built in import c header files

[RazvanN]

https://forum.dlang.org/post/txdjmjkhradboqfmozlm@forum.dlang.org

On Tuesday, 6 October 2020 at 20:59:54 UTC, 12345swordy wrote:
> I remember reading a reddit comment saying that if d were to 
> import c header files directly without any 3rd party libraries 
> it would be a game changer. The question is: how difficult to 
> implement a C AST parser for the dmd front end?
>
>
> -Alex

As suggested by other participants to this thread, using libclang 
is the way to go. There really isn't any benefit in having a 
builtin C parser in dmd. Instead of working on this, I suggest to 
try to improve dpp as it is easy to install and use.

At UPB we have integrated a D driver in the linux kernel. 
Initially, we could not use dpp due to the complexity and oddity 
of the C code used in the kernel, so we translated the header 
files by hand: it was a nightmare. As Atila pointed out, there 
was an endless stream of dependencies. After the project was 
finished, we took on the responsibility to try to make dpp work 
with the linux kernel. We fixed tens of corner case and it looked 
like dpp could handle all of the cases, however we then stumbled 
upon a memory issue due to some bug in std.appender (used 
internally by dpp). Unfortunately, the student working on fixing 
dpp abandoned the project at that point, but we are very close to 
making dpp work with the linux kernel. If that works, I assure 
you that dpp will work in 99% of the cases.

Bottom line: it is better to improve dpp than to implement a C 
parser (when libclang already does that for you)

RazvanN