Re: Moving CoreBase into Base

[David Chisnall]

On 16 Sep 2010, at 19:18, Stef Bidi wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Quentin Mathé <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> Would merging CoreBase into Base be ok or should we rather just import 
>> string.h in Foundation.h until the matter has been better discussed?
>  
> Whatever's decided, I just want to say I don't really care.  Some of CoreBase 
> depend heavily on the internal workings of Base and ends up having to 
> dublicate a few things here and there (just take a look in CFString.m).  On 
> the other hand, CoreBase is a completely different beast/library and I'm not 
> sure it belongs in Base.

I don't have a strong view on this, but my not-so-strong view is that CoreBase 
is, effectively, a set of C bindings for Base.  I would suggest that we:

1) Move it into -base as a subproject that is built by default.
2) Install the headers.
3) Include CoreFoundation.h from Foundation.h
4) Don't link CoreBase to -base
5) Make -make link CoreBase by default to anything that uses Foundation (tools, 
apps, frameworks).
6) Provide an option that you can set in GNUmakefiles to not link against 
CoreBase.

This would mean that Cocoa stuff would Just Work™, but you could still avoid 
linking against CoreBase if you didn't want it.  It also avoids problems where 
private details of the implementation change in -base - if we don't support 
installing CoreBase other than via -base, this kind of change will 
automatically be reflected.

David