acess the d parser and compiler from the source code

[James Dunne]

dennis luehring wrote:
> what about extending the std.compiler module
> 
> with an parse(char[] buffer/filename) feature
> why do we need extra parser projects - can't we use the dmd one
> internaly?
> 
> import std.compiler;
> token_tree = parse("test.d"); ...
> 
> and maybe an internal compile() feature (like java have)
> 
> ciao dennis lühring
> 
> 

With the current DMD reference compiler implementation, which is written 
in minimal C++ using globals everywhere and is obviously not 
context-safe, this would prove very difficult to integrate natively with 
D source code.  What I mean by non context-safe is that the compiler is 
meant to run in a single executable for a single time, not handle 
multiple compilations pseudo-simultaneously using different compilation 
context structures.

Now, if the compiler were implemented as a context-safe library (and 
further, thread-safe) with an exposed C API, then all one would have to 
do is write a D header module to interface with the compiled library's C 
API.  Voila - you have D compiler access within the D language. :)

I've mentioned this before, but I see it's a fair amount of work.  Since 
the compiler *is* implemented in C++, the classes do a fair amount of 
keeping context, yet the main function and its global variables do need 
to be refactored into a compiler class.  Just one more level of 
abstraction necessary.

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James Dunne