C to D bindings: how much do you D-ify the code?

[Jakob Ovrum]

On Friday, 25 October 2013 at 13:10:05 UTC, Lionello Lunesu wrote:
> These are some of the more trivial ones, but I'd like to see 
> how other people go about making bindings. Do you keep as close 
> to C as possible? Or do you "add value" by using more D style 
> constructs?
>
> L.

I also think keeping the C bindings as faithful as possible is 
the best, correct even, approach. By keeping the C bindings 
faithful, one can defer to the existing documentation of the C 
library, and user code can be ported from C trivially.

In a good wrapper, the C bindings are present only because the 
second layer depends on them and for compatibility purposes, 
while the second layer - the idiomatic D interface - should cover 
all use cases. I've found that with D's expressive modelling 
power and metaprogramming capabilities, the second layer does not 
need to compromise on performance or functionality while 
providing a safer, more intuitive and more convenient interface.