I've finally gotten around to publishing the next article in my D and C series on the D blog. This is the second post about arrays, focusing on properly declaring in D functions from C that accept array parameters.

The blog:
https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/28/interfacing-d-with-c-arrays-and-functions-arrays-part-two/

Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/g9o3wi/interfacing_d_with_c_arrays_and_functions_arrays/

HN:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23007409

On 4/28/20 7:45 AM, Mike Parker wrote:
> I've finally gotten around to publishing the next article in my D and C series on the D blog. This is the second post about arrays, focusing on properly declaring in D functions from C that accept array parameters.
> 
> The blog:
> https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/28/interfacing-d-with-c-arrays-and-functions-arrays-part-two/ 

..

Another great article!

Nit: in the following paragraph, did you really mean to say *are*?

> But again, even D’s safety features are 100% foolproof when calling C functions from D.

On Tuesday, 28 April 2020 at 15:26:49 UTC, David Gileadi wrote:

> Another great article!
>
> Nit: in the following paragraph, did you really mean to say *are*?
>
>> But again, even D’s safety features are 100% foolproof when calling C functions from D.

Thanks and thanks!

On Tuesday, 28 April 2020 at 14:45:37 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> I've finally gotten around to publishing the next article in my D and C series on the D blog. This is the second post about arrays, focusing on properly declaring in D functions from C that accept array parameters.
>
> The blog:
> https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/28/interfacing-d-with-c-arrays-and-functions-arrays-part-two/
>
> Reddit:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/g9o3wi/interfacing_d_with_c_arrays_and_functions_arrays/
>
> HN:
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23007409

Great article as always!
Maybe this article and conversation revives the interest in a very much related area: array mangling still doesn't work for extern(C++).
Example:

---
extern(C++) void foo(int[] arr);
void main()
{
   foo([1, 2]);
}
---

// Internal Compiler Error: type int[] cannot be mapped to C++

There have been multiple attempts to fix this, the latest one is https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/8120.
Now, that dmd comes with the (experimental) -H flag for C++ header generation, maybe there's more interest in making D arrays/strings work seamlessly between D and C++?

On 4/28/20 10:45 AM, Mike Parker wrote:
> I've finally gotten around to publishing the next article in my D and C series on the D blog. This is the second post about arrays, focusing on properly declaring in D functions from C that accept array parameters.
> 
> The blog:
> https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/28/interfacing-d-with-c-arrays-and-functions-arrays-part-two/ 
> 
> 
> Reddit:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/g9o3wi/interfacing_d_with_c_arrays_and_functions_arrays/ 
> 
> 
> HN:
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23007409

Nice! I was ready to respond with what turns out to be the punchline here -- using ref ;)

That little bit of sorcery is an excellent trick that can make a world of difference when it comes to compiler-enforced correctness.

-Steve

On 4/28/2020 9:12 AM, Seb wrote:
> // Internal Compiler Error: type int[] cannot be mapped to C++
> 
> There have been multiple attempts to fix this, the latest one is https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/8120.
> Now, that dmd comes with the (experimental) -H flag for C++ header generation, maybe there's more interest in making D arrays/strings work seamlessly between D and C++?

They're never going to work seamlessly between D and C++ because C++ does not have a standard compatible type for it. We discussed this at length at DConf 2019.