Static binding in D

Static binding_ of a C static library in D language

From Static vs. Dynamic Bindings

By static, I mean a binding that allows linking with C libraries or object files directly at compile time. By dynamic, I mean a binding that does not allow linking at compile time, but instead loads a shared library (DLL/so/dylib/framework) at runtime ... So with a static binding in D, a program can be linked at compile time with the static library libBar.a (Posix) for static linkage, or the libBar.so for dynamic linkage. A dynamic binding can not be linked to anything at compile time. No static libraries, no import libraries, no shared objects.

For more information see:

• Michael Parker
• The D and C Series

Build clib

The file must be compiled into object file for linking with the D programs:

$ cd ./c
$ make
$ ls -1
clib.c
clib.o
libclib.a
makefile

Build D example

We have two ways:

1. include clib into exacutable
2. pass the necessary information to the linker

these two ways are defined in dub as configuration mode1 and mode2:

name "staticbind"
description "Stating binding example"
authors "Orfeo Da Vià"
targetType "executable"

configuration "mode1" {
  targetName "mode1"
  sourceFiles "c/libclib.a"
}

configuration "mode2" {
   targetName "mode2"
   lflags "-L./c" "-lclib"
}

Mode 1

In order to build

dub build -c=mode1

Mode 2

dub build -c=mode2

Linker flags:

   lflags "-L./c" "-lclib"

means:

• -L/path/to/libraries: the linker searches a standard list of directories for the library. The directories searched include several standard system directories plus any that you specify with `-L``.
• -lfoo Search the library named foo (or libfoo.a) when linking.