jai-sdl3

Jai bindings for SDL3 v3.2.14 using the Bindings Generator.

These bindings are 'pure', we don't add or change the interface to SDL3.

Installation

Copy this into your modules folder, then:

• Windows: Put the proper (x64/arm64) DLL next to your executable and make sure its called SDL3.dll. Prebuilt DLLs here.
• Linux: Ensure SDL3 binaries are installed on your system (thanks to @marvhus).
• MacOS: Place the x86/arm64 dynamic library (download from here) next to your executable and make sure its called libSDL3.0.dylib (thanks to @4iwen).

SDL supports a ton of platforms, so adding support for things like Android/iOS/etc should be possible.

MacOS Note

On (some?) MacOS machines the generater requires a .a static library (it can't generate bindings from a dylib, we get weird errors), but compiling a jai program fails if we try to link to that same .a library.

As such, we run the generator on the bundled .a, but the bindings link to the bundled libSDL3.0_dynamic.dylib and you are required to have libSDL3.0.dylib next to your executable.

The reason we do this is to ensure jai uses the dynamic library when compiling. If we simply places .a and .dylib with the same name in one folder, jai will always pick the .a static library and compilation will fail.

What the source of this mess is, and whether it will improve, is to be seen.

Callbacks API

We have exposed SDL_EnterAppMainCallbacks in order to hook into the callback API. This does not require the callbacks to be #c_call! Also, you can name the functions whatever you prefer, the following example uses the "standard" names.

    main :: ()
    {
        SDL_EnterAppMainCallbacks(SDL_AppInit, SDL_AppIterate, SDL_AppEvent, SDL_AppQuit);
    }

Notes

Due to current limitations in the bindings generator, especially around nested macros, some enums (e.g. SDL_WINDOW_...) and macros (e.g. SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED) don't get generated by default.

To fix this we hardcode some code in generate.jai that gets put at the top of the generated bindings file. As the bindings generator matures we should be able to get incrementally get rid of these until the bindings are fully automated.

Vulkan support

Vulkan is supported, but you have to import a Vulkan binding on your own. You can either use the stock vulkan binding by JBlow, generate your own vulkan binding using the binding generator, or use a binding generate from vk.xml like this.

The vulkan support is default to be off. You can generate a binding with vulkan using command line args.

jai generate.jai - -vulkan

Contribution

Want to support a new platform or found some missing enums/macros not generated? please feel free to send a PR!

To support a new platform check generate.jai and replicate what's done in the Windows/Linux section for your platform, then run jai generate.jai.