D, also known as dlang, is a
multi-paradigm
Programming paradigms are a way to classify programming languages based on their features. Languages can be classified into multiple paradigms.
Some paradigms are concerned mainly with implications for the execution model of the language, suc ...
system programming language
A system programming language is a programming language used for system programming; such languages are designed for writing system software, which usually requires different development approaches when compared with application software. Edsger W ...
created by
Walter Bright
Walter G. Bright is an American computer programmer who created the D programming language, the Zortech C++ compiler, and the ''Empire'' computer game.
Early life and education
Bright is the son of the United States Air Force pilot Charles D. ...
at
Digital Mars
Digital Mars is a small American software company owned by Walter Bright and based in Vienna, Virginia, that makes C, C++ and D compilers, and associated utilities such as an integrated development environment (IDE) for Windows and DOS, which D ...
and released in 2001.
Andrei Alexandrescu
Andrei Alexandrescu (born 1969) is a Romanian-American C++ and D language programmer and author. He is particularly known for his pioneering work on policy-based design implemented via template metaprogramming. These ideas are articulated ...
joined the design and development effort in 2007. Though it originated as a re-engineering of
C++
C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
, D is a profoundly different language —features of D can be considered streamlined and expanded-upon ideas from C++, however D also draws inspiration from other high-level programming languages, notably
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
,
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
,
Ruby
A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...
,
C#, and
Eiffel
Eiffel may refer to:
Places
* Eiffel Peak, a summit in Alberta, Canada
* Champ de Mars – Tour Eiffel station, Paris, France; a transit station
Structures
* Eiffel Tower, in Paris, France, designed by Gustave Eiffel
* Eiffel Bridge, Ungheni, M ...
.
D combines the performance and safety of
compiled languages with the
expressive power of modern
dynamic
Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' "power") or dynamic may refer to:
Physics and engineering
* Dynamics (mechanics)
** Aerodynamics, the study of the motion of air
** Analytical dyna ...
and
functional
Functional may refer to:
* Movements in architecture:
** Functionalism (architecture)
** Form follows function
* Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules
* Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis:
** Functional sy ...
programming languages.
Idiomatic
Idiom, also called idiomaticness or idiomaticity, is the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language. Idiom is the realized structure of a language, as opposed to possible but unrealized structures that could have develop ...
D code is commonly as fast as equivalent C++ code, while also being shorter.
The language as a whole is not
memory-safe but includes optional attributes designed to guarantee memory safety of either subsets of or the whole program.
Type inference
Type inference refers to the automatic detection of the type of an expression in a formal language. These include programming languages and mathematical type systems, but also natural languages in some branches of computer science and linguistics ...
,
automatic memory management
In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The ''garbage collector'' attempts to reclaim memory which was allocated by the program, but is no longer referenced; such memory is called '' garbage''. ...
and
syntactic sugar
In computer science, syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express. It makes the language "sweeter" for human use: things can be expressed more clearly, more concisely, or in an ...
for
common types allow faster
development
Development or developing may refer to:
Arts
*Development hell, when a project is stuck in development
*Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting
*Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped
* Photograph ...
, while
bounds checking
In computer programming, bounds checking is any method of detecting whether a variable is within some bounds before it is used. It is usually used to ensure that a number fits into a given type (range checking), or that a variable being used as ...
and
design by contract find bugs earlier at runtime, and a
concurrency-aware
type system
In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a type to every "term" (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usually the terms are various constructs of a computer progra ...
catches bugs at compile time.
Features
D was designed with lessons learned from practical C++ usage, rather than from a purely theoretical perspective. Although the language uses many
C and C++ concepts, it also discards some, or uses different approaches (and syntax) to achieve some goals. As such, it is not
source compatible (nor does it aim to be) with C and C++ source code in general (some simpler code bases from these languages might by luck work with D, or require some
porting
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
). D has, however, been constrained in its design by the rule that any code that was legal in both C and D should behave in the same way.
D gained some features before C++, such as
closures,
anonymous functions
In computer programming, an anonymous function (function literal, lambda abstraction, lambda function, lambda expression or block) is a function definition that is not bound to an identifier. Anonymous functions are often arguments being passed t ...
,
compile-time function execution
In computing, compile-time function execution (or compile time function evaluation, or general constant expressions) is the ability of a compiler, that would normally compile a function to machine code and execute it at run time, to execute the fu ...
, ranges, built-in container iteration concepts and
type inference
Type inference refers to the automatic detection of the type of an expression in a formal language. These include programming languages and mathematical type systems, but also natural languages in some branches of computer science and linguistics ...
. D adds to the functionality of C++ by also implementing
design by contract,
unit test
In computer programming, unit testing is a software testing method by which individual units of source code—sets of one or more computer program modules together with associated control data, usage procedures, and operating procedures&md ...
ing, true
modules
Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a s ...
