Bug 5337 – Documentation regarding interfacing with C does not account for TLS differences

Status
RESOLVED
Resolution
FIXED
Severity
normal
Priority
P2
Component
dlang.org
Product
D
Version
D2
Platform
x86
OS
Windows
Creation time
2010-12-09T08:50:00Z
Last change time
2012-01-20T13:31:32Z
Assigned to
schveiguy
Creator
CrypticMetaphor88

Attachments

IDFilenameSummaryContent-TypeSize
845test.GIFCompiling and running in windows command promptimage/gif26819

Comments

Comment #0 by CrypticMetaphor88 — 2010-12-09T08:50:08Z
Created attachment 845 Compiling and running in windows command prompt Code that should not compile, imported from C, compiles on windows, but does NOT compile on Linux. Here the example: // cfile.c file extern int globalFromD; void functionFromC(int a) { globalFromD = a; } // end cfile.c // dfile.d extern(C) { // this is needed to make it available from C int globalFromD; } extern(C) { // also needed when listing the prototypes for your C functions void functionFromC(int); } import std.stdio; // for writefln int main() { globalFromD = 100; writefln("%d", globalFromD); functionFromC(500); writefln("%d", globalFromD); return 0; } // end dfile.d I compile with: dmc -c cfile.c And I get an cfile.obj, which is the object code (.o in gcc). Then I compile the D code dmd dfile.d cfile.obj and I get no errors, so I run it, the result: // start result C:\DCode\libtest>dfile.exe 100 100 C:\DCode\libtest> // end result I've posted this on the newsgroup( d.D.learn, Subject:"Calling C functions" ) and apparently it's some kind of bug. More info: dmc version: 8.42n dmd version: 2.050 Windows version: Windows XP.
Comment #1 by schveiguy — 2010-12-09T08:56:03Z
I think this is a TLS issue. The linux errors I got (repeated from NG post): steves@steve-laptop:~/testd$ gcc -c testc.c steves@steve-laptop:~/testd$ ~/dmd-2.050/linux/bin/dmd testcallc.d testc.o /usr/bin/ld: globalFromD: TLS definition in testcallc.o section .tbss mismatches non-TLS reference in testc.o testc.o: could not read symbols: Bad value collect2: ld returned 1 exit status --- errorlevel 1
Comment #2 by bugzilla — 2010-12-09T10:16:40Z
It is a TLS issue. Globals in D2 are allocated in thread local storage, globals in C are not. To make it work, they have to be TLS in both languages, or regular globals in both.
Comment #3 by schveiguy — 2010-12-09T10:19:27Z
So why can the linux compiler detect the issue and not the windows compiler?
Comment #4 by nfxjfg — 2010-12-09T12:16:42Z
Maybe because OPTLINK is a dirty piece of shit and eats any crap without even spitting out warnings?
Comment #5 by bugzilla — 2010-12-09T13:35:59Z
The linux compiler is not detecting the error, the linker is. The way TLS is implemented is radically different on Windows, Linux, and OSX. Linux does it with special linker fixups, Windows does it with specially generated code. The Windows linker cannot tell that it is supposed to be TLS access.
Comment #6 by nfxjfg — 2010-12-09T13:42:47Z
@Walter: that's very unfortunate, this will cause lots of confusion among new users. Maybe make extern(C) variables __gshared by default? PS: optlink is a turd anyway. Also looking forward to optlink64.
Comment #7 by schveiguy — 2010-12-09T16:11:48Z
thanks for the explanation. Perhaps this page needs to note these problems? http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/interfaceToC.html I'll see if I can do that, I'm going to update this bug as a documentation issue.
Comment #8 by bugzilla — 2012-01-20T13:31:32Z
Fixed interfaceToC.html 2.058/1.073