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digitalmars.D - C source in Phobos

reply Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:
Hi.

I've been looking into rebuilding Phobos (mainly to try adding some
things to the GC), and I noticed a few C files thrown around.

Is there any reason why these files could not be rewritten in D?  I
imagine it would simplify rebuilding Phobos... I've already got three C
compilers on my system; I really don't want to have to add *another*
just to recompile one library :P

Being able to do "build phobos" would be awesome :)

	-- Daniel

P.S.  Out of interest, has anyone else looked at adding weak references
to D's GC?

-- 
Unlike Knuth, I have neither proven or tried the above; it may not even
make sense.

v2sw5+8Yhw5ln4+5pr6OFPma8u6+7Lw4Tm6+7l6+7D
i28a2Xs3MSr2e4/6+7t4TNSMb6HTOp5en5g6RAHCP  http://hackerkey.com/
Jun 11 2006
next sibling parent reply James Dunne <james.jdunne gmail.com> writes:
Daniel Keep wrote:

 Hi.
 
 I've been looking into rebuilding Phobos (mainly to try adding some
 things to the GC), and I noticed a few C files thrown around.
 
 Is there any reason why these files could not be rewritten in D?  I
 imagine it would simplify rebuilding Phobos... I've already got three C
 compilers on my system; I really don't want to have to add *another*
 just to recompile one library :P
 
 Being able to do "build phobos" would be awesome :)
 
 	-- Daniel
 
 P.S.  Out of interest, has anyone else looked at adding weak references
 to D's GC?
 


If you downloaded the DMD package correctly then you *already have* DMC 
on your machine since DMD doesn't run without DMC's support package.

Also, I agree with your post and that Phobos should be a single-language 
library.  Java's standard library is written in Java, .NET's standard 

C++'s standard library is (again I assume) written in C++.

-- 
Regards,
James Dunne
Jun 11 2006
parent Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:
Hurm... odd.  I appear to have only "kinda-installed" DMC; I didn't like
how it wanted to organise the files, so I moved them around a bit.
That, and I didn't see any reason to have a fourth copy of the standard
C include headers :P

Funny thing is now I can't find the damn zip file.  Oh well, I'll get it
again.

As for the one language thing, I agree that Phobos should be in one
language... but I think we might be stuck with "errno.c": the *actual*
expanded definition of errno was completely incompatible between MSVC's
headers, Cygwin's headers and MinGW's headers.  Yet another reason to
detest the C preprocessor :P


C/C++, since it doesn't have a way to directly call native code (which I

aren't self-hosting: their runtimes are written in native code for
performance reasons[1].  Yet another advantage we have over them ;)

	-- Daniel

[1] On the other hand, you should check out PyPy; it's Python
implemented in Python.  It's several orders of magnitude slower BUT it
has the interesting ability to output itself in other languages.  They
already have PyPy translating the Python interpreter from Python to C
and (I believe) one or two other languages.  Once in C, it's only a few
times slower :P

The cool thing with that is that it becomes easy to add weird new
features like transparent lazy evaluation, stackless support or a mark
and sweep GC; such changes would require large parts of the original C
interpreter to be rewritten.

James Dunne wrote:

 Daniel Keep wrote:

 Hi.

 I've been looking into rebuilding Phobos (mainly to try adding some
 things to the GC), and I noticed a few C files thrown around.

 Is there any reason why these files could not be rewritten in D?  I
 imagine it would simplify rebuilding Phobos... I've already got three C
 compilers on my system; I really don't want to have to add *another*
 just to recompile one library :P

 Being able to do "build phobos" would be awesome :)

     -- Daniel

 P.S.  Out of interest, has anyone else looked at adding weak references
 to D's GC?


 
 If you downloaded the DMD package correctly then you *already have* DMC
 on your machine since DMD doesn't run without DMC's support package.
 
 Also, I agree with your post and that Phobos should be a single-language
 library.  Java's standard library is written in Java, .NET's standard

 C++'s standard library is (again I assume) written in C++.
 


-- 
Unlike Knuth, I have neither proven or tried the above; it may not even
make sense.

v2sw5+8Yhw5ln4+5pr6OFPma8u6+7Lw4Tm6+7l6+7D
i28a2Xs3MSr2e4/6+7t4TNSMb6HTOp5en5g6RAHCP  http://hackerkey.com/
Jun 11 2006
prev sibling parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Daniel Keep wrote:

 Hi.
 
 I've been looking into rebuilding Phobos (mainly to try adding some
 things to the GC), and I noticed a few C files thrown around.
 
 Is there any reason why these files could not be rewritten in D?  I
 imagine it would simplify rebuilding Phobos... I've already got three C
 compilers on my system; I really don't want to have to add *another*
 just to recompile one library :P
 
 Being able to do "build phobos" would be awesome :)
 
 	-- Daniel
 
 P.S.  Out of interest, has anyone else looked at adding weak references
 to D's GC?
 



I've never really understood why some of those c files are there.  I've 
long wished for them to disappear.  It really degrades from the D 
library seeing the C source there.  I think Walter still harbors a 
sentimental attachment to the C heritage. :)


-JJR
Jun 12 2006