Basic expressions in GDB

[Valentino Giudice]

Hi all.
I am a newbie and this is my first time posting on a D forum.

I am using GDB on Linux, from Windows, trough WSL.
I am compiling using DMD (in debug mode), as this seems to give 
better results than using GDC.

So far, I have failed to do the following:

- Create, from the debugger, a string. A sequence of characters 
between quote is evaluated as a C-style array of chars.
- Call a function from the debugger with its name. Only 
unintuitive mangled names can be used and the output has to be 
cast in the proper type.

If I compile using GDC or LDC, then global variables inside a 
module will have two names: "module.variable" and a mangled name.
They have to be cast when read and the "module.variable" name 
needs to be accessed using single quotes around it, or it crashes.

When compiling with DMD this doesn't happen: global variables 
only have the "module.variable" name, which can be read without 
any cast and with or without single quotes.

What should I consider when writing expressions in the debugger?
Is there any way to write expression closer to the D syntax?

Thank you all in advance.