I'm starting a new project, and I plan on creating a C interface in case other languages want to use it. I remember reading something(but my googlefu is weak today) about having to initialize the runtime if you are using D inside another language. Can anyone confirm this is the case?

I just wanted to make sure I make that explicit for users if they don't want to use the library with D.

Thanks all!
   Jeremy

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 16:35:46 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:
> I'm starting a new project, and I plan on creating a C interface in case other languages want to use it. I remember reading something(but my googlefu is weak today) about having to initialize the runtime if you are using D inside another language. Can anyone confirm this is the case?
>
> I just wanted to make sure I make that explicit for users if they don't want to use the library with D.
>
> Thanks all!
>    Jeremy

Sorry if this isn't the most helpful answer but.. Do you have
Adam Ruppe's book?
On pg96, "Writing part of a C program in D" it sounds like he
does what you're asking.
I was gonna write more, but being I haven't tried it before, I
don't wanna start giving potentially false info
...I mean I could write more but it's probably a bad idea getting
help from me xD

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 16:35:46 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:
> I remember reading something(but my googlefu is weak today) about having to initialize the runtime if you are using D inside another language. Can anyone confirm this is the case?

Yeah, unless the main() is in D, you need to run initialization functions.

The way I recommend doing it is to write your own extern(C) MyLib_Init and MyLib_Term functions. Then have their implementations call the import core.runtime; Runtime.initialize()

http://dlang.org/phobos/core_runtime.html#initialize

This way, you can do other init stuff for your lib too without the user worrying about those details. Furthermore, having to call a library init function is somewhat normal for C libs, so the user shouldn't think much of it.

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 17:14:30 UTC, K.K. wrote:
> Sorry if this isn't the most helpful answer but.. Do you have
> Adam Ruppe's book?

buy my book too, and write amazon reviews :P

A lot of the topics in there were chosen because there are questions that come up somewhat often on this forum or the D chat room. I answer a lot of questions here too, but the book is cool too!

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 17:18:34 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 16:35:46 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:
>> I remember reading something(but my googlefu is weak today) about having to initialize the runtime if you are using D inside another language. Can anyone confirm this is the case?
>
> Yeah, unless the main() is in D, you need to run initialization functions.
>
> The way I recommend doing it is to write your own extern(C) MyLib_Init and MyLib_Term functions. Then have their implementations call the import core.runtime; Runtime.initialize()
>
> http://dlang.org/phobos/core_runtime.html#initialize
>
> This way, you can do other init stuff for your lib too without the user worrying about those details. Furthermore, having to call a library init function is somewhat normal for C libs, so the user shouldn't think much of it.

Just for completeness, here's an example for Googlers that come across this, taken from code I write all the time:

import core.runtime;

extern(C) {
  void R_init_libfoo() {
    Runtime.initialize();
  }
}

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 17:21:11 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 17:14:30 UTC, K.K. wrote:
>> Sorry if this isn't the most helpful answer but.. Do you have
>> Adam Ruppe's book?
>
> buy my book too, and write amazon reviews :P
>
> A lot of the topics in there were chosen because there are questions that come up somewhat often on this forum or the D chat room. I answer a lot of questions here too, but the book is cool too!

I actually do own it!

I just haven't had as much time as I would like to go through it.


Thanks for the answers everyone!