Calling conventions

[Mike]

Just an idea ... no feature request for D, but for the compiler :)

I've got a lot of calling conventions in my project now. The punks under  
these calling conventions are:

* MSVC's "thiscall"
(for talking to ASIO audio drivers)

... and the very strange ...

* extern (Pascal) with parameters defined in reverse order
(for talking to the graphics tablet under windows - I have no idea which  
compiler spits out binaries like these)

With duct tape and a swiss army knife it's all doable ... but it got me  
thinking: wouldn't it be nice to be able to define calling conventions via  
XML or so?

<convention name="myFunkyCallingConvention">
     <thisPtr>ECX</thisPtr>
     <return>EAX</return>
     <stackCleaner>callee</stackCleaner>
     <pushOrder>left-to-right</pushOrder>
     <align>4</align>
</convention>

It doesn't have to be XML of course. Just a little half-readable file with  
the definition which the compiler can use to generate the appropriate  
calling code. And if you need it, you can just pass it to DMD.  
DMD/DMC++ could come with a bunch of them pre-defined.

What do you think?

-Mike

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