Best way to use large C library in D as of 2024

[Lance Bachmeier]

On Friday, 12 April 2024 at 18:45:21 UTC, Chris Piker wrote:

> Even though DMD can't compile some C code, that's pretty much a 
> non-issue for me anyway.  In my environment the servers are all 
> Linux so "apt-get" (or equivalent) typically provides a 
> pre-compiled dependency.  Being able to list a package as a 
> system dependency and then just call it from D with no 
> interface code is a Big Freaking Deal!
>
> Compared to Python interfaces this is a huge improvement.  It 
> makes D an even better replacement for the mixed mode python + 
> C development I was doing before switching to D for new 
> projects.

I agree that it's really good, but the issues I listed were just 
examples of the things I came across, and I know there are a 
decent number of other open issues for ImportC. What I'd prefer 
to avoid is having people try it out and concluding that it's not 
ready. Kind of like when I tried out Zig. Everyone was saying 
it's this great language but my trial was brief and I haven't 
been tempted to try it since.

Header files are a different story. They really should "just 
work" based on my experience. Other things like compiling large 
libraries or translating C code to D should probably be more in 
the camp of "experience reports" posted on individual blogs, and 
they should talk about both the successes and the edge cases.