This is another set of binaries and universal libs for the experimental LDC iOS cross-compiler.  It is now based on LDC 0.16.1 (2.067.1) and LLVM 3.6.2.

https://github.com/smolt/ldc-iphone-dev/releases/tag/ios-0.16.1-151104

Feedback appreciated, especially since iOS support may get into official LDC sometime soon.  This is a good time to voice an opinion on the approach.

The release download ldc2-ios-0.16.1-151104-osx.tar.xz should have everything needed to run on an OS X build host in the same fashion as an LDC release.

Binary is named iphoneos-ldc2 so you can have both it and a native ldc2 in your PATH.  Usage of iphoneos-ldc2 is the same as ldc2 with the addition of clang style -arch option to select the iOS architecture to compile code for.  Valid -arch options are armv6, armv7, armv7s, arm64, X86_64, or i386 (armv6 is not included in the druntime/phobos universal libs however).

Xcode or similar is needed to link and bundle an iOS app.

Xcode is not D aware and a working plugin is needed.  In the meantime, xc-iphoneos-dc in the bin dir can be used as a custom *.d build script. Or you can compile D source externally and add your libraries/object files to an Xcode project.

If you want to build LDC and the libs yourself, instructions are at:

https://github.com/smolt/ldc-iphone-dev

It is not a quick build because druntime and phobos have to be compiled for five architectures (armv7, armv7s, arm64, i386, and x86_64).
-- 
Dan

Just a few more notes:

Dan Olson <gorox@comcast.net> writes:
> Feedback appreciated, especially since iOS support may get into official LDC sometime soon.  This is a good time to voice an opinion on the approach.

Just noticed that tvOS and watchOS are now present in LLVM, so I think support for these could be added to LDC soon too.

> Xcode is not D aware and a working plugin is needed.  In the meantime, xc-iphoneos-dc in the bin dir can be used as a custom *.d build script. Or you can compile D source externally and add your libraries/object files to an Xcode project.

An Xcode plugin for D is badly needed.  I think someone could get this one functioning: https://github.com/michelf/d-for-xcode

Great, your last announcement was linked in reddit comments about the 2.069 release, when asked about iOS support.

On Thursday, 5 November 2015 at 08:05:39 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
> Just noticed that tvOS and watchOS are now present in LLVM, so I think support for these could be added to LDC soon too.

WatchOS and tvOS are bitcode-only, right?  Have they specified their bitcode format yet or is it just whatever clang spits out?  I thought there were problems with that because of bitcode format changes over time and other platform issues, that the PNaCl guys had to work on solving.  I wonder if you'll have similar issues with the bitcode ldc spits out.

Joakim <dlang@joakim.fea.st> writes:

> Great, your last announcement was linked in reddit comments about the 2.069 release, when asked about iOS support.
>
> On Thursday, 5 November 2015 at 08:05:39 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
>> Just noticed that tvOS and watchOS are now present in LLVM, so I think support for these could be added to LDC soon too.
>
> WatchOS and tvOS are bitcode-only, right?  Have they specified their bitcode format yet or is it just whatever clang spits out?  I thought there were problems with that because of bitcode format changes over time and other platform issues, that the PNaCl guys had to work on solving.  I wonder if you'll have similar issues with the bitcode ldc spits out.

tvOS is essentially iOS and doesn't require bitcode (yet) like watchOS. I am looking at adding it soon because Xcode 7 enables it by default.

I don't totally appreciate all the possible bitcode problems, but one of the suggestions that apps can be updated for new CPUs without rebuilding doesn't make sense.  The IR/bitcode from clang for arm64 and armv7 is different.  They would have to make all the ABIs identical first or have LLVM backend do more of the ABI work.
-- 
Dan

On Thursday, 5 November 2015 at 15:45:35 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
> tvOS is essentially iOS and doesn't require bitcode (yet) like watchOS. I am looking at adding it soon because Xcode 7 enables it by default.

