I have just created bindings for libxlsxwriter, an c library for creating excel files.

Used the htod tool to do most of the work, and only had to adjust some things - mainly because libxlsxwriter uses data structures written in macro's.

Right now I am making a dub package and I would like to aim for convenience for end-users (read: me).

Therefor I decided to include the compiled static library inside the package. I only use Linux 64-bit myself, but this is obviously limiting for other people.

The other option I had was to include the whole c code, depend on gcc or clang, and have dub  (somehow) first build libxlsxwriter. But that seemed a bit too much...

Another option would be to require end-users to build libxlsxwriter themselves.

What do you guys recommend?

On 24/09/15 2:43 PM, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
> I have just created bindings for libxlsxwriter, an c library for
> creating excel files.
>
> Used the htod tool to do most of the work, and only had to adjust some
> things - mainly because libxlsxwriter uses data structures written in
> macro's.
>
> Right now I am making a dub package and I would like to aim for
> convenience for end-users (read: me).
>
> Therefor I decided to include the compiled static library inside the
> package. I only use Linux 64-bit myself, but this is obviously limiting
> for other people.
>
> The other option I had was to include the whole c code, depend on gcc or
> clang, and have dub  (somehow) first build libxlsxwriter. But that
> seemed a bit too much...
>
> Another option would be to require end-users to build libxlsxwriter
> themselves.
>
> What do you guys recommend?

Is libxlsxwriter available in the systems package manager?
If so, I would just link against that. Preferably the shared library.
Let e.g. Windows users figure theirs out.

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 04:17:14 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:
> Is libxlsxwriter available in the systems package manager?

Pacman says no.

> Let e.g. Windows users figure theirs out.

libxlsxwriter is not supported on windows. Which is kind-of funny.

On 24/09/15 5:51 PM, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
> On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 04:17:14 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:
>> Is libxlsxwriter available in the systems package manager?
>
> Pacman says no.
>
>> Let e.g. Windows users figure theirs out.
>
> libxlsxwriter is not supported on windows. Which is kind-of funny.

I've taken a look at it.
Why not just port it?

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 06:00:50 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:
> On 24/09/15 5:51 PM, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
>> On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 04:17:14 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:
>>> Is libxlsxwriter available in the systems package manager?
>>
>> Pacman says no.
>>
>>> Let e.g. Windows users figure theirs out.
>>
>> libxlsxwriter is not supported on windows. Which is kind-of funny.
>
> I've taken a look at it.
> Why not just port it?

Because I want to focus on the product I am building right now, not on side-projects.

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 06:21:02 UTC, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
> Because I want to focus on the product I am building right now, not on side-projects.

You could try including the c source in your repo and add preBuildCommands to the dub config which builds the static library. Alternatively you could use reggea to build both.

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 08:35:40 UTC, Edwin van Leeuwen wrote:
> Alternatively you could use reggea to build both.

I want to use dub.

Simply because of code.dlang.org. Or can reggae also pull packages from there?

> You could try including the c source in your repo and add preBuildCommands to the dub config which builds the static library.

preBuildCommands seems to be the way to go.

Thank you all.

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 06:21:02 UTC, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
> Because I want to focus on the product I am building right now, not on side-projects.

We should write a C to D converter. We have htod but I'm talking the whole source of it. That might be useful for times like this.

But I have other things to do too...

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 02:43:20 UTC, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
> I have just created bindings for libxlsxwriter, an c library for creating excel files.
>
> Used the htod tool to do most of the work, and only had to adjust some things - mainly because libxlsxwriter uses data structures written in macro's.
>
> Right now I am making a dub package and I would like to aim for convenience for end-users (read: me).
>
> Therefor I decided to include the compiled static library inside the package. I only use Linux 64-bit myself, but this is obviously limiting for other people.
>
> The other option I had was to include the whole c code, depend on gcc or clang, and have dub  (somehow) first build libxlsxwriter. But that seemed a bit too much...
>
> Another option would be to require end-users to build libxlsxwriter themselves.
>
> What do you guys recommend?

nice work!

worth a little blog post on the experience so others can be inspired by and benefit from yours?

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 11:38:08 UTC, Sebastiaan Koppe wrote:
> On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 08:35:40 UTC, Edwin van Leeuwen wrote:
>> Alternatively you could use reggea to build both.
>
> I want to use dub.
>
> Simply because of code.dlang.org. Or can reggae also pull packages from there?

Yes.

Atila