All your libtcod wrapper are belong to us...

(Apologies in advance for the title, but it was too good to pass-up).

The primary reason for my cmake work all of this/last week was so the build could get out of my way and I could experiment on some idea for wrapping libtcod. While libtcod-net works, and is good enough for writing magecrawl, I've seen multiple people going through the work of wrapping libtcod for each language they are interested in (python, c#, D, lisp, etc). Other people have been interested in using libtcod with java or other languages, but lack the time or skill to create their own wrapper. I'm also lazy, and if i can automate or reduce my workload, I'm all about it.

SWIG is a program that generates the "glue" layer so higher level languages can call C/C++, doing most of the work for you. It's a powerful program, with terrible documentation. At work, I've used it enough to feel comfortable trying it on libtcod.

After a morning of work, I have a proof of concept.

python:
import libtcod

libtcod.TCODConsole.initRoot(80, 50, "Test - python", False, libtcod.TCOD_RENDERER_SDL)
root = libtcod.TCODConsole.root.fget()

while not libtcod.TCODConsole.isWindowClosed():
    root.putChar(10, 10, 64);
    root.printLeft(3, 3, libtcod.TCOD_BKGND_SET, "Hello World");
    root.flush()
    root.checkForKeypress()


c#:

using libtcod;

namespace TestApp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            TCODConsole.initRoot(80, 50, "Test - C#", false, TCOD_renderer_t.TCOD_RENDERER_SDL);
            TCODConsole.root.setForegroundColor(TCODColor.white);
            while (!TCODConsole.isWindowClosed())
            {
                TCODConsole.root.printLeft(3, 3, TCOD_bkgnd_flag_t.TCOD_BKGND_SET, "Hello World");
                TCODConsole.root.putCharEx(10, 10, '@', TCODColor.white, TCODColor.black);
                TCODConsole.flush();
                TCODConsole.checkForKeypress();
            }
        }
    }
}



There is a lot of work to be done, but the idea appears to be sound! I'll post more when I get the proof of concept fleshed out more.