4 ms·

> You'll find that a fair amount of single-header C libraries that are explicitly C89-supporting are in use by game developers. Is that true? I thought low-lev

by pansa2 6y ago

> You'll find that a fair amount of single-header C libraries that are explicitly C89-supporting are in use by game developers. Is that true? I thought low-level game development was almost entirely in C++. Why is there resistance to using libraries written in the same language as the rest of the program?

pmarin 6y ago
> I thought low-level game development was almost entirely in C++ And this is the main reason why is written in a subset of C89, because is 100% source compatible with C++.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  it is not. very simple example: char* bytes = malloc(4); is valid C89 but not valid C++. You have to restrict yourself to a kind-of subset of C89 if you want it to work with C++.
  - flohofwoe 6y ago
    It's true that C is not a subset of C++, but in reality such implementation details don't matter much as long as the library API is both C and C++ compatible. Compiling a C source file in a C++ project is as simple as using a ".c" file extension, build systems will then compile the file in "C mode" instead of "C++ mode".
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      This is a header-only library, so the code must be compiled in “C++ mode” to be used in C++ projects, requiring the C++/C89 subset in this case.
      - flohofwoe 6y ago
        It's an STB-style single-file library, which means the implementation is in a separate ifdef-block from the interface declarations, this allows to compile the implementation in a different source file (which can be a C file) from the source files which use the library (which can be C++ files). Here's for example such an "implementation source file" example (using stb_image.h): https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/stb/stb_image.c https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/stb... ...or for a whole collection of related single-file libraries: https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/sokol/sokol.c https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/sok...
        CyberRabbi 6y ago
        Yes, my mistake. I assumed they retained some code in header mode intended for inlining but that was not correct.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
flohofwoe 6y ago
C libraries are usually easier to integrate even into C++ projects because there's no "C++ subset incompatibility" (e.g. use of exceptions, RTTI, banned stdlib features etc... - since most of those things don't exist in C in the first place), and "flat" C-APIs are also usually much saner (some C++ library APIs have designed themselves into class-hierarchy- and/or template-hell). There are easy to integrate C++ libraries like Dear ImGui but they are in the minority, and (for instance) Dear ImGui uses a very restricted set of C++ features (it's essentially "C with namespaces and overloading", so it's not very far removed from a C library).

by pansa2 6y ago

pmarin 6y ago

> I thought low-level game development was almost entirely in C++ And this is the main reason why is written in a subset of C89, because is 100% source compatible with C++.

jcelerier 6y ago
it is not. very simple example: char* bytes = malloc(4); is valid C89 but not valid C++. You have to restrict yourself to a kind-of subset of C89 if you want it to work with C++.
- flohofwoe 6y ago
  It's true that C is not a subset of C++, but in reality such implementation details don't matter much as long as the library API is both C and C++ compatible. Compiling a C source file in a C++ project is as simple as using a ".c" file extension, build systems will then compile the file in "C mode" instead of "C++ mode".
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    This is a header-only library, so the code must be compiled in “C++ mode” to be used in C++ projects, requiring the C++/C89 subset in this case.
    - flohofwoe 6y ago
      It's an STB-style single-file library, which means the implementation is in a separate ifdef-block from the interface declarations, this allows to compile the implementation in a different source file (which can be a C file) from the source files which use the library (which can be C++ files). Here's for example such an "implementation source file" example (using stb_image.h): https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/stb/stb_image.c https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/stb... ...or for a whole collection of related single-file libraries: https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/sokol/sokol.c https://github.com/floooh/sokol-samples/blob/master/libs/sok...
      - CyberRabbi 6y ago
        Yes, my mistake. I assumed they retained some code in header mode intended for inlining but that was not correct.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

flohofwoe 6y ago

C libraries are usually easier to integrate even into C++ projects because there's no "C++ subset incompatibility" (e.g. use of exceptions, RTTI, banned stdlib features etc... - since most of those things don't exist in C in the first place), and "flat" C-APIs are also usually much saner (some C++ library APIs have designed themselves into class-hierarchy- and/or template-hell). There are easy to integrate C++ libraries like Dear ImGui but they are in the minority, and (for instance) Dear ImGui uses a very restricted set of C++ features (it's essentially "C with namespaces and overloading", so it's not very far removed from a C library).