Re: [DotGNU]P/Invoking C++

[Peter Minten]

Hi folks,

here's a forwarded reaction on 'P/Invoking C++' I thought it might be
interesting.

> From: Peter Minten <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden (David Bradley)
> Subject: Re: [DotGNU]P/Invoking C++
> 
> On Friday 24 January 2003 23:37, you wrote:
> > Could you use a kind of IDL to describe the C++ functions. This would be
> > more work for the user, but might allow you to get around performance
> > penalties. This is what we do in Mozilla. I work on XPConnect which
> > bridges JS and C++/XPCOM. For the platform you'd have to have specific
> > knowledge of the C++'s compiler's calling convention.
> 
> We have SWIG as IDL (there is a C# SWIG patch under development which seems 
> quite promising).
> 
> > Invoking methods with simple data types is the easy part. Where you're
> > going to run into fun is when you start passing actual C++ and dotGNU
> > objects back and forth. Ideally you want to be able to wrap the objects
> > and have them appear transparently as C++ objects. That might be
> > possible if all the C++ objects exposed are purely dynamic. You might be
> > able to fudge up a marshaler of some kind.
> >
> > It would be much easier to support a dotGNU to COM bridge than native
> > C++. Has this been done already? I lurk on the list, but haven't kept up
> > much lately.
> 
> Not that I know. Is it ok if I forward this to the list? Some people there 
> might find this idea quite interesting.
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Peter