,
garbage collection
Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclabl ...
,
first class arrays
An array is a systematic arrangement of similar objects, usually in rows and columns.
Things called an array include:
{{TOC right
Music
* In twelve-tone and serial composition, the presentation of simultaneous twelve-tone sets such that the ...
,
associative array
In computer science, an associative array, map, symbol table, or dictionary is an abstract data type that stores a collection of (key, value) pairs, such that each possible key appears at most once in the collection. In mathematical terms an ...
s,
dynamic arrays,
array slicing
In computer programming, array slicing is an operation that extracts a subset of elements from an array and packages them as another array, possibly in a different dimension from the original.
Common examples of array slicing are extracting a su ...
,
nested function
In computer programming, a nested function (or nested procedure or subroutine) is a function which is defined within another function, the ''enclosing function''. Due to simple recursive scope rules, a nested function is itself invisible outside o ...
s,
lazy evaluation
In programming language theory, lazy evaluation, or call-by-need, is an evaluation strategy which delays the evaluation of an expression until its value is needed (non-strict evaluation) and which also avoids repeated evaluations (sharing).
The b ...
, scoped (deferred) code execution, and a re-engineered
template
Template may refer to:
Tools
* Die (manufacturing), used to cut or shape material
* Mold, in a molding process
* Stencil, a pattern or overlay used in graphic arts (drawing, painting, etc.) and sewing to replicate letters, shapes or designs
...
syntax. C++
multiple inheritance
Multiple inheritance is a feature of some object-oriented computer programming languages in which an object or class can inherit features from more than one parent object or parent class. It is distinct from single inheritance, where an object or ...
was replaced by Java-style
single inheritance
Multiple inheritance is a feature of some object-oriented programming, object-oriented computer programming languages in which an object or class (computer programming), class can inheritance (object-oriented programming), inherit features from mor ...
with
interfaces and
mixin
In object-oriented programming languages, a mixin (or mix-in) is a class that contains methods for use by other classes without having to be the parent class of those other classes. How those other classes gain access to the mixin's methods depend ...
s. On the other hand, D's declaration, statement and expression
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
closely matches that of C++.
D retains C++'s ability to perform
low-level programming including
inline assembler In computer programming, an inline assembler is a feature of some compilers that allows low-level code written in assembly language to be embedded within a program, among code that otherwise has been compiled from a higher-level language such as C ...
, which typifies the differences between D and application languages like
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
and
C#. Inline assembler lets programmers enter machine-specific
assembly code
In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence b ...
within standard D code, a method used by system programmers to access the low-level features of the
processor
Processor may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Processor (computing)
**Central processing unit (CPU), the hardware within a computer that executes a program
*** Microprocessor, a central processing unit contained on a single integrated circuit (I ...
needed to run programs that interface directly with the underlying
hardware, such as
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s and
device driver
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ot ...
s, as well as writing high-performance code (i.e. using vector extensions,
SIMD
Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) is a type of parallel processing in Flynn's taxonomy. SIMD can be internal (part of the hardware design) and it can be directly accessible through an instruction set architecture (ISA), but it shoul ...
) that is hard to generate by the compiler automatically.
D supports
function overloading
In some programming languages, function overloading or method overloading is the ability to create multiple functions of the same name with different implementations. Calls to an overloaded function will run a specific implementation of that f ...
and
operator overloading
In computer programming, operator overloading, sometimes termed ''operator ad hoc polymorphism'', is a specific case of polymorphism, where different operators have different implementations depending on their arguments. Operator overloading is ...
, as well as dynamic arrays and associative arrays by default. Symbols (functions, variables, classes) can be declared in any order -
forward declaration
In computer programming, a forward declaration is a declaration of an identifier (denoting an entity such as a type, a variable, a constant, or a function) for which the programmer has not yet given a complete definition.
It is required for a com ...
s are not required. Similarly imports can be done almost in any order, and even be scoped (i.e. import some module or part of it inside a function, class or unittest only). D has built-in support for documentation comments, allowing automatic
documentation generation
A documentation generator is a programming tool that generates software documentation intended for programmers (API documentation) or end users (end-user guide), or both, from a set of source code files, and in some cases, binary files. Some genera ...
.
In D, text character strings are just arrays of characters, and arrays in D are bounds-checked, unlike those in C++. Specific operators for string handling exist, visually distinct from mathematical corellaries. D has first class types for complex and imaginary numbers, and evaluates expressions involving such types, efficiently.
Programming paradigms
D supports five main
programming paradigm
Programming paradigms are a way to classify programming languages based on their features. Languages can be classified into multiple paradigms.
Some paradigms are concerned mainly with implications for the execution model of the language, suc ...
s:
*
concurrent
Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to:
Law
* Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea''
* Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...
(
actor model)
*
object-oriented
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pro ...
