For
> @IBAction functions, it'll use directly the name of the function.
>
> So you should rarely have to specify the selector unless you're writing
> bindings to existing Objective-C objects. And, hopefully, creating
> bindings can be automated.

I already have a Ruby script/tool that automatically creates Objective-C 
bindings. But these bindings are not optimal (require some manual 
editing), it would also require to update the script for this syntax.

But now I've stared on a new tool based on Clang that creates 
Objective-C bindings and it's working A LOT better then the Ruby script. 
Having the tool based on a complete frontend is a HUGE improvement and 
makes the development processes easier.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg