Development tools
Contents
Compilers
See Compilers.
Package Manager
- DUB - Also functions as a build tool
Building
See Build Tools.
Documentation
Built-in
- The D programming language has a built-in code documentation language (DDoc) and documentation generation, enabled by the -D compiler switch.
- The dman tool can be used to quickly look up D keywords or standard library symbols.
Third-party
See the documentation generators section in Community:Open_Source_Projects.
Source code
- dfmt - formats D code
- dfix - automatically updates D code
See also: Binding generators
Debugging
Built-in
Language features
The D programming language has built-in support for a number of debugging features:
- Asserts, invariants, and contract programming (enabled by default, disabled by the -release compiler switch)
- Array bounds checking (enabled by default, disabled by the -release or -boundscheck=off compiler switches)
- Unit tests (enabled by the -unittest compiler switch).
Coverage analysis
The D compiler can generate code coverage reports, enabled by the -cov compiler switch. See the Code Coverage page for more information.
Third-party
See the Debuggers page for a list of third-party debuggers.
See also: Troubleshooting Tools
Profiling
Built-in
CPU profiling
The D compiler can instrument generated code to measure per-function profiling information, and save a report on program exit. This is enabled by the -profile compiler switch. For projects that are configured to be built with dub, profiling can be enabled with the profile build type:
dub build --build=profile
The trace.log file can also be converted into a graphical HTML page using the third party D Profile Viewer.
Heap profiling
Starting with DMD 2.068, the D compiler can instrument memory allocations, and save a report on program exit. This is enabled by the -profile=gc compiler switch. Or, using dub, with the profile-gc build type:
dub build --build=profile-gc
This is also available through the command line switch "--DRT-gcopt=profile:1" see: http://dlang.org/changelog.html#gc-options
Third party
CPU profiling
- Callgrind (from Valgrind) works well with D. D symbols will need be demangled (see #Demangling below).
- Very Sleepy is a polling CPU profiler for Windows which works well with D. Debug information must be in PDB format (can be done by compiling with -m64, -m32mscoff, or by converting it using cv2pdb).
- IACA profiles port usage. Works on asm level therefore it also works with d markers are inserted with (asm pure { mov EBX, 111 ; db 0x64, 0x67, 0x90 ; } and (asm pure { mov EBX, 222 ; db 0x64, 0x67, 0x90 ; })
File size profiling
- D map treemap viewer can visualize a .map file in a treemap, and allows seeing at a glance what is using the most space in a compiled executable. Generating map files can be enabled with the -map compiler switch.
- On the same page is a tool which attempts to disassemble an ELF binary, and finds which symbol is pulling in which symbol.
Build time profiling
- DBuildStat can measure the parsing and compilation times of a large project on a module-by-module basis (example output).
- pmxml2svg can graph a Process Monitor .pmxml file (example output).
GPerfTools
GPerfTools (formely Google performance tools) can be used in the D programs compiled with LDC using gperftools-d, a binding to C library.
Integration
Demangling
To demangle D symbols emitted by third-party programs, pipe the output through the ddemangle tool. The tool will recognize D symbols in its input, and replace them with the demangled versions, while outputting all other input intact.
D language development
These tools may be helpful when submitting D bugs, or when working on D itself:
- DustMite can reduce a large program to a small one by performing reductions which satisfy a given condition (e.g. that a certain error message is reproduced).
- Digger can build D, including old versions of D, and bisect D's history to find which commit fixed or introduced a bug.
- TrenD ("Is D slim yet?") measures and visualizes D's history across a number of parameters.