*
imperative
*
functional
Functional may refer to:
* Movements in architecture:
** Functionalism (architecture)
** Form follows function
* Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules
* Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis:
** Functional sy ...
*
metaprogramming
Metaprogramming is a programming technique in which computer programs have the ability to treat other programs as their data. It means that a program can be designed to read, generate, analyze or transform other programs, and even modify itself ...
Imperative
Imperative programming in D is almost identical to that in C. Functions, data, statements, declarations and expressions work just as they do in C, and the C runtime library may be accessed directly. On the other hand, some notable differences between D and C in the area of imperative programming include D's
foreach
loop construct, which allows looping over a collection, and
nested function
In computer programming, a nested function (or nested procedure or subroutine) is a function which is defined within another function, the ''enclosing function''. Due to simple recursive scope rules, a nested function is itself invisible outside o ...
s, which are functions that are declared inside another and may access the enclosing function's
local variable
In computer science, a local variable is a variable that is given ''local scope''. A local variable reference in the function or block in which it is declared overrides the same variable name in the larger scope. In programming languages with o ...
s.
import std.stdio;
void main()
Object-oriented
Object-oriented programming in D is based on a single inheritance hierarchy, with all classes derived from class Object. D does not support multiple inheritance; instead, it uses Java-style
interfaces, which are comparable to C++'s pure abstract classes, and
mixin
In object-oriented programming languages, a mixin (or mix-in) is a class that contains methods for use by other classes without having to be the parent class of those other classes. How those other classes gain access to the mixin's methods depend ...
s, which separates common functionality from the inheritance hierarchy. D also allows the defining of static and final (non-virtual) methods in interfaces.
Interfaces and inheritance in D support
covariant types for return types of overridden methods.
D supports type forwarding, as well as optional custom
dynamic dispatch
In computer science, dynamic dispatch is the process of selecting which implementation of a polymorphic operation (method or function) to call at run time. It is commonly employed in, and considered a prime characteristic of, object-oriented ...
.
Classes (and interfaces) in D can contain
invariants which are automatically checked before and after entry to public methods, in accordance with the
design by contract methodology.
Many aspects of classes (and structs) can be
introspected automatically at compile time (a form of
reflection Reflection or reflexion may refer to:
Science and technology
* Reflection (physics), a common wave phenomenon
** Specular reflection, reflection from a smooth surface
*** Mirror image, a reflection in a mirror or in water
** Signal reflection, in ...
using
type traits
) and at run time (RTTI /
TypeInfo
), to facilitate generic code or automatic code generation (usually using compile-time techniques).
Functional
D supports
functional programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by Function application, applying and Function composition (computer science), composing Function (computer science), functions. It is a declar ...
features such as
function literals
In computer programming, an anonymous function (function literal, lambda abstraction, lambda function, lambda expression or block) is a function definition that is not bound to an identifier. Anonymous functions are often arguments being passed to ...
,
closures, recursively-immutable objects and the use of
higher-order functions. There are two syntaxes for anonymous functions, including a multiple-statement form and a "shorthand" single-expression notation:
int function(int) g;
g = (x) ; // longhand
g = (x) => x * x; // shorthand
There are two built-in types for function literals,
function
, which is simply a pointer to a stack-allocated function, and
delegate
, which also includes a pointer to the surrounding environment. Type inference may be used with an anonymous function, in which case the compiler creates a
delegate
unless it can prove that an environment pointer is not necessary. Likewise, to implement a closure, the compiler places enclosed local variables on the heap only if necessary (for example, if a closure is returned by another function, and exits that function's scope). When using type inference, the compiler will also add attributes such as
pure
and
nothrow
to a function's type, if it can prove that they apply.
Other functional features such as
currying and common higher-order functions such as
map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
,
filter
Filter, filtering or filters may refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream
* Filter (video), a software component tha ...
, and
reduce
Reduction, reduced, or reduce may refer to:
Science and technology Chemistry
* Reduction (chemistry), part of a reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction in which atoms have their oxidation state changed.
** Organic redox reaction, a redox react ...
are available through the standard library modules
std.functional
and
std.algorithm
.
import std.stdio, std.algorithm, std.range;
void main()
Alternatively, the above function compositions can be expressed using Uniform function call syntax (UFCS) for more natural left-to-right reading:
auto result = a1.chain(a2).reduce!mySum();
writeln("Result: ", result);
result = a1.chain(a2).reduce!((a, b) => (b <= pivot) ? a + b : a)();
writeln("Result: ", result);
Parallelism
Parallel programming concepts are implemented in the library, and do not require extra support from the compiler. However the D type system and compiler ensure that data sharing can be detected and managed transparently.
import std.stdio : writeln;
import std.range : iota;
import std.parallelism : parallel;
void main()
iota(11).parallel
is equivalent to
std.parallelism.parallel(iota(11))
by using UFCS.
