godot-d 0.0.2

Godot-D

D language bindings for the Godot Engine's GDNative C interface.

WIP: These bindings are still under development. Until v1.0.0, expect breaking changes, bugs, and missing documentation. Please report any issues and confusing or undocumented features on the GitHub page.

Upcoming changes

• Optional editor import plugin that handles the boilerplate - .d files will import as NativeScripts and dub.json/dub.sdl as GDNativeLibrary.
• Documentation and a tutorial. Delayed so it can use the import plugin. For now, see the asteroids demo game, which the tutorial will remake in detailed steps.
• Godot String literals (gs!"some_text") will replace passing D strings to Godot. The expensive runtime conversion shouldn't be implicit.

Usage

Dependencies

• D compiler:
• DMD 2.076+ or
• LDC 1.6.0+

Project setup

A Godot project needs these files in its project folder to use D:

• A dynamic library (.so/.dll/.dylib) compiled from your D code
• A GDNativeLibrary resource (.gdnlib) with the name of the dynamic library file on each platform you'll compile the library for
• Optionally, NativeScript resources (.gdns) for each D class, allowing you to use these classes inside the Godot editor

The easiest way to build your library is to use D's package/build manager, DUB. Create a DUB project with godot-d as a dependency, targetType set to dynamicLibrary, and targetPath set to the Godot project's folder. Your project will usually be organized like this:

<game>
├─ project                Godot project folder
│  ├─ project.godot
│  ├─ <game>.dll / .so    Compiled libraries for each platform
│  ├─ <game>.gdnlib       GDNativeLibrary resource
│  ├─ *.gdns              NativeScripts referring to your D classes
│  └─ <other assets>
│
├─ dub.json               DUB project
└─ src
   └─ <game>
      ├─ *.d              D source files
      └─ package.d        Entry point: mixin GodotNativeLibrary!(...);

D native scripts

In Godot, a "script" is an object that exposes methods, properties, and signals to the engine. It is always attached to one of the engine's own C++ classes, listed in the class reference. To expose a D class to the engine as a native script, inherit from GodotScript with the Godot class the script should be attached to:

import godot, godot.button;

class TestButton : GodotScript!Button
{
	...
}

GodotScript contains a pointer to the Button the script is attached to, called owner, which can be used to call Button methods or passed to methods taking Button as an argument. The owner manages the lifetime of the script.

Normal OOP inheritance and polymorphism can be simulated by simply adding alias owner this; to the D script class. For low-level code, just keep in mind that owner is a separate C++ object.

Initialization

Your D scripts still need to be registered into Godot when your library is loaded by the engine. The GodotNativeLibrary mixin template will generate the C interface for you; instantiate it with the list of script classes to add to Godot and functions to be called at init or termination:

mixin GodotNativeLibrary!
(
	"testLibrary", // same as the symbol_prefix in the GDNativeLibrary resource
	
	TestButton,
	
	(GodotInitOptions o){ writeln("Library initialized"); },
	(GodotTerminateOptions o){ writeln("Library terminated"); }
);

Godot API

Godot's full script API can be used from D:

• godot.core submodules contain container, math, and engine structs like Vector3 and String.
• Other submodules of godot contain bindings to Godot classes, auto-generated from the engine's API. These are the C++ classes scripts can be attached to.
• These bindings use camelCase instead of snake_case.

Change window to fullscreen example:

  # GDScript
  OS.set_window_fullscreen(false)

Would be:

  // D
  OS.setWindowFullscreen(false);

Building Godot-D

DUB package releases will contain pre-generated bindings for official releases of Godot, but you can generate your own bindings in a few cases:

• using the master branch of Godot
• using the master branch of Godot-D, which doesn't include pre-built bindings
• using a custom Godot build or custom C++ modules

Make a local clone of Godot-D and generate updated bindings using the API generator. DUB will use this local build for your own project if you run dub add-local . in the godot-d directory.

Versioning

The GDNative API is binary-compatible between Godot versions, so a D library can be used with a Godot build older or newer than the one used to generate the bindings. D bindings must still be generated with the most recent GDNative API (modules/gdnative/gdnative_api.json in the Godot repository) even if an older Godot binary will be used.

Extension version properties can be checked to prevent newer functions from being called with older Godot binaries. For example:

if(GDNativeVersion.hasNativescript!(1, 1)) useNewNativescriptFunctions();
else doNothing();

A D library can also specify minimum required extensions using a compiler flag or the versions property in their DUB project. The format of the version flag is GDNativeRequire<Extension name or "Core">_<major version>_<minor version>. For example, with "versions": [ "GDNativeRequireNativescript_1_1" ] in dub.json, runtime checks and non-1.1 code such as the example above can be safely optimized out in both library code and binding-internal code.

License

MIT - https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Links

GitHub repository - https://github.com/GodotNativeTools/godot-d The C++ bindings these are based on - https://github.com/GodotNativeTools/godot-cpp GDNative repository - https://github.com/GodotNativeTools/godot_headers

Godot Engine - https://godotengine.org D programming language - https://dlang.org