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6290 :: Nim OS porting

• RodSteward (orginal) [2020-05-03T21:38:08+02:00] view original

  I would like to port Nim to a custom OS, that isn't POSIX compatible. Is there any documentation how Nim is supposed to interface with an OS? How much does Nim rely on the C library for OS functionality? For example for memory allocation, does Nim use malloc/free from the C library or does it use the OS page mapping API directly? Does Nim provide a generic interface that is supposed to be implemented for OS functionality or is everything just selected in the sources file with "when thisOS" etc.

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• zevv (orginal) [2020-05-03T21:44:10+02:00] view original

  For a "real" port, check the Git logs to see what was done for another platform, for example the nintendo switch and learn from that.

  For a bit more lightweight port you might be able to compile with --os:any and -d:useMalloc; in this case Nim will have very few dependencies on your operating system, apart from some basic ANSI C functions like malloc/free/fopen/fwrite.

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• Araq (orginal) [2020-05-04T11:34:15+02:00] view original

  is everything just selected in the sources file with "when thisOS" etc.

  Yep, it's done like that. A "generic interface" wouldn't help, the interface would have to be enormous and spread out over multiple files and directories just like today's code.

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