The same module also supports
taskPool
which can be used for dynamic creation of parallel tasks, as well as map-filter-reduce and fold style operations on ranges (and arrays), which is useful when combined with functional operations.
std.algorithm.map
returns a lazily evaluated range rather than an array. This way, the elements are computed by each worker task in parallel automatically.
import std.stdio : writeln;
import std.algorithm : map;
import std.range : iota;
import std.parallelism : taskPool;
/* On Intel i7-3930X and gdc 9.3.0:
* 5140ms using std.algorithm.reduce
* 888ms using std.parallelism.taskPool.reduce
*
* On AMD Threadripper 2950X, and gdc 9.3.0:
* 2864ms using std.algorithm.reduce
* 95ms using std.parallelism.taskPool.reduce
*/
void main()
Concurrency
Concurrency is fully implemented in the library, and it does not require support from the compiler. Alternative implementations and methodologies of writing concurrent code are possible. The use of D typing system does help ensure memory safety.
import std.stdio, std.concurrency, std.variant;
void foo()
void main()
Metaprogramming
Metaprogramming
Metaprogramming is a programming technique in which computer programs have the ability to treat other programs as their data. It means that a program can be designed to read, generate, analyze or transform other programs, and even modify itself ...
is supported through templates, compile-time function execution,
tuple
In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is defi ...
s, and string mixins. The following examples demonstrate some of D's compile-time features.
Templates in D can be written in a more imperative style compared to the C++ functional style for templates. This is a regular function that calculates the
factorial
In mathematics, the factorial of a non-negative denoted is the product of all positive integers less than or equal The factorial also equals the product of n with the next smaller factorial:
\begin
n! &= n \times (n-1) \times (n-2) \t ...
of a number:
ulong factorial(ulong n)
Here, the use of
static if
, D's compile-time conditional construct, is demonstrated to construct a template that performs the same calculation using code that is similar to that of the function above:
template Factorial(ulong n)
In the following two examples, the template and function defined above are used to compute factorials. The types of constants need not be specified explicitly as the compiler
infers their types from the right-hand sides of assignments:
enum fact_7 = Factorial!(7);
This is an example of
compile-time function execution
In computing, compile-time function execution (or compile time function evaluation, or general constant expressions) is the ability of a compiler, that would normally compile a function to machine code and execute it at run time, to execute the fu ...
(CTFE). Ordinary functions may be used in constant, compile-time expressions provided they meet certain criteria:
enum fact_9 = factorial(9);
The
std.string.format
function performs
printf
-like data formatting (also at compile-time, through CTFE), and the "msg"
pragma displays the result at compile time:
import std.string : format;
pragma(msg, format("7! = %s", fact_7));
pragma(msg, format("9! = %s", fact_9));
String mixins, combined with compile-time function execution, allow for the generation of D code using string operations at compile time. This can be used to parse
domain-specific language
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...
s, which will be compiled as part of the program:
import FooToD; // hypothetical module which contains a function that parses Foo source code
// and returns equivalent D code
void main()
Memory management
Memory is usually managed with
garbage collection
Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclabl ...
, but specific objects may be finalized immediately when they go out of scope. This is what the majority of programs and libraries written in D use.
In case more control over memory layout and better performance is needed, explicit memory management is possible using the
overloaded operators new
and
delete
, by calling
C's
malloc and free directly, or implementing custom allocator schemes (i.e. on stack with fallback, RAII style allocation, reference counting, shared reference counting). Garbage collection can be controlled: programmers may add and exclude memory ranges from being observed by the collector, can disable and enable the collector and force either a generational or full collection cycle. The manual gives many examples of how to implement different highly optimized memory management schemes for when garbage collection is inadequate in a program.
In functions,
struct
instances are by default allocated on the stack, while
class
instances by default allocated on the heap (with only reference to the class instance being on the stack). However this can be changed for classes, for example using standard library template
std.typecons.scoped
, or by using
new
for structs and assigning to a pointer instead of a value-based variable.
In functions, static arrays (of known size) are allocated on the stack. For dynamic arrays, one can use the
core.stdc.stdlib.alloca
function (similar to
alloca
in C), to allocate memory on the stack. The returned pointer can be used (recast) into a (typed) dynamic array, by means of a slice (however resizing array, including appending must be avoided; and for obvious reasons they must not be returned from the function).
A
scope
keyword can be used both to annotate parts of code, but also variables and classes/structs, to indicate they should be destroyed (destructor called) immediately on scope exit. Whatever the memory is deallocated also depends on implementation and class-vs-struct differences.
std.experimental.allocator
contains a modular and composable allocator templates, to create custom high performance allocators for special use cases.
