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 - indeed, even DMC seems to (though they seem to be very out of date).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
More information about the Digitalmars-d
mailing list