scope keyword - a maintenance nightmare?

Guenther Brunthaler gb at dont.spam.me.invalid
Fri Aug 17 22:16:44 PDT 2007


Deewiant Wrote:

> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/dcompiler.html#interface_files
> 
> Unfortunately, this only separates interface descriptions from object code. What

Thank you for pointing that out!

It's a new feature too which I did not know about yet. It certainly wasn't there when I evaluated the language the first time.

Sounds pretty useful. Seems to be more or less what I wanted.

However, there is one thing left in the linked web page above like which I still find rather disturbing:

> But they are not required in the way that C++ header files are, and they are
> not part of the D language. They are a feature of the compiler, and serve
> only as an optimization of the build process.

If they are not part of the language, then one is at the mercy of a compiler to provide them! And in fact, every compiler could do it its own way, using a different layout or even a different syntax if it wants to.

It therefore seems more like the "precompiled header files" feature of some C/C++ compilers to me: While clearly useful, not all compilers do support it, and precompiled header files are typically not compatible between the different vendor's implementations.

So let's hope .di files actually become part of the D language standard in a future revision of the language!



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