RAII support

[downs]

Tristam MacDonald wrote:
> [...] does anyone have hacks/gimmicks for working around this (other than not having shared resources)?

So it's hacks you want? :D
Here's one that exploits the GC to do basic reference "counting" (referred/not referred).
Remember, relying on the GC is generally a bad thing :D

(Code originally written for D.learn)
import std.stdio, std.gc;

typedef size_t hidden; // pointer that is hidden from the GC
hidden hide(Object ptr) { return cast(hidden)(~(cast(size_t)cast(void*)ptr)); }
Object show(hidden h) { return cast(Object)~h; }

class refcounter {
	hidden ptr;
	this() {
		ptr=hide(new class(this) {
			refcounter rc; this(refcounter r) { rc=r; }
			~this() { writefln("Destructor called, telling refcounter to clean up"); rc.cleanUp; }
		});
	}
	Object issueReference() {
		return new class(show(ptr)) {
			Object reftest;
			this(Object obj) { reftest=obj; writefln("Reference counted object constructed"); }
			~this() { writefln("Reference counted object destroyed"); }
		};
	}
	void cleanUp() { writefln("CleanUp called. No references left. Clean up resource."); }
}

void main() {
	auto r=new refcounter;
	auto a=r.issueReference(); auto b=r.issueReference;
	writefln("When calling fullCollect here, nothing will happen.");
	std.gc.fullCollect;
	writefln("Now delete the objects.");
	delete a; delete b;
	writefln("Again, fullCollect. But this time: ");
	std.gc.fullCollect;
	writefln("Exiting");
}

Have fun! :D