Having a D compiler available as a library will (at least) give these
benefits:
1. Can be used by an IDE: D is statically typed and so an IDE can
benefit a lot from this. The features Descent had, as far as I remember,
were:
1.1. Outline
1.2. Autocompletion
1.3. Type Hierarchy
1.4. Syntax and semantic errors, showing not only the line number
but also column numbers if it makes sense
1.5. Automatic import inclusion (say, typing writefln and getting a
list of modules that provide that symbol)
1.6. Compile-time view: replace auto with the inferred type, insert
mixins into scope, rewrite operator overloads and other lowerings (but
I'm not sure this point is really useful)
1.7. Determine, given a set of versions and flags, which branches
of static ifs are used/unused
1.8. Open declaration
1.9. Show implementations (of an interface, of interface's method
or, abstract methods, or method overrides).
1.10. Propose to override a method (you type some letters and then
hit some key combination and get a list of methods to override)
1.11. Get the code of a template when instantiated.
2. Can be used to build better doc generators: one that shows known
subclasses or interface implementation, shows inherited methods, type
hierarchy.
3. Can be used for lints and other such tools.
As you can see, a simple lexer/parser built into an IDE, doc generator
or lint will just give basic features but will never achieve something
exceptionally good if it lacks the full semantic knowledge of the code.
I'll write a list of things I'd like this compiler-as-library to have,
but please help me make it bigger :-)
* Don't use global variables (DMD is just thought to be run once, so
when used as a library it can just be used, well, once)
* Provide a lexer which gives line numbers and column numbers
(beginning, end)
* Provide a parser with the same features
* The semantic phase should not discard any information found while
parsing. For example when DMD resolves a type it recursively resolves
aliasing and keeps the last one. An example:
alias int foo;
alias foo* bar;
bar something() { ... }
It would be nice if "bar", after semantic analysis is done, carries
the information that bar is "foo*" and that "foo" is "int". Also that
something's return type is "bar", not "int*".
* Provide errors and warnings that have line numbers as well as column
numbers.
* Allow to parse the top-level definitions of a module. Whit this I
mean skipping function bodies. At least Descent first built a the
outline of the whole project by doing this. This mode should also allow
specifying a location as a target, and if that location falls inside a
function body then it's contents are returned (useful when editing a
file, so you can get the outline as well as semantic info of the
function currently being edited, which will never affect semantic in
other parts of the module). This will dramatically speed up the editor.
* Don't stop parsing on errors (I think DMD already does this).
* Provide a visitor class. If possible, use visitors to implement
semantic analysis. The visitor will make it super easy to implement
lints and to generate documentation.
