Re: [icu-design] Uregex.cpp C API depends on C++ ? Bad idea

[Markus S. <mar...@gm...>]

On 6/27/06, Ruslan Zasukhin <sun...@pu...> wrote:
> I was in hope that I will be able add uregex.cpp into our project, and this
> will work...but not so easy.
>
>     This file contains references on C++ API of ICU ?!
>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> IMHO this is not best design.
>
>   C API must depend only on C API.

This is completely unnecessary -- for normal use.

Only using a C API externally ensures that you are safe from compiler
mismatches of calling conventions, name mangling, and C++ class vtable
layouts. Internally to a single executable, such as within the ICU
library, there are no problems because all parts got compiled
together.

Using C++ for the implementation allows simpler, more readable, more
maintainable code. In particular, we do want to be able to use
UnicodeString and UnicodeSet efficiently.

Now, I see that this is a problem in your case because you want to
build just a piece of ICU and link it with MacOS 10.3's piece of ICU
-- and there is C++ in between the pieces. This would be unsafe even
if uregex were pure C: It would most likely still rely on internal
functions which can change radically from one version to another. The
regular expression implementation is designed to benefit from (and not
duplicate) many other ICU services, not as a standalone, separately
buildable library.

> P.S. Now I have only 2 ways:
>     a) drop support of REGEX -- not acceptable
>     b) drop support of OS X 10.3.9

Have you tried George's suggestions for pruning ICU and for building
it as static libraries linked with your app?

Best regards,
markus
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