About using Clipper2 as Shared Lib loaded through Ruby Fiddle (on MacOS and Windows)

[bbeaulant]

Hi,

First of all, @AngusJohnson, you did a nice job on Clipper2, thanks.

I'm currently improving an open source SketchUp's extension called OpenCutList to be able to analyze part geometry. Using Clipper2 could solve a nice part of the problem with good performances.

Then the main question is What is the best way to make Ruby and Clipper2 work together on MacOS and Windows ?

Context :

• SketchUp offer various versions of Ruby (from 2.2 to 2.7), depends of SketchUp version.
• Installing Gems is not really an option.
• The best option to interact with external shared lib seams to be using Ruby Fiddle, a FFI wrapper packed natively in Ruby.

What I try :

• On MacOS
  • Building libClipper2.1.2.3.so (with cmake on MacOS) and load it through Fiddle in SketchUp. It failed to load functions described in clipper.export.h
  • Building my own lib linked to Clipper2 sources. → It works, but I need to rewrite all the 'export' code ... this is not a good option. (How to build libClipper2.so with C exports ?)
• On Windows
  • Building my own lib linked to Clipper2 sources. → It DOESN'T works, because my DLL is unreadable
  • Downloading official DLLs from Releases section. → It works ! (But how to compile those DLLs without Visual Studio ?)

In advance, thank you for your answser and have a nice day !

[AngusJohnson]

On Windows

• Building my own lib linked to Clipper2 sources. → It DOESN'T works, because my DLL is unreadable
• Downloading official DLLs from Releases section. → It works ! (But how to compile those DLLs without Visual Studio ?)

The fact that the precompiled DLLs work and yours don't strongly suggests it's a problem with how you're compiling.
Make sure you have a DllMain entry point.
Otherwise you'll most likely get better help asking in a Ruby forum.

[bbeaulant]

Thank you for this answer @AngusJohnson.

Ok, for Windows, I will use precompiled DLLs

Else, in your opinion, the libClipper2.so should contains the export functions?

[AngusJohnson]

Else, in your opinion, the libClipper2.so should contains the export functions?

I expect so (pun intended), but I don't have any experience with so files so I can't be definitive about that.