D Programming Language 2.0

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Last update Sun May 11 21:03:31 2008

# Lexical

In D, the lexical analysis is independent of the syntax parsing and the semantic analysis. The lexical analyzer splits the source text up into tokens. The lexical grammar describes what those tokens are. The D lexical grammar is designed to be suitable for high speed scanning, it has a minimum of special case rules, there is only one phase of translation, and to make it easy to write a correct scanner for. The tokens are readily recognizable by those familiar with C and C++.

### Phases of Compilation

The process of compiling is divided into multiple phases. Each phase has no dependence on subsequent phases. For example, the scanner is not perturbed by the semantic analyzer. This separation of the passes makes language tools like syntax directed editors relatively easy to produce. It also is possible to compress D source by storing it in 'tokenized' form.

1. source character set
   The source file is checked to see what character set it is, and the appropriate scanner is loaded. ASCII and UTF formats are accepted.
2. script line
   If the first line starts with #! then the first line is ignored.
3. lexical analysis
   The source file is divided up into a sequence of tokens. Special tokens are replaced with other tokens. Special token sequences are processed and removed.
4. syntax analysis
   The sequence of tokens is parsed to form syntax trees.
5. semantic analysis
   The syntax trees are traversed to declare variables, load symbol tables, assign types, and in general determine the meaning of the program.
6. optimization
   Optimization is an optional pass that tries to rewrite the program in a semantically equivalent, but faster executing, version.
7. code generation
   Instructions are selected from the target architecture to implement the semantics of the program. The typical result will be an object file, suitable for input to a linker.

### Source Text

D source text can be in one of the following formats:

- ASCII
- UTF-8
- UTF-16BE
- UTF-16LE
- UTF-32BE
- UTF-32LE

UTF-8 is a superset of traditional 7-bit ASCII. One of the following UTF BOMs (Byte Order Marks) can be present at the beginning of the source text:

Format | BOM
--- | ---
UTF-8 | EF BB BF
UTF-16BE | FE FF
UTF-16LE | FF FE
UTF-32BE | 00 00 FE FF
UTF-32LE | FF FE 00 00
ASCII | no BOM

If the source file does not start with a BOM, then the first character must be less than or equal to U0000007F.

There are no digraphs or trigraphs in D.

The source text is decoded from its source representation into Unicode Characters. The Characters are further divided into: white space, end of lines, comments, special token sequences, tokens, all followed by end of file.

The source text is split into tokens using the maximal munch technique, i.e., the lexical analyzer tries to make the longest token it can. For example `>>` is a right shift token, not two greater than tokens.

### End of File

    EndOfFile:
    	physical end of the file
    	\u0000
    	\u001A

The source text is terminated by whichever comes first.

### End of Line

    EndOfLine:
    	\u000D
    	\u000A
    	\u000D \u000A
    	EndOfFile

There is no backslash line splicing, nor are there any limits on the length of a line.

### White Space

    WhiteSpace:
    	Space
    	Space WhiteSpace

    Space:
    	\u0020
    	\u0009
    	\u000B
    	\u000C

### Comments

    Comment:
    	/* Characters */
    	// Characters EndOfLine
    	NestingBlockComment

    Characters:
    	Character
    	Character Characters

    NestingBlockComment:
    	/+ NestingBlockCommentCharacters +/

    NestingBlockCommentCharacters:
    	NestingBlockCommentCharacter
    	NestingBlockCommentCharacter NestingBlockCommentCharacters

    NestingBlockCommentCharacter:
    	Character
    	NestingBlockComment

D has three kinds of comments:

1. Block comments can span multiple lines, but do not nest.
2. Line comments terminate at the end of the line.
3. Nesting comments can span multiple lines and can nest.

The contents of strings and comments are not tokenized. Consequently, comment openings occurring within a string do not begin a comment, and string delimiters within a comment do not affect the recognition of comment closings and nested "/+" comment openings. With the exception of "/+" occurring within a "/+" comment, comment openings within a comment are ignored.

    a = /+ // +/ 1;		// parses as if 'a = 1;'
    a = /+ "+/" +/ 1";	// parses as if 'a = " +/ 1";'
    a = /+ /* +/ */ 3;	// parses as if 'a = */ 3;'

Comments cannot be used as token concatenators, for example, `abc/**/def` is two tokens, `abc` and `def`, not one `abcdef` token.