SafeD
SafeD
is the name given to the subset of D that can be guaranteed to be memory safe (no writes to memory that has not been allocated or that has been recycled). Functions marked
@safe
are checked at compile time to ensure that they do not use any features that could result in corruption of memory, such as pointer arithmetic and unchecked casts, and any other functions called must also be marked as
@safe
or
@trusted
. Functions can be marked
@trusted
for the cases where the compiler cannot distinguish between safe use of a feature that is disabled in SafeD and a potential case of memory corruption.
Scope lifetime safety
Initially under the banners of DIP1000 and DIP25 (now part of the language specification), D provides protections against certain ill-formed constructions involving the lifetimes of data.
The current mechanisms in place primarily deal with function parameters and stack memory however it is a stated ambition of the leadership of the programming language to provide a more thorough treatment of lifetimes within the D programming language (influenced by ideas from
Rust programming language
Rust is a multi-paradigm, general-purpose programming language. Rust emphasizes performance, type safety, and concurrency. Rust enforces memory safety—that is, that all references point to valid memory—without requiring the use of a garba ...
).
Lifetime safety of assignments
Within @safe code, the lifetime of an assignment involving a
reference type In computer programming, data types can be divided into two categories: value types (or by-value types) and reference types (or by-reference types). Value types are completely represented by their meaning, while reference types are references to ano ...
is checked to ensure that the lifetime of the assignee is longer than that of the assigned.
For example:
@safe void test()
Function parameter lifetime annotations within @safe code
When applied to function parameter which are either of pointer type or references, the keywords ''return'' and ''scope'' constrain the lifetime and use of that parameter.
The language standard dictates the following behaviour:
An annotated example is given below.
@safe:
int* gp;
void thorin(scope int*);
void gloin(int*);
int* balin(return scope int* p, scope int* q, int* r)
Interaction with other systems
C's
application binary interface (ABI) is supported, as well as all of C's fundamental and derived types, enabling direct access to existing C code and libraries. D
bindings are available for many popular C libraries. Additionally, C's standard
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
is part of standard D.
On Microsoft Windows, D can access
Component Object Model (COM) code.
As long as memory management is properly taken care of, many other languages can be mixed with D in a single binary. For example, GDC compiler allow to link C, C++, and other supported language codes to be intermixed. D code (functions) can also be marked as using C, C++, Pascal ABIs, and thus be passed to the libraries written in these languages as
callbacks. Similarly data can be interchanged between the codes written in these languages in both ways. This usually restricts use to primitive types, pointers, some forms of arrays,
unions, structs, and only some types of function pointers.
Because many other programming languages often provide the C API for writing extensions or running the interpreter of the languages, D can interface directly with these languages as well, using standard C bindings (with a thin D interface file). For example, there are bi-directional bindings for languages like
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
,
Lua
Lua or LUA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Lua (programming language)
* Latvia University of Agriculture
* Last universal ancestor, in evolution
Ethnicity and language
* Lua people, of Laos
* Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...
and other languages, often using compile-time code generation and compile-time type reflection methods.
Interaction with C++ code
D takes a permissive but realistic approach to interoperation with C++ code.
For D code marked as
extern(C++)
, the following features are specified:
* The name mangling conventions shall match those of C++ on the target.
* For function calls, the ABI shall be equivalent.
* The vtable shall be matched up to single inheritance (the only level supported by the D language specification).
C++ namespaces are used via the syntax
extern(C++, namespace)
where ''namespace'' is the name of the C++ namespace.
=An example of C++ interoperation
=
The C++ side
#include
using namespace std;
class Base
;
class Derived : public Base
;
int Derived::mul(int factor)
Derived *createInstance(int i)
void deleteInstance(Derived *&d)
The D side
extern(C++)
void main()
Better C
The D programming language has an official subset known as "".
This subset forbids access to D features requiring use of runtime libraries other than that of C.
Enabled via the compiler flags "-betterC" on DMD and LDC, and "-fno-druntime" on GDC, may only call into D code compiled under the same flag (and linked code other than D) but code compiled without the option may call into code compiled with it: this will, however, lead to slightly different behaviours due to differences in how C and D handle asserts.
Features included in Better C
* Unrestricted use of compile-time features (for example, D's dynamic allocation features can be used at compile time to pre-allocate D data)
* Full metaprogramming facilities
* Nested functions, nested structs, delegates and lambdas
* Member functions, constructors, destructors, operating overloading, etc.
* The full module system
* Array slicing, and array bounds checking
* RAII
*
* Memory safety protections
* Interfacing with C++
* COM classes and C++ classes
* assert failures are directed to the C runtime library
* switch with strings
* final switch
* unittest blocks
* printf format validation
Features excluded from Better C
* Garbage collection
* TypeInfo and ModuleInfo
* Built-in threading (e.g.
core.thread
)
* Dynamic arrays (though slices of static arrays work) and associative arrays
* Exceptions
* ''synchronized'' and
core.sync
* Static module constructors or destructors
History
Walter Bright
Walter G. Bright is an American computer programmer who created the D programming language, the Zortech C++ compiler, and the ''Empire'' computer game.
