New chapter about calling existing external C libraries

[pykoder]

I've a real life example in mind: I would like to create some example showing how to call libpng from rust to create (some simple) images.

I could probably manage to do that for calling unix version of library. But I have no clue on how to do that in a windows environment (actually I do not have any windows OS available).

[japaric]

New chapter about calling existing external C libraries

There's already a FFI chapter about this topic, but the chapter still needs lots of work.

I've a real life example in mind: I would like to create some example showing how to call libpng from rust to create (some simple) images.

There are rust bindings to libpng. I bet you could learn a lot by checking that library.

But I have no clue on how to do that in a windows environment (actually I do not have any windows OS available).

Well, I expect that binding the library in windows is similar to how it's done on linux. But I haven't tried this before, in fact I haven't tried Rust in windows at all. So I can't give you pointers in this area.

(AFAIK Rust development ond Windows is not "smooth" at the moment, but that will get fixed by the 1.0 release.)

[steveklabnik]

Given that the FFI chapter exists, I'm giving this a close. Specific improvements would be welcome.