From: Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2024 22:52:46 GMT
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 2/6] repository: add initialize_repo wrapper without pointer
Message-ID: <20240807225246.7jhqioyqh4e2ibza@glandium.org>
In-Reply-To: <5f2e816cf6359725f2a86ce1d08e5e272fba4dac.1723054623.git.steadmon@google.com>

On Wed, Aug 07, 2024 at 11:21:27AM -0700, Josh Steadmon wrote:
> Non-C external consumers of libgit.a have to redefine the `repository`
> object in their own language if they want to call
> initialize_repository() to ensure memory for the object is allocated
> correctly. This is not ideal for external consumers that have no need
> for the entire `the_repository` object but need to call other functions
> from an initialized repository. Therefore, add a friendly
> initialize_repository() wrapper without a `the_repository` pointer.

Technically speaking, you don't really need this.

You can define `repository` as an opaque type in Rust:
```
#[allow(non_camel_case_types)]
#[repr(C)]
pub struct repository([u8; 0]);
```

And define `the_repository` as an extern symbol:
```
extern "C" {
    pub static mut the_repository: *mut repository;
}
```

Mike