The D Programming Language

Andrei Alexandrescu, Ph.D., is the author of the award-winning books Modern C++ Design (Addison-Wesley, 2001) and, with Herb Sutter, C++ Coding Standards (Addison-Wesley, 2005). Through his work, Andrei has garnered a solid reputation as a leading innovator in programming languages and methods. Since 2006, he has collaborated closely with Walter Bright—the original designer and implementer of D—on designing and implementing the language and its standard library.

• Foreword by Walter Bright xvForeword by Scott Meyers xixPreface xxiiiChapter 1: “D”iving In 11.1 Numbers and Expressions 31.2 Statements 51.3 Function Basics 61.4 Arrays and Associative Arrays 71.5 Basic Data Structures 141.6 Interfaces and Classes 201.7 Values versus References 251.8 Summary 27Chapter 2: Basic Types. Expressions 292.1 Symbols 302.2 Literals 322.3 Operators 422.4 Summary and Quick Reference 61Chapter 3: Statements 653.1 The Expression Statement 653.2 The Compound Statement 663.3 The if Statement 673.4 The static if Statement 683.5 The switch Statement 713.6 The final switch Statement 723.7 Looping Statements 733.8 The goto Statement 783.9 The with Statement 803.10 The return Statement 813.11 The throw and try Statements 813.12 The mixin Statement 823.13 The scope Statement 843.14 The synchronized Statement 883.15 The asm Statement 893.16 Summary and Quick Reference 89Chapter 4: Arrays, Associative Arrays, and Strings 934.1 Dynamic Arrays 934.2 Fixed-Size Arrays 1074.3 Multidimensional Arrays 1114.4 Associative Arrays 1144.5 Strings 1184.6 Arrays’ Maverick Cousin: The Pointer 1244.7 Summary and Quick Reference 126Chapter 5: Data and Functions. Functional Style 1315.1 Writing and unittesting a Simple Function 1315.2 Passing Conventions and Storage Classes 1345.3 Type Parameters 1385.4 Signature Constraints 1405.5 Overloading 1425.6 Higher-Order Functions. Function Literals 1485.7 Nested Functions 1505.8 Closures 1525.9 Beyond Arrays. Ranges. Pseudo Members 1545.10 Variadic Functions 1595.11 Function Attributes 1655.12 Compile-Time Evaluation 169Chapter 6: Classes. Object-Oriented Style 1756.1 Classes 1756.2 Object Names Are References 1776.3 It’s an Object’s Life 1816.4 Methods and Inheritance 1906.5 Class-Level Encapsulation with static Members 1966.6 Curbing Extensibility with final Methods 1976.7 Encapsulation 1996.8 One Root to Rule Them All 2036.9 Interfaces 2126.10 Abstract Classes 2186.11 Nested Classes 2226.12 Multiple Inheritance 2266.13 Multiple Subtyping 2306.14 Parameterized Classes and Interfaces 2336.15 Summary 237Chapter 7: Other User-Defined Types 2397.1 structs 2407.2 unions 2707.3 Enumerated Values 2727.4 alias 2767.5 Parameterized Scopes with template 2787.6 Injecting Code with mixin templates 2827.7 Summary and Reference 285Chapter 8: Type Qualifiers 2878.1 The immutable Qualifier 2888.2 Composing with immutable 2918.3 immutable Parameters and Methods 2928.4 immutable Constructors 2938.5 Conversions involving immutable 2958.6 The const Qualifier 2978.7 Interaction between const and immutable 2988.8 Propagating a Qualifier from Parameter to Result 2998.9 Summary 300Chapter 9: Error Handling 3019.1 throwing and catching 3019.2 Types 3029.3 finally clauses 3069.4 nothrow Functions and the Special Nature of Throwable 3079.5 Collateral Exceptions 3079.6 Stack Unwinding and Exception-Safe Code 3099.7 Uncaught Exceptions 312Chapter 10: Contract Programming 31310.1 Contracts 31410.2 Assertions 31610.3 Preconditions 31710.4 Postconditions 31910.5 Invariants 32110.6 Skipping Contract Checks. Release Builds 32410.7 Contracts: Not for Scrubbing Input 32710.8 Contracts and Inheritance 32910.9 Contracts in Interfaces 334Chapter 11: Scaling Up 33711.1 Packages and Modules 33711.2 Safety 35311.3 Module Constructors and Destructors 35611.4 Documentation Comments 35811.5 Interfacing with C and C++ 35911.6 deprecated 35911.7 version Declarations 36011.8 debug Declarations 36111.9 D’s Standard Library 361Chapter 12: Operator Overloading 36512.1 Overloading Operators 36612.2 Overloading Unary Operators 36712.3 Overloading Binary Operators 37112.4 Overloading Comparison Operators 37512.5 Overloading Assignment Operators 37612.6 Overloading Indexing Operators 37712.7 Overloading Slicing Operators 37912.8 The $ Operator 37912.9 Overloading foreach 38012.10 Defining Overloaded Operators in Classes 38312.11 And Now for Something Completely Different: opDispatch 38412.12 Summary and Quick Reference 388Chapter 13: Concurrency 39113.1 Concurrentgate 39213.2 A Brief History of Data Sharing 39413.3 Look, Ma, No (Default) Sharing 39713.4 Starting a Thread 39913.5 Exchanging Messages between Threads 40113.6 Pattern Matching with receive 40313.7 File Copying—with a Twist 40613.8 Thread Termination 40713.9 Out-of-Band Communication 40913.10 Mailbox Crowding 41013.11 The shared Type Qualifier 41113.12 Operations with shared Data and Their Effects 41313.13 Lock-Based Synchronization with synchronized classes 41413.14 Field Typing in synchronized classes 41913.15 Deadlocks and the synchronized Statement 42413.16 Lock-Free Coding with shared classes 42613.17 Summary 431Bibliography 433Index 439