What's up with the windows headers?

Jonathan M Davis jmdavisProg at gmx.com
Wed Dec 26 20:04:46 PST 2012


On Thursday, December 27, 2012 01:52:02 Stewart Gordon wrote:
> It seems common to bundle full Windows API headers with C(++) compilers
> - indeed, even DMC seems to (though they seem to be very out of date).
> So why not D compilers just as well?

The Windows headers should definitely be part of druntime just like the POSIX 
headers are. In theory, all of the system headers for any particular OS that 
druntime supports should be part of druntime. The main problem is that that 
takes time and effort, and that effort has not been made. It gets discussed from 
time to time, but it doesn't actually happen. Instead, everyone who needs the 
Windows headers just uses the Windows API project because it gives them what 
they need now. And until someone steps up to the plate and adds all of the 
appropriate headers to druntime (probably by porting them from the Windows API 
project), druntime won't have them.

As for the complaint about putting everything in a single file, there's no way 
that that's how it's ever going to be. core.sys.windows.windows is a mess that 
never should have existed, and I don't think that much of anyone is suggesting 
that all of the Windows declarations go in there. The POSIX stuff tries to put 
stuff in modules that correspond to the C header files, and the Windows stuff 
should do the same. And if I understand correctly, that's what the Windows API 
project does, which should make the transition easier. But there's still the 
issue of figuring out how to do that transition (like figuring out how to deal 
with versions and the like), and someone still has to do it.

- Jonathan M Davis


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