I just looked it up, their official docs say bitcode is required for both tvOS and watchOS:

https://developer.apple.com/library/watchos/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/AppThinning/AppThinning.html

> I don't totally appreciate all the possible bitcode problems, but one of the suggestions that apps can be updated for new CPUs without rebuilding doesn't make sense.  The IR/bitcode from clang for arm64 and armv7 is different.  They would have to make all the ABIs identical first or have LLVM backend do more of the ABI work.

Yeah, that's what google did with PNaCl, stabilize on one format and make it as architecture-agnostic as possible:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQyNTE

Maybe Apple doesn't really care about running on different architectures, but I wonder what they're doing to handle changes in the llvm bitcode format over time.

On Thursday, 5 November 2015 at 07:44:48 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
> This is another set of binaries and universal libs for the experimental LDC iOS cross-compiler.  It is now based on LDC 0.16.1 (2.067.1) and LLVM 3.6.2.
>
> https://github.com/smolt/ldc-iphone-dev/releases/tag/ios-0.16.1-151104

btw, std.internal.math.gammafunction hasn't given me a problem since 2.067.1, the Win64 guys fixed it.  2.068 added a function that needs a CTFE-able 64-bit log2, but other than that, it just works now.  You may want to revert your patch for that module and try it.

Joakim <dlang@joakim.fea.st> writes:
> btw, std.internal.math.gammafunction hasn't given me a problem since 2.067.1, the Win64 guys fixed it.  2.068 added a function that needs a CTFE-able 64-bit log2, but other than that, it just works now.  You may want to revert your patch for that module and try it.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.  It is the one remaining bad boy.

Dan Olson <gorox@comcast.net> writes:

> Joakim <dlang@joakim.fea.st> writes:
>> btw, std.internal.math.gammafunction hasn't given me a problem since 2.067.1, the Win64 guys fixed it.  2.068 added a function that needs a CTFE-able 64-bit log2, but other than that, it just works now.  You may want to revert your patch for that module and try it.
>
> Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.  It is the one remaining bad boy.

Still bad :-(

On Saturday, 7 November 2015 at 19:20:02 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
> Dan Olson <gorox@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Joakim <dlang@joakim.fea.st> writes:
>>> btw, std.internal.math.gammafunction hasn't given me a problem since 2.067.1, the Win64 guys fixed it.  2.068 added a function that needs a CTFE-able 64-bit log2, but other than that, it just works now.  You may want to revert your patch for that module and try it.
>>
>> Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.  It is the one remaining bad boy.
>
> Still bad :-(

Hmm, that's strange, this commit didn't fix the 64-bit issues for you?  I believe it fixed them for me on Android/ARM:

https://github.com/ldc-developers/phobos/commit/9d1b49578ffa4b2e848159cfe5afe80b5e4c26eb

Joakim <dlang@joakim.fea.st> writes:

> On Saturday, 7 November 2015 at 19:20:02 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
>> Dan Olson <gorox@comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>> Joakim <dlang@joakim.fea.st> writes:
>>>> btw, std.internal.math.gammafunction hasn't given me a problem since 2.067.1, the Win64 guys fixed it.  2.068 added a function that needs a CTFE-able 64-bit log2, but other than that, it just works now.  You may want to revert your patch for that module and try it.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.  It is the one remaining bad boy.
>>
>> Still bad :-(
>
> Hmm, that's strange, this commit didn't fix the 64-bit issues for you? I believe it fixed them for me on Android/ARM:
>
> https://github.com/ldc-developers/phobos/commit/9d1b49578ffa4b2e848159cfe5afe80b5e4c26eb

Yes, but there is still one case not working for both iOS armv7 and arm64 in 0.16.1.  It is only off by one ulp so I'll make a PR for that.

https://github.com/ldc-developers/phobos/blob/ldc/std/internal/math/gammafunction.d#L540

And then this new stuff in 2.068 is failing in various places.

https://github.com/ldc-developers/phobos/commit/9b86eebed53c800a58dfa7e065dcb9e11cdae5c5