Silex Labs originally posted the article WWX 2014 Speech: Hugh Sanderson C++ Magic which links to the YouTube videos, Hugh's slides and a brief synopsis of the talk. Below are the videos and my own overview of the talk.

Overview

Hugh introduces “C++ Magic” which gives libraries access to platform specific functions.

Haxe C++ Magic

The most basic level of manipulation is to add paths and libraries to your build.xml file. Hugh classes this as nothing more than a conjurer of cheap tricks. You can control the build tool through the use of environment variables by using compiler defines or by toolchains which are usually part of a haxelib library.

Hugh goes onto to explain that untyped “skips most type checking but still needs valid Haxe syntax” to work. If you want to interface between Haxe and external code you need to use __global__ and __cpp__ along with untyped .

untyped __global__.MessageBox(0, "Hello", "Title", 0) gives you access to the global scope which is useful as Haxe doesn't have one. On the other hand untyped __cpp__('printF("Hello")') parses as a local function call. In both cases "Hello" is autocast from a Haxe string to a native string.

Hugh has also introduced the cpp.* package which contains NativeArray , NativeString , which are to be used as static extensions, along with new native types Float32 and UInt8 .

He then talks briefly about metadata magic. He provides metadata for classes and functions. For classes you have the following:

@:headerClassCode(...) which injects member variables and inline functions.

which injects member variables and inline functions. @:headerCode(...) which includes external headers.

which includes external headers. @:headerNamespaceCode(...) which allows you to add to the global namespace.

which allows you to add to the global namespace. @:cppFileCode(...) which allows you to include external headers only in C++ files.

which allows you to include external headers only in C++ files. @:cppNamespaceCode(...) which implements static variables.

which implements static variables. @:buildXml(...) which allows you to add to the build.xml file.

For function metadata you get the following:

@:functionCode(...)

@:functionTailCode(...)

Hugh states these are largely redundant as you should use untyped __cpp_(...) instead.

The next section is on extern magic. The C++ target has never supported extern classes like the other compiler targets, until now. This is now possible because of all the new features introduced above. Here is an example taken from Hugh's slides.

@ : unreflective @ : structAccess @ : include ( "string" ) @ : native ( "std::string" ) extern class StdString { @ : native ( "new std::string" ) public static function create ( inString : String ) : cpp : Pointer < StdString > ; public function size ( ) : Int ; public function find ( str : String ) : Int ; } class Main { public static function main ( ) { var std = StdString . create ( "my std::string" ) ; trace ( std . value . size ( ) ) ; std . destroy ( ) ; } }

Before Hugh shows off his demo, he goes into his future plans for the C++ target. This includes more native integration, a fully native Int64 implementation, an concurrent GC and fake classes and interfaces.

C++ Magic Demo

Demo

If you want to run the demo yourself, download the binary either for OSX or Windows. You will need a webcam for it to work. If you want to attempt to build it yourself head over to Hugh's website for instructions.

Slides

Hugh Sanderson's C++ Magic Slides