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D.gnu - Would APEs work with D?

reply Raimondo Mancino <rmancino gmail.com> writes:
Hello,

assuming that I have little experience with assembly, so I 
couldn't check if the ape.S is actually compatible, and that I 
also still have little experience with D:

I was reading [this very interesting 
article](https://justine.lol/ape.html) and while reading it I had 
the impression that it would be possible to produce D APEs.

It does require some ABI changes as far as I can tell, but I 
think that excluding Phobos (since it would require more work to 
get started) a simple hello world using 
[Cosmopolitan](https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan/) would do 
the job (maybe we could have more complex code compiling with 
` pragma(mangle)` for ABI compatibility and interop).

If we look at Cosmopolitan's hello.c:

```c
/* Compile with:
gcc -g -O -static \
   -fno-pie -no-pie -mno-red-zone -nostdlib -nostdinc \
   -o hello.com hello.c \
   -Wl,--oformat=binary -Wl,--gc-sections 
-Wl,-z,max-page-size=0x1000 -fuse-ld=bfd \
   -Wl,-T,ape.lds \
   -include cosmopolitan.h \
   crt.o ape.o cosmopolitan.a
*/

#include "libc/stdio/stdio.h"

int main() {
   printf("%s\n", "hello world");
   return 0;
}
```

My guess is that we could produce a portable executable with 
Cosmopolitan and thus write something like this in our hello.d:

```d
/* I am not sure how would we compile this, but
  * I guess it's going to be something like:
gdc -g -O -static \
   -fno-pie -fuse-ld=bfd -mno-red-zone
   -fno-druntime
   -o hello.com hello.d
   -Wl,--oformat=binary -Wl,--gc-sections 
-Wl,-z,max-page-size=0x1000 -fuse-ld=bfd \
   -Wl,-T,ape.lds
   crt.o ape.o cosmopolitan.a
  */

 pragma(lib, "cosmopolitan"); // or in dub.sdl/.json

 nogc: // I am not sure whether the default GC would work

extern(C) int printf(const char*, ...)  trusted nothrow;

extern(C) int main() {
   printf("%s\n", "hello world");

   return 0;
}
```

If I understand correctly, the needed steps would be:

1. Build the binary
2. Write PE magic number
3. Write BIOS boot sector (if needed)
4. Write sh compatible execution script (load executable code 
through qemu)
5. Write platform-specific sections and tables (ELF, *BSD, ...)
6. Put executable code and data sections
7. PKZIP magic (if needed)

What do you think about it?
May 17 2021
parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On Monday, 17 May 2021 at 11:08:33 UTC, Raimondo Mancino wrote:

 My guess is that we could produce a portable executable with 
 Cosmopolitan and thus write something like this in our hello.d:

 ```d
 /* I am not sure how would we compile this, but
  * I guess it's going to be something like:
 gdc -g -O -static \
   -fno-pie -fuse-ld=bfd -mno-red-zone
   -fno-druntime
   -o hello.com hello.d
   -Wl,--oformat=binary -Wl,--gc-sections 
 -Wl,-z,max-page-size=0x1000 -fuse-ld=bfd \
   -Wl,-T,ape.lds
   crt.o ape.o cosmopolitan.a
  */

 What do you think about it?


The command would be pretty much the same as gcc (`-nostdinc 
-nostdlib`), but instead of `-include cosmopolitan.h`, you'd pass 
a cosmopolitan binding module (importC may solve the need for 
that), and a minimal (possibly empty) object.d to satisfy the 
compiler's need to have an object module.
May 18 2021
parent reply Imperatorn <johan_forsberg_86 hotmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 08:40:10 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Monday, 17 May 2021 at 11:08:33 UTC, Raimondo Mancino wrote:

 [...]


 The command would be pretty much the same as gcc (`-nostdinc 
 -nostdlib`), but instead of `-include cosmopolitan.h`, you'd 
 pass a cosmopolitan binding module (importC may solve the need 
 for that), and a minimal (possibly empty) object.d to satisfy 
 the compiler's need to have an object module.


Brace yourself... ImportC is coming.
May 18 2021
parent reply redthing1 <redthing1 alt.icu> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 14:43:52 UTC, Imperatorn wrote:

 On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 08:40:10 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Monday, 17 May 2021 at 11:08:33 UTC, Raimondo Mancino wrote:

 [...]


 The command would be pretty much the same as gcc (`-nostdinc 
 -nostdlib`), but instead of `-include cosmopolitan.h`, you'd 
 pass a cosmopolitan binding module (importC may solve the need 
 for that), and a minimal (possibly empty) object.d to satisfy 
 the compiler's need to have an object module.


 Brace yourself... ImportC is coming.


Now that ImportC is here, may I ask: did you get this working? 
I'm also very interested in it.
Mar 22
parent Imperatorn <johan_forsberg_86 hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 22 March 2024 at 15:12:16 UTC, redthing1 wrote:

 On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 14:43:52 UTC, Imperatorn wrote:

 On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 08:40:10 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Monday, 17 May 2021 at 11:08:33 UTC, Raimondo Mancino 
 wrote:

 [...]


 The command would be pretty much the same as gcc (`-nostdinc 
 -nostdlib`), but instead of `-include cosmopolitan.h`, you'd 
 pass a cosmopolitan binding module (importC may solve the 
 need for that), and a minimal (possibly empty) object.d to 
 satisfy the compiler's need to have an object module.


 Brace yourself... ImportC is coming.


 Now that ImportC is here, may I ask: did you get this working? 
 I'm also very interested in it.


I actually didn't find time to try it. But maybe someone else has?
Apr 15