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

[Lionello Lunesu]

On 10/25/13, 18:22, John Colvin wrote:
> On Friday, 25 October 2013 at 13:26:33 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
>> On Friday, 25 October 2013 at 13:10:05 UTC, Lionello Lunesu wrote:
>>> There's a lot of expressiveness that can be added to D bindings, when
>>> compared to the C or C++ headers, for a particular library:
>>>
>>> 1. enum names vs prefixes
>>> enum FOO { FOO_A, FOO_B }; -> enum FOO {A,B}
>>>
>>> 2. enum vs int parameters (based on a lib's documentation)
>>> void takefoo(int) -> void takefoo(FOO)
>>>
>>> 3. "in" for input buffers (again, based on docs)
>>> int puts(char*) -> puts(in char*)
>>>
>>> 4. "out" or "ref" for output parameters
>>> void getdouble(double*) -> void getdouble(out double value)
>>>
>>> 5. D arrays vs length+pointer pairs
>>> void bar(size_t len, int* ptr) -> void bar(int[] a)
>>>
>>> 6. D array wrappers
>>> void bar(int* ptr, int size) ->
>>> void bar(int[] a) { bar(a.ptr, cast(int)a.length; }
>>>
>>> 6. library specific sized-int typedefs to D natives
>>> png_uint_16 -> short
>>>
>>>
>>> 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 would go for a two stage approach:
>>
>> 1) Write bindings that map as closely as possible to the C API, only
>> adding anything extra by necessity and/or where it is transparent in
>> correct usage.
>
> As an aside, I would suggest that function overloads that take arrays
> instead of pointer + length is normally a harmless addition to an
> otherwise 1:1 set of bindings.

Thanks for the feedback, but your last reasoning could be applied to the 
other points just as well :)

L.