dexecve

Replace the running process, with a POSIX execve system call.

Usage

import 'package:dexecve/dexecve.dart';

void main() {
  dexecve('ping', ['1.1.1.1']);
}

see ./example/main.dart for more details

Dart FFI & Golang

This project is a working example of how to integrate dartlang and golang using dart's c interop.

Steps basically look like this:

1. Create a golang c-shared library.

   hello.go

   package main
   
   import "C"
   
   import (
   	"fmt"
   )
   
   //export HelloWorld
   func HelloWorld() {
   	fmt.Println("hello world")
   }
   
   func main() {}

2. Compile the library. eg: go build -o libhello.so -buildmode=c-shared hello.go

   You may want to cross compile the library for multiple platforms. Cross compilation of a static golang binary is relatively straight forward these days however it's not as easy to cross compile a library as cgo is required which normally is disabled for cross compilation.

   I have found xgo very helpful for this.

3. Write the dart ffi code to interface with the library. This feels almost like writing TypeScript typings for a JavaScript library.

   hello.dart

   import 'dart:ffi';
   
   DynamicLibrary _lib = DynamicLibrary.open('libhello.so');
   
   typedef HelloWorld = void Function();
   typedef HelloWorld_func = Void Function();
   final HelloWorld helloWorld = _lib.lookup<NativeFunction<HelloWorld_func>>('HelloWorld').asFunction();

4. Consume the function in your dart code and profit :)

   main.dart

   import 'hello.dart';
   
   void main() {
     helloWorld();
   }

Essentially all this project does is call golang's syscall.Exec() function.

I understand this might be overkill and a much smaller package could be created if I used C directly. One day I might do just that...

In my opinion this creates a very powerful tool chain, dartlang feels very familiar with Classes, Generics, Extension Methods, Exceptions, Async/Await and many other concepts that other more main stream languages have had for a very long time.

While golang offers a very powerful concurrency model, handy tools like defer, a simplified programming model, native performance and a larger ecosystem which can help to fill any gaps in the current dart ecosystem.

Anything I can do in Go and I can do in Dart!

Further Resources

• https://dart.dev/guides/libraries/c-interop
• dart-lang/sdk#37509
• https://medium.com/@kyorohiro/code-server-x-dart-fmi-x-go-x-clang-2a5bd440fad8
• https://github.com/vladimirvivien/go-cshared-examples
• https://medium.com/swlh/build-and-use-go-packages-as-c-libraries-889eb0c19838
• https://medium.com/@walkert/fun-building-shared-libraries-in-go-639500a6a669
• https://github.com/crazy-max/xgo