Is there a way to export static data from a DLL written in D?

I'd like to write some extension DLLs for a program, but they need to have certain static data exports to be recognized. I've been able to export functions, but no data appears in the export table of the DLL.

In MSVC 6 I can do it as follows:
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) ModDesc DescBlock = { ... };


Another issue I had was with the name decoration. I need to be able to export an "InitProc". The closest I was able to get was "_InitProc" and "INITPROC". Is there a way to drop the leading underscore?

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:10 AM, Dan<Dan.R.Stevens@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a way to export static data from a DLL written in D?
>
> I'd like to write some extension DLLs for a program, but they need to have certain static data exports to be recognized. I've been able to export functions, but no data appears in the export table of the DLL.
>
> In MSVC 6 I can do it as follows:
> extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) ModDesc DescBlock = { ... };

extern(C) export ModDesc DescBlock = { ... };

>
> Another issue I had was with the name decoration. I need to be able to export an "InitProc". The closest I was able to get was "_InitProc" and "INITPROC". Is there a way to drop the leading underscore?

As far as I know, not within the language.  DMD for some reason thinks that all Windows functions are preceded by an underscore when that is clearly not the case.  You might be able to do something using a .def file (linker script), but I've only had experience linking external symbols in, not with exporting internal symbols.

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:10 AM, Dan<Dan.R.Stevens@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is there a way to export static data from a DLL written in D?
>>
>> I'd like to write some extension DLLs for a program, but they need to have certain static data exports to be recognized. I've been able to export functions, but no data appears in the export table of the DLL.
>>
>> In MSVC 6 I can do it as follows:
>> extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) ModDesc DescBlock = { ... };
> 
> extern(C) export ModDesc DescBlock = { ... };
> 
>> Another issue I had was with the name decoration. I need to be able to export an "InitProc". The closest I was able to get was "_InitProc" and "INITPROC". Is there a way to drop the leading underscore?
> 
> As far as I know, not within the language.  DMD for some reason thinks that all Windows functions are preceded by an underscore when that is clearly not the case.  You might be able to do something using a .def file (linker script), but I've only had experience linking external symbols in, not with exporting internal symbols.

Yeah just use a def file. This is start of def file I used to sort out a lib for opengl, put the name you want first and what you've got second

=========
; opengl32.dll has __stdcall functions but doesn't follow the std call
; name mangling convention. so we need to sort the mess out.

LIBRARY opengl32
EXETYPE NT
SUBSYSTEM WINDOWS
EXPORTS

_glAccum@8 = glAccum
=========

Use the def file with implib to create a client .lib.

> implib name.lib name.def

http://www.digitalmars.com/ctg/implib.html

- --
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http://www.ssTk.co.uk

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:01:48 -0400, Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:10 AM, Dan<Dan.R.Stevens@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another issue I had was with the name decoration. I need to be able to export an "InitProc". The closest I was able to get was "_InitProc" and "INITPROC". Is there a way to drop the leading underscore?
> 
> As far as I know, not within the language.  DMD for some reason thinks that all Windows functions are preceded by an underscore when that is clearly not the case.  You might be able to do something using a .def file (linker script), but I've only had experience linking external symbols in, not with exporting internal symbols.

All Windows functions are __stdcall, and that implies a name mangling scheme, _name@SizeOfArguments.  This is Microsoft's mangling scheme, it is respected in their .obj files and import libraries.  But they decided not to follow it in system DLL exported symbol names for some reason. You overcome this peculiar design decision with .def files both with Microsoft toolchain and with DMD.