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digitalmars.D.learn - Objective-C runtime: bindings are possible?

reply "Paolo Invernizzi" <paolo.invernizzi no.address> writes:
Hi all,

I'm wondering if it is possible to directly interface with the 
objective-c runtime, as I've read [1] and I have some random 
crashes in my code right now.

Someone can share some experience? I'm on 10.9...

Thanks,
Paolo

[1] http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=9931
Mar 11 2014
parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2014-03-11 16:12, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

 Hi all,

 I'm wondering if it is possible to directly interface with the
 objective-c runtime, as I've read [1] and I have some random crashes in
 my code right now.


Yes, it's possible since the Objective-C runtime is plain C functions. 
You need to show us some code to be able to help you.


 Someone can share some experience? I'm on 10.9...


To interface with Objective-C there are three options:

* Use the Objective-C runtime functions directly [1]
  + Works now, no language or library support is needed
  - Cumbersome
  - Verbose
  - Easy to make mistakes

* Use an Objective-C/D bridge [2]
  + Fairly simple to use
  - Bloat, both template and virtual method bloat. We're talking 60MB 
Hello World

* Extend the language to be ABI compatible [3, 4]
  + The compiler outputs the same code as the Objective-C compiler would
  + Easy to use (or as easy as using Objective-C would be, sometimes easier)
  - Requires language support

I tried all of these options and personally I think the third options is 
the best. As of a coincident I just finished (except for exceptions) 
porting D/Objective-C to 64bit.

[1] 
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ObjCRuntimeRef/Reference/reference.html

[2] http://www.dsource.org/projects/dstep
[3] http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP43
[4] https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dmd/tree/d-objc

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Mar 11 2014
parent "Paolo Invernizzi" <paolo.invernizzi no.address> writes:
On Tuesday, 11 March 2014 at 17:22:59 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2014-03-11 16:12, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

 Hi all,

 I'm wondering if it is possible to directly interface with the
 objective-c runtime, as I've read [1] and I have some random 
 crashes in
 my code right now.


 Yes, it's possible since the Objective-C runtime is plain C 
 functions. You need to show us some code to be able to help you.


 Someone can share some experience? I'm on 10.9...


 To interface with Objective-C there are three options:

 * Use the Objective-C runtime functions directly [1]
  + Works now, no language or library support is needed
  - Cumbersome
  - Verbose
  - Easy to make mistakes

 * Use an Objective-C/D bridge [2]
  + Fairly simple to use
  - Bloat, both template and virtual method bloat. We're talking 
 60MB Hello World

 * Extend the language to be ABI compatible [3, 4]
  + The compiler outputs the same code as the Objective-C 
 compiler would
  + Easy to use (or as easy as using Objective-C would be, 
 sometimes easier)
  - Requires language support

 I tried all of these options and personally I think the third 
 options is the best. As of a coincident I just finished (except 
 for exceptions) porting D/Objective-C to 64bit.

 [1] 
 https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ObjCRuntimeRef/Reference/reference.html

 [2] http://www.dsource.org/projects/dstep
 [3] http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP43
 [4] https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dmd/tree/d-objc


Hi Jacob,

Actually I'm using [1], that's why I was wandering about eventual 
problems related to objc_msgSend_stret.
But I think that now the plan is to tryout [3]: that's the most 
logical solution after all...

- Paolo
Mar 12 2014