Problem porting SFML.jl to Julia 1.1

General Usage
#1

I was very interested in porting SFML.jl (from nice work of zyedidia,
https://github.com/zyedidia/SFML.jl)
to current Julia, because it is not working for Julia 0.7 (and I like to use SFML in my programming introductory courses). I have ported all code in


(I will do a PR when it is finished).

However, while it install the package without problem, at least in my computer (after many changes), I have problem when library was loaded. I know there was a change in usage of Libdl.dlopen (https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/26557) and I think it is related but I have not idea how I could fix it. When I run the dlopen manually “julia SFML.jl”
(or do Libdl.dlopen(“libcsfml-graphics”, Libdl.RTLD_GLOBAL) in the REPL)
it is loaded nicely, however, when I try to run an example, it said:

ErrorException(“could not load library “libcsfml-system”\nlibsfml-system.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”)
ERROR: LoadError: error compiling Type: error compiling Type: could not load library “libcsfml-graphics”

My version of SFML is working with my previously installed SFML.
I can compiling and running programs in C++ and even Rust without problem, so the libraries are installed.

Any idea?

PS: If anyone is interested in porting it, you can say and work together :-). I think SFML.jl working could be a good example of using Julia as a general programming language.

1 Like
#2

@scelles has already made a PR targeting Julia v0.7:

and here are some thoughts on upgrading the build system to BB2 which can provide an out of box installation experience.

Nuklear.jl - A Julia wrapper for Nuklear?
#3

Yes, I know. My changes are strongly based in scelles, and I already do more changes to the continuous integration and better Linux support (the detection of the libraries, for instance). I have also made several more changes. Thanks for send me that talk, I did not see it. I will write there.

#4

I also think there is a lot of interest in having SFML usable with recents Julia versions. Showing that small games can be written in Julia using such a wrapper could lead people outside of technical computing to Julia.
Unfortunately my bandwidth is currently a bit limited. I can only spend some time helping to test it under differents OS (Linux, OS X and Windows)

#5

Yes, I agree. It could be useful for showing as a general programming language. Please, could you check if in Windows or Mac there is also problem linking with the library? Thanks in advance.

#6

OK, making progress. Now both macOS and Windows versions are working very well with BB2, and I also regenerated CSFML bindings using Clang.jl:

As for Linux, I still can’t figure out how to build the following dependencies:

  • pthread
  • opengl
  • xlib
  • xrandr
  • udev
  • freetype
  • openal
  • flac
  • vorbis

It looks like building xlib is not a trivial task, so my plan is to try a hybrid solution – directly download SFML’s official binaries(will try this tomorrow).

1 Like
#7

Great job! Curiously I was now watching a video about BinaryBuilder :-).
I always run in Linux, so I can check in Linux, I could help you if you need it.

#8

@dmolina @scelles you could test it now:

on Linux, we still need to manually install those dependencies, especially libopenal-dev which is unlikely preinstalled in any dists.

#9

It is working! I had only to previous install libopenal-dev (in my Ubuntu 18.04, x64 arquitecture) and then I could install CSFML without any problem!. Later, I could run the example without any problem in Julia 1.1.

Thanks a lot!

With CSFML working, maybe we could do a new SFML package using this CSFML package/module (I say mainly to offer a OO wrapper).

#10

It would be nice if we could resurrect SFML.jl. Shall we ping the author and revisit this?

#11

Yes, I agree that we should resurrect SFML.jl, actually I have just write an issue


in the Github repository. If in a few days there is not response, we could send a email. In the worst scenario, we could send a new package, like SFMLv2 or similar, but it is clearly more convenience to resurrect SFML.jl.

1 Like
#12

The author is open to the idea:

Do you have a suggestion about how it could be the best way to doing that?

#13

Recently, the author have add to both of us as collaborators, so meanwhile we could write in the SFML.jl Github repository :+1:.

#14

OK, I just registered LibCSFML.

2 Likes
#15

Hey all, I am also interested in getting SFML to work on Julia 1.1. It wasn’t clear to me whether you were resurrecting it, or starting fresh with LibCSFML (sorry if it’s a noob question, am just getting my feet wet coming over from C# and python)

#16

Hi. My idea was resurrecting it, over the LibCSFML, but the many courses this semester have made me not having time for doing that. I hope to have more time in a few days to start working on it, and any help is welcome!

#17

I understand, I’ve been working on a project in python for 3 months and barely have a prototype working because of being busy with work and life. In case you didn’t know, I found this binding that I got working on Lubuntu:

https://github.com/JuliaMultimedia/CSFML.jl

I never got the chance to work with the SFML.jl so I dont know if it was any better, but it worked for me without too much fuss.