Early life and education
Bright is the son of the United States Air Force pilot Charles D. ...
started working on a new language in 1999. D was first released in December 2001
and reached version 1.0 in January 2007.
The first version of the language (D1) concentrated on the imperative, object oriented and metaprogramming paradigms, similar to C++.
Some members of the D community dissatisfied with Phobos, D's official
runtime and
standard library
In computer programming, a standard library is the library made available across implementations of a programming language. These libraries are conventionally described in programming language specifications; however, contents of a language's as ...
, created an alternative runtime and standard library named Tango. The first public Tango announcement came within days of D 1.0's release. Tango adopted a different programming style, embracing OOP and high modularity. Being a community-led project, Tango was more open to contributions, which allowed it to progress faster than the official standard library. At that time, Tango and Phobos were incompatible due to different runtime support APIs (the garbage collector, threading support, etc.). This made it impossible to use both libraries in the same project. The existence of two libraries, both widely in use, has led to significant dispute due to some packages using Phobos and others using Tango.
In June 2007, the first version of D2 was released.
The beginning of D2's development signaled D1's stabilization. The first version of the language has been placed in maintenance, only receiving corrections and implementation bugfixes. D2 introduced
breaking changes to the language, beginning with its first experimental
const system. D2 later added numerous other language features, such as
closures,
purity
Purity may refer to:
Books
* ''Pureza'' (novel), a 1937 Brazilian novel by José Lins do Rego
* ''Purity'' (novel), a 2015 novel by Jonathan Franzen
** ''Purity'' (TV series), a TV series based on the novel
*''Purity'', a 2012 novel by Jackson P ...
, and support for the functional and concurrent programming paradigms. D2 also solved standard library problems by separating the runtime from the standard library. The completion of a D2 Tango port was announced in February 2012.
The release of
Andrei Alexandrescu
Andrei Alexandrescu (born 1969) is a Romanian-American C++ and D language programmer and author. He is particularly known for his pioneering work on policy-based design implemented via template metaprogramming. These ideas are articulated ...
's book ''The D Programming Language'' on 12 June 2010, marked the stabilization of D2, which today is commonly referred to as just "D".
In January 2011, D development moved from a bugtracker / patch-submission basis to
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
. This has led to a significant increase in contributions to the compiler, runtime and standard library.
In December 2011, Andrei Alexandrescu announced that D1, the first version of the language, would be discontinued on 31 December 2012. The final D1 release, D v1.076, was on 31 December 2012.
Code for the official D compiler, the ''Digital Mars D compiler'' by Walter Bright, was originally released under a custom
license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
, qualifying as
source available but not conforming to the
open source definition
''The Open Source Definition'' is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark.
The definition was taken from the exact text of the Debian Free ...
.
In 2014, the compiler
front-end was
re-licensed as
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
under the
Boost Software License.
This re-licensed code excluded the back-end, which had been partially developed at
Symantec. On 7 April 2017, the whole compiler was made available under the Boost license after Symantec gave permission to re-license the back-end, too.
On 21 June 2017, the D Language was accepted for inclusion in GCC.
Implementations
Most current D implementations
compile
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...
directly into
machine code
In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...
for efficient execution.
Production ready compilers:
* ''DMD'' – The ''Digital Mars D compiler'' by Walter Bright is the official D compiler; open sourced under the
Boost Software License.
The DMD frontend is shared by GDC (now in GCC) and LDC, to improve compatibility between compilers. Initially the frontend was written in C++, but now most of it is now written in D itself (self-hosting). The backend and machine code optimizers are based on the Symantec compiler. At first it supported only 32-bit x86, with support added for 64-bit amd64 and PowerPC by Walter Bright. Later the backend and almost the entire compiler was ported from C++ to D for full self-hosting.
* ''GCC'' – The
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free software ...
, merged GDC into GCC 9 on 29 October 2018. The first working versions of GDC with GCC, based on GCC 3.3 and GCC 3.4 on 32-bit x86 on Linux and macOS was released on 22 March 2004. Since then GDC has gained support for additional platforms, improved performance, and fixed bugs, while tracking upstream DMD code for the frontend and language specification.
* ''LDC'' – A compiler based on the DMD front-end that uses
LLVM
LLVM is a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture. LLVM is designed around a language-independent intermediate repre ...
as its compiler back-end. The first release-quality version was published on 9 January 2009. It supports version 2.0.
Toy and proof-of-concept compilers:
* ''D Compiler for '' – A back-end for the D programming language 2.0 compiler. It compiles the code to
Common Intermediate Language
Common Intermediate Language (CIL), formerly called Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) or Intermediate Language (IL), is the intermediate language binary instruction set defined within the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specification. ...
