Should I use a binding instead of translated C? | Zig Programming Language | Page 1

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 2:43 AM

#

I prefer the translated C code instead of relying on bindings. Are there any reasons against using translated C instead of bindings?

stuck orchid Apr 2, 2023, 2:43 AM

#

translate-c is incomplete and won't work well for a lot of C code

#

It also won't work for C++ code, obviously

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 2:44 AM

#

Sorry i need some clarification

stuck orchid Apr 2, 2023, 2:44 AM

#

And even for the code it supposedly should support, there's occasionally bugs that means it won't work, or won't work correctly

#

There's also not really many advantages to using translate-c over just compiling the C code and binding to it. The only one I can think of is compilation speed, since the Zig compiler is often considerably faster than clang, but that's only really a one-time cost due to Zig's caching

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 2:45 AM

#

Are @cImport and translate-c pretty much the same thing?

stuck orchid Apr 2, 2023, 2:45 AM

#

Yes, cimport internally runs translate-c

#

It generates a small C file based on the expression passed to @cImport, then literally just calls zig translate-c on it and imports that

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 2:47 AM

#

Alright I might have some more questions. I'll be back later. Thanks for the information so far.

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 3:04 AM

#

@stuck orchid Hi are you still there?

stuck orchid Apr 2, 2023, 3:04 AM

#

hi

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 3:05 AM

#

I'd like to write my own bindings to get some experience. How would I do that?

stuck orchid Apr 2, 2023, 3:06 AM

#

You can either define all the extern fns etc yourself, manually translating from the C headers, or you can simply @cImport the headers and then write bindings around those

#

For the second option, normally you'd create opaques or extern structs for each of the relevant C types, and convert between them and the C versions using casts

#

Making those wrappers allows you to put instance functions on them, which makes for much nicer Zig APIs

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 3:07 AM

#

neat

#

What would an extern function look like.

#

ah alright something like extern fn my_func(a: i32, b: i32) i32;

#

but it would have the C calling convention?

#

No nevermind I am dumb.

exotic hinge Apr 2, 2023, 8:50 AM

#

You can specify the call convention with callConv, examples can be found here
https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#Functions

heavy geyser Apr 2, 2023, 9:16 AM

#

What about header-only libs?

exotic hinge Apr 2, 2023, 10:38 AM

#

You should still be able to compile those right?

trail onyx Apr 2, 2023, 11:53 AM

#

heavy geyser What about header-only libs?

header-only libs as in the ones that use the #define LIB_FOO_IMPLEMENTATION model have to have the API's functions defined by including the header file in a source file after the aforementioned macro def, which you compile; from there, you can either use translate-c, or manually translate the bindings yourself

#

header-only libs as in ones that are comprised of a bunch of static functions defined inline are unfriendly to translate-c, so kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place there

#Should I use a binding instead of translated C?