[Proposal] Add module for C-strings support in Phobos

[Denis Shelomovskij]

20.03.2014 13:20, Rikki Cattermole пишет:
> On Thursday, 20 March 2014 at 08:24:30 UTC, Denis Shelomovskij wrote:
>> It's filed as enhancement 12418 [2]:
>>
>> C-strings processing is a special and common case so:
>> 1. C-strings should be supported with both performance and usability.
>> 2. There should be a dedicated module for C-strings (instead of adding
>> such functions here and there in other modules).
>>
>> Current state: there is no good support for C-strings in Phobos, there
>> is slow and broken `toStringz` (Issue 12417 [3]), and no standard way
>> to make many common operations, like converting returned C-string to
>> string and releasing its memory or creating a C-string from string
>> using an allocation function.
>>
>> So I propose to add `unstd.c.string` [1] module to Phobos which
>> include all use-cases I have seen implementing (correct and fast in
>> contrast to existing ones like GtkD (yes, it's both incorrect and slow
>> because of tons of GC allocations)) C library wrappers.
>>
>>
>> [1] http://denis-sh.bitbucket.org/unstandard/unstd.c.string.html
>> [2] https://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=12418
>> [3] https://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=12417
>
> Looks like it wouldn't be really useful with Windows API. Given that
> wstrings are more common there.

You misunderstand the terminology. C string is a zero-terminated string. 
Also looks like you didn't even go to docs page as the second example is 
WinAPI one.

> Another thing that would be nice to have is a wrapper struct for the
> pointer that allows accessing via e.g. opIndex and opSlice. Ext.
> Use case: Store the struct on D side to make sure GC doesn't clean it up
> and still be able to access and modify it like a normal string easily.

I don't understand the use-case. If you did implemented some C library 
wrappers and have a personal experience, I'd like to hear your opinion 
on C functions calling problem and your proposal to solve it, if you 
dislike mine. Also with examples, please, where my solution fails and 
your one rocks. )


-- 
Денис В. Шеломовский
Denis V. Shelomovskij