[LLVMdev] Handling SRet on Windows x86...

[Jay K]

COM is not a language extension. 
It is a codification of a fairly obvious but not guaranteed C++ ABI/objectmodel decision. 
Specifically given C++:
  class Foo  
  { 
  public:  
    virtual void Abc() = 0;  
    virtual void Def() = 0;  
  };
  Foo* foo;  
  foo->Abc();    what is the ABI in terms of C? 
Note well the "virtual" and "=0". They are important.
 COM declares that is this (except for old CFM Macintosh PowerPC?):
  struct Foo;  
  typedef struct Foo Foo;      struct FooFunctions  
  {  
    void (*Abc)(Foo*);  
    void (*Def)(Foo*);  
  };    struct Foo  
  {
    FooFunctions const * Functions;  
  };  
  Foo* foo; 
  foo->Functions->Abc(foo); 
 There are other possibilities, but is what COM says.
  WinRT is seemingly merely a way to encode .h files in a binary format,
 that then describe things like the above.     There is a string library, which you can have the compiler deal with or not. There is COM's IUnknown, ditto.   
 That is really about it as I understand. 
What is "system compiler"?
The OS is likely compiled with multiple compilers.
It certainly can run binaries compiled with multiple compilers.What is in question, I guess, is what is the ABI.
The C ABI, and the C++ ABI.
C ABIs are generally smaller more obvious but not completely automatic things.
Struct passing and return being one of the less obvious aspects. 
Ideally there'd be documentation and agreement on the C ABI.
C++ ABIs include lots of details -- name mangling, exception handling....That is much more difficult to deal with.Name mangling in Visual C++ has changed through the years.For example, years ago, template parameters were not encoded in function names, so multiple instances of this: template <int a> int Foo() {return a;}or this:template <typename T> T* New() {return new T;}  got the same name.     Foo<1>();   Foo<2>();      New<short>();    New<long>();     and the linker would just pick one..oops..    Fixing that required an ABI change.So it is a good thing the original name mangling wasn't documented and copied!(Better still would be to get it right the first time..)  
 - Jay 		 	   		  
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