I want to send out a D library (.lib) I made to a friend.

With Java and Java's .jar files, he can link them right into his project and everything works.

With D Programming Language, do I have to make a "header" file to distribute with my D library?

If so, I thought D was supposed to get away from needing header files?

And if so, is there a way to automatically generate the tandem D "header" file for the distributed library?

Thanks,
--Eljay

"John Love-Jensen" <John_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dg4jri$27qq$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>I want to send out a D library (.lib) I made to a friend.
>
> With Java and Java's .jar files, he can link them right into his project
> and
> everything works.
>
> With D Programming Language, do I have to make a "header" file to
> distribute
> with my D library?

Yep.

> If so, I thought D was supposed to get away from needing header files?

There are several threads about this.  Some people are working on ways to implicity import functions, classes etc. from .lib files.

> And if so, is there a way to automatically generate the tandem D "header"
> file
> for the distributed library?

I think Derek Parnell is working on putting this functionality into his "build" utility.  I've also been meaning to make a tool to do just this (as I have run into the same problem), but I haven't had much time.

John Love-Jensen wrote:
> I want to send out a D library (.lib) I made to a friend.
> 
> With Java and Java's .jar files, he can link them right into his project and
> everything works.
> 
> With D Programming Language, do I have to make a "header" file to distribute
> with my D library?
> 
> If so, I thought D was supposed to get away from needing header files?
> 
> And if so, is there a way to automatically generate the tandem D "header" file
> for the distributed library?
> 
> Thanks,
> --Eljay
> 
> 

There has been a few topics reviewing the need for a headerless D in the digitalmars.d newsgroup.  You might like to have a look there.

Currently, you do need to provide an D "header" (aka stripped import module of your project source) with your D library (.lib).  I believe digc (see the undig project at dsource.org) does this sort of thing already.  Burton created digc as part of his dig project a few years ago.  I don't know if it still works now.

The reason you keep hearing about D's ability to operate headerlessly is because that feature used to be frequently advertised as a an advantage of the language.  The only problem is that such a feature is still absent from all current d tools, though technically feasible and certainly much anticipated by everyone here.

As of now, the project that shows the most promise in this area is Eric's DDL project over at dsource.org.  It looks like he's making tremendous headway.  Keep on eye on that one if your interested in seeing D gain a feature that may single handedly propel D into super-stardom status ;-).

-JJR

Hi John & Jarrett,

Thanks for the info!

I was concerned that I was missing something fundamental.

Great to hear there are several different strategies being tested to resolve the issue!

Sincerely,
--Eljay