libfabd post update
When I wrote an old post about libfabd, I included a code sample:
class CString {
this(char* ptr) {
raw = ptr;
}
void toString(scope void delegate(const(char)[]) sink) const
{
sink(raw.to!string);
}
immutable(char)* toStringz() pure nothrow
{
return cast(immutable(char)*)(raw);
}
~this() {
core.stdc.stdlib.free(raw);
}
char* raw;
alias raw this;
}
I realized a little while later that the entire class was actually rather silly.
I was attempting to keep a pointer to the C string, but I had no guarantee that another C function wouldn’t mess with the pointer.
The safest way, though not the fastest, would be to copy the source string.
This also helps by removing several duplication isues where I had an overload for CString and string.
Naturally, I wrapped the bulk of the code in a quick function:
private string takeown(char* cptr)
{
import core.stdc.string : strlen;
import core.stdc.stdlib : free;
auto dstr = cptr[0 .. strlen(cptr)].idup;
free(cptr);
return dstr;
}
This doesn’t use fromStringz found in the most recent version of phobos, as it’s not available in all compilers yet.
The function could be used easily, tacking it on the end of a call to a C function:
string apply_color(String)(String text, Color c)
if(isSomeString!String)
{
// cfab is a reference to the direct C-style bindings
return cfab.apply_color(c, text.toStringz).takeown;
}