Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
This question may actually belong in .learn.
What's exactly eliminated from the header generated with -H? I tried it
just now and was surprised to see that the generated .di file includes
the function bodies of regular (non-template) functions and methods.
I was under the impression that generated headers exclude function
bodies, and found documentation to support that viewpoint:
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dmd-windows.html#interface_files
says:
============
A D interface file contains only what an import of the module needs,
rather than the whole implementation of that module.
The advantages of using a D interface file for imports rather than a D
source file are:
* D interface files are often significantly smaller and much faster
to process than the corresponding D source file.
* They can be used to hide the source code, for example, one can
ship an object code library along with D interface files rather than the
complete source code.
============
This strongly suggests that function bodies are eliminated. But what I'm
seeing is that pretty much all function bodies are kept (exception:
static this() functions are not), and only comments are removed.
So what's -H really doing?
Quoting from the same link:
"[...] they are not part of the D language. They are a feature of the
compiler, and serve only as an optimization of the build process."
A compiler specific hack that speeds up the build process. Especially
notice how it includes inlineable functions by design, which make it
relatively useless as "library headers".
Andrei
