newbie -- how to build module?

[Alf P. Steinbach]

On 13.02.2012 13:50, David Nadlinger wrote:
> On 2/13/12 1:13 PM, Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
>> I am sure that if but the right mindset was brought to bear, the D
>> community and in particular those with some responsibility for the
>> toolset and language, could learn as much from my current 2 postings as
>> I am learning about the tools and language.
>>
>> Not to be artificially humble, that's not my style. ;-)
>
> Nobody doubts that feedback, especially from people new to the language,
> is important. And indeed, the first topic you started is perfectly
> appropriate here. However, for beginner questions like your second one,
> we have a separate newsgroup, digitalmars.D.learn. Don't forget that
> some people are subscribed just to dm.D via the mailing list interface
> to keep up to date with D development related things, and basic
> questions would only clutter their inbox.

OK, thanks, I'll try that.

However, by looking at the articles in the two groups I don't see much 
difference or clear trend towards this or that.

Are there group charters?


> And not to be artificially restrained, it's not likely that your
> question regarding import search paths will fundamentally affect the D
> module design, is it? :P

I don't know, but that's the beauty of the newbie perspective.

As a newbie one tries things and asks about things that a person more 
accustomed to The Usual Ways(TM) just discounts immediately without 
further reflection  --  missing out on the opportunities...

For example, I hope that some good nice person will add the enclosed 
module to the standard library, so that people accustomed to clean 
Windows API function names in C++, can have the same in D.


> Anyway, as far as the compilation model goes, for everything search path
> and linker-related, a useful first-order approximation is just to think
> of it as C++. Each import search path (from dmd.conf/sc.ini or the -I
> command line switches, plus the working directory) is treated as
> possible root, and similar to »#include <foo/bar.h>«, »import foo.bar;«
> looks for a foo/bar.d file in any of the import directories.

That's what I did.

I've now additionally added the file to the Visual Studio project, and 
that worked.


> So, if you really want to extend druntime's core package (which you
> normally don't, unless you plan on submitting your additions back
> upstream), you would put your generated unicode_api.d in a
> core/sys/windows directory under one of the import search paths.

OK. So, since I don't know anything about how to "submit additions back 
upstream", I just enclose it here.

Could the right "upstream" person please grab hold of this and Do What 
Needs To Be Done(TM)?

I'm assuming that the need for this module or a module like this, is 
obvious with hindsight (given its existence now). Also, that the ease of 
accessing the OS API on the most common platform, impacts on the usage 
share of D. I'll be happy to explain further if desired.


Cheers, hth., & TIA.,

- Alf
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