Tuts/Aritcles: Incrementasl C++-to-D conversion?

[ketmar]

Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

> Are there any tutorials or articles out there for "getting started with 
> converting a C++ codebase to D one module at a time?" Or at the very 
> least: tips, tricks, lessions learned, from those who have come before.

from my experience (various codebases up to middle size, mostly C, some 
C++): fsck the "one module at a time" idea! even in D modules are 
interwined, and in C and C++ they're even more so. besides, converting 
tests is tedious, it is much funnier to have something working.

so, i'm usually converting alot of code, up to the whole codebase. it is 
not fun when compler spits 100500 errors, but when it finally stops... oh, 
joy!

trick: use 'sed' (or your favorite regexp search-and-replace tool) alot. 
basically, before HDD crash i almost had a set of scripts that does 80-90 
percents of work translating C to D with sed. ;-) then use editor with 
"jump to error line" support, and simply compile your code, fixing errors 
one by one.

tip: try to not rewrite code in any way until it works. i know how tempting 
it to replace "just this tiny thing, it is so ugly, and in D we have a nice 
idiom!" NEVAR. this is by far the most important thing to remember (at 
least for me), so i'll repeat it again: no code modifications until it works!

personal memories: C code often using things like `a == &arr[idx]`, where 
idx can go just past the last array element. it got me when i was doing 
enet conversion. nasty trick.

otherwise, sweat and blood, and patience.