SDL (noob)

Help
1

I decided I have to do some SDL stuff, instead of digging into the windows API.
This is step zero for me… Never did anything with the plethora of graphics / sound etc. possibilities.
What I do not want is a build.zig of 2000 lines with SDL stuff.

So the (for me) cleanest and easiest way is maybe what I saw here:
here
(The code on github in the description of the video).

The only riddle I stumbled upon was this:

pub const c = @cImport({
    @cInclude("SDL3/SDL.h");
});

Where or where is the location of this? What is the magic behind it?

2

The magic behind it is that it has been deprecated in 0.16.0. That link should explain the details and alternatives.

edit: also note that in 0.17.0 translate-c has entirely moved out so must be pulled in as a dependency.

3

The magic behind it is the same as C include: The zig compiler will search in the include paths for the header. If these are headers are installed in known locations, it will find them and link them up.

Like @pasta said, it is going away. So you will have to use translate-c in the future. And that will remove some of the magic.

4

Thx! Struggling on from here :slight_smile:

5

Got the basics working! Now for a real game :slight_smile:

6

I dabbled a bit with SDL3 and Zig last year, and looking at GitHub - allyourcodebase/SDL: SDL ported to the Zig build system. · GitHub, the required build.zig stuff does not look to be 2000 lines at all. What did you mean by that?

(Btw - following along Handmade Hero using the win32 API from Linux is not too bad either. I burned myself out at an earlier attempt trying to follow along using a different API and language.)

7

I saw build.zig’s hanging around here and there that were very big (filled with SDL stuff).

Now I have - with the help of some A.I. - a build.zig which is small.

    const translate_sdl = b.addTranslateC(.{
        .root_source_file = b.path("sdl/include/SDL3/SDL.h"),
        .target = target,
        .optimize = optimize,
    });
    translate_sdl.addIncludePath(b.path("sdl/include"));

    // exe stuff here...

    exe.root_module.addImport("sdl", translate_sdl.createModule());
    exe.root_module.addIncludePath(b.path("sdl/include"));
    exe.root_module.addLibraryPath(b.path("sdl/lib/x64"));
    exe.root_module.linkSystemLibrary("SDL3", .{});

    // put SDL3.dll next to lemmix.exe
    b.getInstallStep().dependOn(
        &b.addInstallBinFile(b.path("sdl/lib/x64/SDL3.dll"), "SDL3.dll").step,
    );

    // some more stuff here...

I only do not have the zig functions at my disposal.
Magically only this sdl module.

Also with some non-human help I executed:
zig translate-c -lc -I sdl\include sdl\include\SDL3\SDL.h > src\sdl.zig
and got a 50.000 lines file which seemed to represent the complete DLL.

Not understanding everything (at all) but with that youtube tutorial I am at least able to have a window and animations running around calling some of the functions inside there.
Remember: sdl noob… :slight_smile:

8

GitHub - tiawl/glfw.zig: @glfw packaged for @ziglang · GitHub ?