dmd support for IDEs

[bearophile]

Walter Bright:

> So, while I'm not going to be writing an IDE, I figure that dmd can 
> help. dmd already puts out .doc and .di files. How about putting out an 
> xml file giving all the information needed for an IDE to implement 
> autocompletion? There'd be one .xml file generated per .d source file.

An IDE is designed to not just let you explore and understand already written code, but to modify the code too. So such data changes as the programmer writes the code. So it may be positive for the IDE to have ways to query DMD and receive a smaller, faster and more focused amount of data regarding something. Otherwise generating all the data every few moments may slow down things.

Eventually a good thing is to go the route chosen by LLVM, splitting the compiler in parts, so the IDE can use some of those parts in a mode direct way.
Even LDC, that's based on LLVM, follows the monolithic design of GCC and DMD, but I am certain that today a loosely coupled design similar to LLVM is better.

Bye,
bearophile