(CIL) bytecode rather than to machine code. The CIL can then be run via a
Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
. The project has not been updated in years and the author indicated the project is not active anymore.
* ''SDC'' – The ''Stupid D Compiler'' uses a custom front-end and
LLVM
LLVM is a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture. LLVM is designed around a language-independent intermediate repre ...
as its compiler back-end. It is written in D and uses a scheduler to handle symbol resolution in order to elegantly handle the compile-time features of D. This compiler currently supports a limited subset of the language.
Using above compilers and toolchains, it is possible to compile D programs to target many different architectures, including
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...
,
amd64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...
,
AArch64
AArch64 or ARM64 is the 64-bit extension of the ARM architecture family.
It was first introduced with the Armv8-A architecture. Arm releases a new extension every year.
ARMv8.x and ARMv9.x extensions and features
Announced in October 2011, AR ...
,
PowerPC
PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
,
MIPS64,
DEC Alpha
Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set compute ...
,
Motorola m68k,
Sparc
SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...
,
s390
The IBM System/390 is a discontinued mainframe product family implementing the ESA/390, the fifth generation of the System/360 instruction set architecture. The first computers to use the ESA/390 were the Enterprise System/9000 (ES/9000) ...
,
WebAssembly
WebAssembly (sometimes abbreviated Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment ...
. The primary supported operating systems are
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
, but various compilers also support
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
,
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
,
NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...
,
AIX
Aix or AIX may refer to:
Computing
* AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems
*An Alternate Index, for a Virtual Storage Access Method Key Sequenced Data Set
* Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point
Places Belgi ...
,
Solaris/OpenSolaris and
Android, either as a host or target, or both.
WebAssembly
WebAssembly (sometimes abbreviated Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment ...
target (supported via LDC and LLVM) can operate in any WebAssembly environment, like modern web browser (
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...
,
Mozilla Firefox,
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...
,
Apple Safari
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple. It is built into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and uses Apple's open-source browser engine, WebKit, which was derived from KHTML.
Safari was introduced in Mac OS X Panther in January 2003. It was inclu ...
), or dedicated Wasm virtual machines.
Development tools
Editors and
integrated development environment
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools a ...
s (IDEs) supporting
syntax highlighting
Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...
and partial
code completion
Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...
for the language include
SlickEdit,
Emacs,
vim,
SciTE
SciTE or SCIntilla based Text Editor is a cross-platform text editor written by Neil Hodgson using the Scintilla editing component. It is licensed under a minimal version of the Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer.
Lightweight and buil ...
,
Smultron
Smultron is a text editor for macOS that is designed for both beginners and advanced users, named after the Swedish word for the woodland strawberry.
It was originally published as free software but is now sold through the Mac App Store. It i ...
, Zeus, and
Geany
Geany ( IPA:dʒiːni ) is a free and open-source lightweight GUI text editor using Scintilla and GTK, including basic IDE features. It is designed to have short load times, with limited dependency on separate packages or external librarie ...
among others.
* Dexed (formerly Coedit), a D focused graphical IDE written in
Object Pascal
Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal (programming language), Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as Class (computer programming), classes and Method (computer programming), methods.
...
* Mono-D is a feature rich cross-platform D focused graphical IDE based on
MonoDevelop
MonoDevelop (also known as Xamarin Studio) is an open-source integrated development environment for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its primary focus is development of projects that use Mono and .NET Framework. MonoDevelop integrates features similar t ...
/ Xamarin Studio, mainly written in C Sharp.
*
Eclipse plug-ins for D include DDT and Descent (dead project).
* Visual Studio integration is provided by VisualD.
*
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft with the Electron Framework, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code comple ...
integration with extensions as Dlang-Vscode or Code-D.
* A bundle is available for
TextMate
TextMate is a general-purpose Graphical user interface, GUI text editor for macOS created by Allan Odgaard. TextMate features declarative programming, declarative customizations, Tab (GUI), tabs for open documents, recordable Macro (computer scien ...
, and the
Code::Blocks IDE includes partial support for the language. However, standard IDE features such as
code completion
Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...
or
refactoring
In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structu ...
are not yet available, though they do work partially in Code::Blocks (due to D's similarity to C).
* The
Xcode 3 plugin "D for Xcode" enables D-based projects and development.
*
KDevelop
KDevelop is a free and open-source integrated development environment (IDE) for Unix-like computer operating systems and Windows. It provides editing, navigation and debugging features for several programming languages, and integration with buil ...
(as well as its text editor backend, Kate) autocompletion plugin is available.
Open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
D IDEs for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
exist, some written in D, such as Poseidon, D-IDE, and Entice Designer.
D applications can be debugged using any C/C++ debugger, like
GDB
The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Go, and partially others.
