newbie -- how to build module?

[Alf P. Steinbach]

On 13.02.2012 10:33, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 2/12/2012 11:45 PM, Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
>> Anyway, I haven't yet started delving into the language documentation
>> or any
>> tutorials, just used gut-feeling, so I'd appreciate discussion of how
>> to make
>> this my first D console program less non-idiomatic <g>:
>>
>>
>> <code>
>> import std.stdio;
>> import std.ascii;
>> import std.string; // chop
>>
>> //import core.sys.windows.unicode_based_api; <-- DOES NOT WORK.
>
> There is no D import with the name unicode_based_api. Where does that
> name come from?

It's the name of the module generated by the program, just more clean 
aliases for the Unicode based Windows API functions  --  e.g., in C++ 
one would write `MessageBox`, not `MessageBoxW`, so I alias them.

By the way, I see that the list of functions provided by 
core.sys.windows.windows is rather short, covering a very small fraction 
of the API:

How would one go about extending that?


> For a console app that just reads and writes files, there shouldn't be a
> need to access the Windows API at all. The D runtime library does that
> for you.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

The Windows console is a pretty dirty thing, especially wrt. Unicode for 
the standard streams, so considering that Microsoft's own Visual C++ 
runtime doesn't get it right I doubt that the D runtime does. Yet. :-)

Anyway, testing the generated module involves first of all getting it to 
work as a module. I do not yet have the foggiest idea about how D 
building works, except compiling individual source files. I just thought 
it doesn't matter which program it's used from then, so I put the 
`import` in the generating program.


Cheers &

- Alf