D Programming Language 1.0

“It seems to me that most of the ‘new’ programming languages fall into one of two categories: Those from academia with radical new paradigms and those from large corporations with a focus on RAD and the web. Maybe it’s time for a new language born out of practical experience implementing compilers.” -- Michael

“Great, just what I need.. another D in programming.” -- Segfault

D is a systems programming language. Its focus is on combining the power and high performance of C and C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages like Ruby and Python. Special attention is given to the needs of quality assurance, documentation, management, portability and reliability.

The D language is statically typed and compiles directly to machine code. It’s multiparadigm, supporting many programming styles: imperative, object oriented, and metaprogramming. It’s a member of the C syntax family, and its appearance is very similar to that of C++. Here’s a quick list of features.

It is not governed by a corporate agenda or any overarching theory of programming. The needs and contributions of the D programming community form the direction it goes.

There are two versions of the language:

D version 2 which is recommended for new projects.
D version 1 which is in maintenance mode.

There are currently four implementations:

Digital Mars dmd for Windows 1.0 2.0, x86 Linux 1.0 2.0, Mac OS X 1.0 2.0, and x86 FreeBSD 1.0, 2.0.
LLVM D Compiler ldc for D version 1.
Gnu D compiler gdc.
D.NET compiler alpha for .NET for D version 2.

A large and growing collection of D source code and projects are at dsource. More links to innumerable D wikis, libraries, tools, media articles, etc. are at dlinks.

This document is available as a pdf, as well as in Japanese and Portugese translations. A German book Programming in D: Introduction to the new Programming Language is available, as well as a Japanese book D Language Perfect Guide, and a Turkish book D Programlama Dili Dersleri.

This is an example D program illustrating some of the capabilities:

#!/usr/bin/dmd -run
/* sh style script syntax is supported */

/* Hello World in D
   To compile:
     dmd hello.d
   or to optimize:
     dmd -O -inline -release hello.d
*/

import std.stdio;

void main(string[] args)
{
    writeln("Hello World, Reloaded");

    // auto type inference and built-in foreach
    foreach (argc, argv; args)
    {
        // Object Oriented Programming
        auto cl = new CmdLin(argc, argv);
        // Improved typesafe printf
        writeln(cl.argnum, cl.suffix, " arg: ", cl.argv);
        // Automatic or explicit memory management
        delete cl;
    }

    // Nested structs and classes
    struct specs
    {
        // all members automatically initialized
        size_t count, allocated;
    }

    // Nested functions can refer to outer
    // variables like args
    specs argspecs()
    {
        specs* s = new specs;
        // no need for '->'
        s.count = args.length;		   // get length of array with .length
        s.allocated = typeof(args).sizeof; // built-in native type properties
        foreach (argv; args)
            s.allocated += argv.length * typeof(argv[0]).sizeof;
        return *s;
    }

    // built-in string and common string operations
    writefln("argc = %d, " ~ "allocated = %d",
	argspecs().count, argspecs().allocated);
}

class CmdLin
{
    private size_t _argc;
    private string _argv;

public:
    this(size_t argc, string argv) // constructor
    {
        _argc = argc;
        _argv = argv;
    }

    size_t argnum()
    {
        return _argc + 1;
    }

    string argv()
    {
        return _argv;
    }

    string suffix()
    {
        string suffix = "th";
        switch (_argc)
        {
          case 0:
            suffix = "st";
            break;
          case 1:
            suffix = "nd";
            break;
          case 2:
            suffix = "rd";
            break;
          default:
	    break;
        }
        return suffix;
    }
}

Notice: We welcome feedback about the D compiler or language, but please be explicit about any claims to intellectual property rights with a copyright or patent notice if you have such for your contributions. We want D to remain open and free to use, and do not wish to be caught by someone posting a patch to the compiler, and then later claim compensation for that work.

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D Programming Language 1.0