- There have been several programming languages called D during the history of computing. The one discussed in this article is that created by Walter Bright. The one called Dialog Manager is discussed on another page.
D is an object-oriented, imperative systems programming language designed by Walter Bright of Digital Mars as a successor to C++. Some other successors to C++ include Java , and C#
D adds modern features like design by contract, unit testing, true modules, automatic memory management (garbage collection), first class arrays, closures (anonymous functions), and a reengineered template syntax. D retains C++'s ability to do low-level coding, and adds to it with support for an integrated inline assembler. C++ multiple inheritance is replaced by single inheritance with interfaces. D's declaration, statement and expression syntax closely matches C++.
The inline assembler is typical of the differentiation between D and application languages like Java and C#. An inline assembler allows a programmer to enter machine-specific assembly code alongside standard D code—a technique often used by systems programmers to access the low-level features of the processor needed to run programs that interface directly with the underlying hardware, such as operating systems and device drivers.
D uses garbage collection, but also allows the programmer to request that specific objects be finalized immediately when they go out of scope.
D also includes an interface to C's standard library: routines and libraries written in C can be called from D, although there is no interface with C++.
D is intended to be compiled directly into native code for efficient execution.
D is still under development, and changes to the language are made regularly. Some of these could break D programs written for older versions of the language and compiler. The official compiler by Walter Bright defines the language itself, and it is in continuous beta testing state.
Example
// D program that prints its command line arguments
import std.stdio;
int main(char[][] args) {
foreach (int i, char[] arg; args)
writefln("args[", i, "] = '", arg, "'");
return 0;
}
External links
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