Sharing memory with C, ref counting, best practises?

[Walter Bright]

On 4/25/2012 1:36 AM, Manu wrote:
> I just wanted to sample community opinion on some modern best practices for
> sharing memory with C code.
> What have people tried, what works well, what doesn't?
>
> I need to produce objects which C++ code will use, and D code may lose all
> references to this memory at times.
> My current intent is to use a foreign allocator supplied from C++, allocating in
> the C++ heap, then perhaps use reference counting to track the life of the
> objects, since the GC won't be so useful in this context.
> My objects lend themselves better to ref counting anyway I think.
>
> Just to double check, D has no intrinsic support for ref counted classes does
> it? Are there best practises/standard implementations I should follow?
>
> Some sick part of me considered using COM, since lots of C++ code already knows
> how to interface COM. Thoughts?
>
> I have pre-conceptions here, I'm just looking for options + opinions on what
> might be best.

I suggest using COM.