Bug 1833 – std.c.windows.windows should use enums for constants, or be more selective about use of extern(Windows)
Status
RESOLVED
Resolution
FIXED
Severity
normal
Priority
P2
Component
phobos
Product
D
Version
D1 (retired)
Platform
x86
OS
Windows
Creation time
2008-02-13T19:51:00Z
Last change time
2014-02-24T15:56:20Z
Assigned to
bugzilla
Creator
wbaxter
Comments
Comment #0 by wbaxter — 2008-02-13T19:51:27Z
The phobos module std.c.windows.windows defines many constants like so:
extern(Windows) {
...
const DWORD MAILSLOT_NO_MESSAGE = cast(DWORD)-1;
...
}
This is a bad practice because
A) all those constants bloat the executables. Using an enum instead fixes that.
B) consts with Windows linkage are mangled without their module name, so if any other module defines the same constant with Windows linkage, the linker will complain of duplicate symbols. This can be fixed either by using enums or by not putting such constants in extern(Windows) blocks.
B may not seem like such a big deal, but a number of fairly high-profile projects (Tangobos and DFL for example) contain copies of std.c.windows.windows that are modified slightly in one way or another. The copied versions of std.c.windows.windows should be fixed too, but Phobos should provide a good example of the "right" way to handle constants to begin with.
Comment #1 by bugzilla — 2008-03-04T02:25:54Z
Not all the const declarations can be converted to enums with D 1.0, but I'll do all that can be.
Comment #2 by wbaxter — 2008-03-04T03:11:37Z
(In reply to comment #1)
> Not all the const declarations can be converted to enums with D 1.0, but I'll
> do all that can be.
>
Thanks. Please use extern(D) on the ones that can't be made enums.
Comment #3 by wbaxter — 2008-03-04T04:32:40Z
(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > Not all the const declarations can be converted to enums with D 1.0, but I'll
> > do all that can be.
> >
>
> Thanks. Please use extern(D) on the ones that can't be made enums.
...unless you've got some good reason why they shouldnt' be extern(D), of course.