From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2008-12-12T00:21:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Q: FFI and C++?

Jason Roelofs wrote:
> Because of the complexity that C++ adds, I doubt that any feasible FFI
> library can be made that works reliably against C++ libraries, though
> Charles will probably be a better voice for whether this is truely
> possible or not.

Wayne and I talked about this a bit, and largely the problem is the 
name-mangling involved. So there would always need to be a compile phase 
for the C++ stuff to be callable from an FFI-based library.

Wayne did propose adding an inline C syntax similar to RubyInline but 
which simple created a shim library that would be found through FFI 
rather than the more complex MRI-specific mechanisms RubyInline uses. 
this would make it possible to bind C++ code through the shim into an 
FFI-based library, and potentially recomposed back into an Object-like 
structure.

I don't believe he's done any work on this. I also do not know how any 
of the other C++ options work, but I assume they all have a compilation 
component.

- Charlie