safer_ffi VS c2nim

Rust also has a library called safer_ffi that makes FFI easier, and I tried to use that, but the library seems to be immature, and I could not get arguments in Rust functions. If this library can be used properly, it will be possible to output C header files from Rust functions and automatically generate Nim interface functions from C header files using c2nim. We look forward to further development of this feature.

Bindgen is good for calling C from rust. If you want to call rust from C though, you should use safer-ffi

I honestly wouldn't say that much has changed during this year. I do see some progress on new libraries like xlang_abi, safer_ffi or cglue, but it's still too early to know, and existing ones like abi_stable move quite slowly.

A project like this does exist! https://github.com/getditto/safer_ffi

Also on the game development front, I maintain a raylib wrapper https://github.com/planetis-m/naylib As long utilities like c2nim https://github.com/nim-lang/c2nim exist, it's trivial to create bindings of C/C++ libraries. One thing I want to experiment more is making it more automatic by writing a callback exposed by c2nim that transform the generated code using Nim's AST. But regardless in that project I was able to write safe language abstractions on top of the bindings that provide a more native experience. It has scope-based memory management, generics and ... function overloading.

Rust also has a library called safer_ffi that makes FFI easier, and I tried to use that, but the library seems to be immature, and I could not get arguments in Rust functions. If this library can be used properly, it will be possible to output C header files from Rust functions and automatically generate Nim interface functions from C header files using c2nim. We look forward to further development of this feature.

Well I'm 99.5% certain at least. Even now I'm uncertain of the C syntax. And I've not been bold enough to test 3rd order C function pointers. I figure that's probably C code you don't wanna touch if possible.

https://github.com/nim-lang/c2nim/blob/11f2c5363dfe7e8c7c8ce...

The other annoying one is that "signed" and "unsigned" are basically adjectives, but "long" can be both a type and a modifier. So it's difficult to parse unless you're the target C compiler. Technically you can, but you have to use backtracking.

c2nim is a tool to translate ANSI C code to Nim. The output is human-readable Nim code that is meant to be tweaked by hand after the translation process. If you are tired of wrapping C library, you can try futhark which supports "simply import C header files directly into Nim". Similar to futhark, cinterop allows one to interop with C/C++ code without having to create wrappers. nimLUA is a glue code generator to bind Nim and Lua together using Nim's powerful macro. nimpy and nimporter is a bridge between Nim and Python. rnim is a bridge between R and Nim. nimjl is a bridge between Nim and Julia! Last but not least, genny generates a shared library and bindings for many languages such as Python, Node.js, C.

Now if only a full binding generator for C and C++ headers to Nim was done, the language would really be cooking!

"What do you mean, Nim has two of these already?"

Yeah, I know, and -- not to hurt anyone's feelings -- but: they kind of suck. And there's no way I see them able to be extended to do the job fully, based on the way they're currently built.

Those are some bold claims to make!

So before I get stoned to death (no offense to the authors, I am grateful that they exist and have used them both) let me attempt an explanation and back up these statements.

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To start off, the two tools available are "c2nim" and "nimterop". c2nim is a Nim official library, while nimterop is a community library.

  https://github.com/nim-lang/c2nim

Yes. Nim compiles to C and has a lot of features for interacting with C code. You can easily call C routines from Nim and Nim functions from C. There's a bit of a ceremony you need to go through, but most of it can be automated with c2nim tool: https://github.com/nim-lang/c2nim