win32metadata VS rust-bindgen

As /u/huellenoperator notes, that this needs a pointer to a mutable string comes straight from microsoft through win32metadata. Maybe it's a mistake on Microsoft's side, but if it's not you're taking big risks.

Microsoft offers official "bindings" to Win32 APIs through win32metadata. However, until recently, it did not include metadata for kernel-level functions or WDK. In early 2021, an issue was raised through windows-rs regarding this limitation, but progress was slow until now. Microsoft has finally released official metadata for WDK, which can be found on the wdkmetadata repository. The latest comment on the issue thread can be found here:

for win32metadata's kernel api tracking issue, https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/401

Any examples? Since the API bindings in windows-sys are generated from the metadata generated from official Windows SDK headers I'd not expect to see this kind of difference.

You might also look at this project: https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata

There is still the occasional incredibly subtle link time fuckery in Rust.

https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/1274

"Minor" semver updates to crates breaking things via e.g. unexpected MSRV bumps is pretty common too, with some resulting bitrot. That said, I agree with you that things in Rust are at least better. Imperfect, but better.

Win32 is available as metadata to enable adoption in as many languages as possible. Are there some things missing? Yes. The Microsoft team acknowledges that and encourages asking for the things you need so they can add them to the metadata.

It might be interesting to have bindings generated for the entirety of Win32 API through https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata

Hi JB! Funny to cross paths with you in this context. I don't know if you remember me but I was a rookie programmer who got the pleasure of joining the VideoLan Conference in Dublin back in 2014, and then Paris the next year, and you were very kind to me.

The GitHub issue title here is unfortunately misleading. I have renamed it to "ideas to improve windows header files and libc". Also, I hope it is clear that I rebutted the points made by the OP, because I completely agree with your summary that the mingw-w64 people are skilled, nice and very clever and think about all use cases.

If any drive-by HN readers work at Microsoft, please help us with this issue: https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/766

Rust supports two kinds of FFI: calling into Rust from another language; and calling into another language from Rust. Most of the thought and tooling that exists right now is organized around the second kind. For example, bindgen is a popular tool that generates useful Rust wrappers from a C or C++ header file.

I have looked into bindgen, but found that it would not be feasible due to OMPL not having a C API, just C++.

Yes! Are you running LLVM version 16.0.0 or newer, by any chance? I believe this is an issue with some builds of bindgen with newer versions of LLVM. See https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-bindgen/issues/2488

On native, you have to define a C API, probably using a header file. Even if both sides are implemented in Rust, they have to speak that C API (documentation).

Bindgen has some functionality for direct talk to C++ https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-bindgen

I am trying to use rust-bindgen (https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-bindgen) to link a static C library (say `libexample.a`) which is compiled in a separate project with CMake. The `libexample.a` depends on other libraries (for example `libcurl.a`) installed on the system.

It looks like the guy you're replying too was kind of an ass, but I do want to point out for anyone else reading that that's not actually that much of a technical limitation: rust code can natively call C code. The main thing you need is a translation of the C library's header file so rustc knows what C functions and structs exist, and that can be automatically generated with bindgen.

It's quite the different approach, but you could consider using bindgen instead.

Use bindgen or CXX to create Rust bindings for the C or C++ libraries.