History
GDB was first written by ...
or
WinDbg
WinDbg is a multipurpose debugger for the Microsoft Windows computer operating system, distributed by Microsoft. Debugging is the process of finding and resolving errors in a system; in computing it also includes exploring the internal operation ...
, although support for various D-specific language features is extremely limited. On Windows, D programs can be debugged usin
Ddbg or Microsoft debugging tools (WinDBG and Visual Studio), after having converted the debug information usin
cv2pdb Th
ZeroBUGSdebugger for Linux has experimental support for the D language. Ddbg can be used with various IDEs or from the command line; ZeroBUGS has its own
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
(GUI).
''DustMite'' is a powerful tool for minimizing D source code, useful when finding compiler or tests issues.
''dub'' is a popular package and build manager for D applications and libraries, and is often integrated into IDE support.
Examples
Example 1
This example program prints its command line arguments. The
main
function is the entry point of a D program, and
args
is an array of strings representing the command line arguments. A
string
in D is an array of characters, represented by
immutable(char)[]
.
import std.stdio: writefln;
void main(string[] args)
The
foreach
statement can iterate over any collection. In this case, it is producing a sequence of indexes (
i
) and values (
arg
) from the array
args
. The index
i
and the value
arg
have their types inferred from the type of the array
args
.
Example 2
The following shows several D capabilities and D design trade-offs in a short program. It iterates over the lines of a text file named
words.txt
, which contains a different word on each line, and prints all the words that are anagrams of other words.
import std.stdio, std.algorithm, std.range, std.string;
void main()
#
signature2words
is a built-in associative array that maps dstring (32-bit / char) keys to arrays of dstrings. It is similar to
defaultdict(list)
in
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
.
#
lines(File())
yields lines lazily, with the newline. It has to then be copied with
idup
to obtain a string to be used for the associative array values (the
idup
property of arrays returns an immutable duplicate of the array, which is required since the
dstring
type is actually
immutable(dchar)[]
). Built-in associative arrays require immutable keys.
# The
~=
operator appends a new dstring to the values of the associate dynamic array.
#
toLower
,
join
and
chomp
are string functions that D allows the use of with a method syntax. The name of such functions are often similar to Python string methods. The
toLower
converts a string to lower case,
join(" ")
joins an array of strings into a single string using a single space as separator, and
chomp
removes a newline from the end of the string if one is present. The
w.dup.sort().release().idup
is more readable, but equivalent to
release(sort(w.dup)).idup
for example. This feature is called UFCS (Uniform Function Call Syntax), and allows extending any built-in or third party package types with method-like functionality. The style of writing code like this is often referenced as
pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
(especially when the objects used are lazily computed, for example iterators / ranges) or
Fluent interface
In software engineering, a fluent interface is an object-oriented API whose design relies extensively on method chaining. Its goal is to increase code legibility by creating a domain-specific language (DSL). The term was coined in 2005 by Eric ...
.
# The
sort
is an std.algorithm function that sorts the array in place, creating a unique signature for words that are anagrams of each other. The
release()
method on the return value of
sort()
is handy to keep the code as a single expression.
# The second
foreach
iterates on the values of the associative array, it is able to infer the type of
words
.
#
signature
is assigned to an immutable variable, its type is inferred.
#
UTF-32
UTF-32 (32- bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a fixed-length encoding used to encode Unicode code points that uses exactly 32 bits (four bytes) per code point (but a number of leading bits must be zero as there are far fewer than 232 Unicode ...
dchar[]
is used instead of normal UTF-8
char[]
otherwise
sort()
refuses to sort it. There are more efficient ways to write this program using just UTF-8.
Uses
Notable organisations that use the D programming language for projects include
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
,
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
, and
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
.
D has been successfully used for
AAA games, language interpreters, virtual machines, an
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learn ...
,
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...
programming,
web development
Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications ...
,
numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...
,
GUI applications, a
passenger information system
A passenger information system, or passenger information display system, is an automated system for supplying users of public transport with information about the nature and the state of a public transport service through visual, voice or other m ...
, machine learning,
text processing, web and application servers and research.
See also
*
Ddoc Ddoc is a compiler-embedded documentation generator and associated syntax, for the D programming language, designed by Walter Bright. Its emphasis is on being able to write documentation in code comments in a natural style, minimizing the need fo ...
*
D Language Foundation
References
Further reading
*
*
*
* (distributed under CC-BY-NC-SA license). This book teaches programming to novices, but covers many advanced D topics as well.
*
*
External links
*
Digital MarsTurkish Forum*
{{DEFAULTSORT:D (programming language)
Programming languages
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Cross-platform software
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High-level programming languages
Multi-paradigm programming languages
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Procedural programming languages
Programming languages created in 2001
Statically typed programming languages
Systems programming languages
2001 software
Software using the Boost license
Articles with example D code