Closed source D libraries

[Benjamin Thaut]

Am 15.07.2012 15:06, schrieb Gor Gyolchanyan:
> On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 4:33 PM, Henning Pohl <henning at still-hidden.de
> <mailto:henning at still-hidden.de>> wrote:
>
>     On Sunday, 15 July 2012 at 12:21:23 UTC, Gor Gyolchanyan wrote:
>
>         On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Henning Pohl
>         <henning at still-hidden.de <mailto:henning at still-hidden.de>>__wrote:
>
>             Most closed source C and C++ libraries provide headers and
>             binaries. It
>             seems to me that there is no way to do this in D, because
>             the source files
>             always have to be available to import their modules.
>
>             I'm not going to write something proprietary or closed
>             source, but i
>             wonder if others can do so.
>
>
>         It's quite possible. All you have to do is make a module, which
>         doesn't
>         contain any function bodies. The imported modules aren't
>         compiled with the
>         code. Most of the time it's easier to have a single module to
>         have both the
>         code to compile and symbols to import. In other cases they can
>         be separated.
>
>
>     Okay, so it works just like in C:
>
>     // The "header" file
>     module lib;
>
>     void printHelloWorld();
>
>
>     // The "source" file
>     module lib
>     import std.stdio;
>
>     void printHelloWorld() {
>           writeln("Hello world!");
>     }
>
>
> Exactly. Not defining a function body is perfectly fine for precisely
> these reasons. And, just like in C, forgetting to link with the missing
> body will result in a linker error.
>
> --
> Bye,
> Gor Gyolchanyan.

The compiler can even generate those files for using the -H option. It 
will generate .di files. Although any formatting will get lost during 
that process.

Kind Regards
Benjamin Thaut