• CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    Are you suggesting OP write a C application and then compile it as Rust? I’m not a pro, but that sounds kind of janky.

    • teolan@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m suggesting building a Rust library and exposing a C ABI. That’s what rsvg does for example.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        Oh. There’s a still Rust-y way to do this? Nevermind.

        OP wanted stability and predictability. I suppose we’ll see how entrenched one library can become.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          The Rustinomicon has a chapter on it. The basics are quite simple: Declare non-opaque types to use layout matching the C ABI, export/import functions, some wibbles around name mangling. Option<T> vs. null pointers. Where things get a bit more involved is unwinding, but then you’re at the end of it, nothing should be shocking to anyone having written C.

          As to how Rusty it is… not very. I mean Rust has first-class FFI support, but the way FFI stuff is written is necessarily unidiomatic because you’re basically writing C in Rust syntax and you won’t get out of declaring your own functions `unsafe’ before you read the rest of the Rustinomicon to understand what properties you need to ensure because the nice and shiny parts of Rust assume them.

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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            3 months ago

            Hmm. So I guess it comes down to what OP is doing. They either want to write a Rust library, or something that uses a Rust library that may not be standardised or even exist yet. If the latter, they should stick with C.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Writing C bindings to a Rust library is the easier scenario because you can rely on the safe code having nice and clean memory semantics.