### Tokens

    Token:
    	Identifier
    	StringLiteral
    	CharacterLiteral
    	IntegerLiteral
    	FloatLiteral
    	Keyword
    	/
    	/=
    	.
    	..
    	...
    	&
    	&=
    	&&
    	|
    	|=
    	||
    	-
    	-=
    	--
    	+
    	+=
    	++
    	<
    	<=
    	<<
    	<<=
    	<>
    	<>=
    	>
    	>=
    	>>=
    	>>>=
    	>>
    	>>>
    	!
    	!=
    	!<>
    	!<>=
    	!<
    	!<=
    	!>
    	!>=
    	(
    	)
    	[
    	]
    	{
    	}
    	?
    	,
    	;
    	:
    	$
    	=
    	==
    	*
    	*=
    	%
    	%=
    	^
    	^=
    	~
    	~=

### Identifiers

    Identifier:
    	IdentiferStart
    	IdentiferStart IdentifierChars

    IdentifierChars:
    	IdentiferChar
    	IdentiferChar IdentifierChars

    IdentifierStart:
    	_
    	Letter
    	UniversalAlpha

    IdentifierChar:
    	IdentiferStart
    	0
    	NonZeroDigit

Identifiers start with a letter, _, or universal alpha, and are followed by any number of letters, _, digits, or universal alphas. Universal alphas are as defined in ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) Appendix D. (This is the C99 Standard.) Identifiers can be arbitrarily long, and are case sensitive. Identifiers starting with __ (two underscores) are reserved.

### String Literals

    StringLiteral:
    	WysiwygString
    	AlternateWysiwygString
    	DoubleQuotedString
    	EscapeSequence
    	HexString
    	DelimitedString
    	TokenString

    WysiwygString:
    	r" WysiwygCharacters " Postfixopt

    AlternateWysiwygString:
    	` WysiwygCharacters ` Postfixopt

    WysiwygCharacters:
    	WysiwygCharacter
    	WysiwygCharacter WysiwygCharacters

    WysiwygCharacter:
    	Character
    	EndOfLine

    DoubleQuotedString:
    	" DoubleQuotedCharacters " Postfixopt

    DoubleQuotedCharacters:
    	DoubleQuotedCharacter
    	DoubleQuotedCharacter DoubleQuotedCharacters

    DoubleQuotedCharacter:
    	Character
    	EscapeSequence
    	EndOfLine

    EscapeSequence:
    	\'
    	\"
    	\?
    	\\
    	\a
    	\b
    	\f
    	\n
    	\r
    	\t
    	\v
    	\ EndOfFile
    	\x HexDigit HexDigit
    	\ OctalDigit
    	\ OctalDigit OctalDigit
    	\ OctalDigit OctalDigit OctalDigit
    	\u HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit
    	\U HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit HexDigit
    	\& NamedCharacterEntity ;

    HexString:
    	x" HexStringChars " Postfixopt

    HexStringChars:
    	HexStringChar
    	HexStringChar HexStringChars

    HexStringChar:
    	HexDigit
    	WhiteSpace
    	EndOfLine

    Postfix:
    	c
    	w
    	d

    DelimitedString:
    	q" Delimiter WysiwygCharacters MatchingDelimiter "

    TokenString:
    	q{ Tokens }

A string literal is either a double quoted string, a wysiwyg quoted string, an escape sequence, a delimited string, a token string, or a hex string.

#### Wysiwyg Strings

Wysiwyg quoted strings are enclosed by r" and ". All characters between the r" and " are part of the string except for EndOfLine which is regarded as a single \n character. There are no escape sequences inside r" ":

    r"hello"
    r"c:\root\foo.exe"
    r"ab\n"			// string is 4 characters, 'a', 'b', '\', 'n'

An alternate form of wysiwyg strings are enclosed by backquotes, the ` character. The ` character is not available on some keyboards and the font rendering of it is sometimes indistinguishable from the regular ' character. Since, however, the ` is rarely used, it is useful to delineate strings with " in them.

    `hello`
    `c:\root\foo.exe`
    `ab\n`			// string is 4 characters, 'a', 'b', '\', 'n'

#### Double Quoted Strings

Double quoted strings are enclosed by "". Escape sequences can be embedded into them with the typical \ notation. EndOfLine is regarded as a single \n character.

    "hello"
    "c:\\root\\foo.exe"
    "ab\n"			// string is 3 characters, 'a', 'b', and a linefeed
    "ab
    "			// string is 3 characters, 'a', 'b', and a linefeed

#### Escape Strings

Escape strings start with a \ and form an escape character sequence. Adjacent escape strings are concatenated:

    \n			the linefeed character
    \t			the tab character
    \"			the double quote character
    \012			octal
    \x1A			hex
    \u1234			wchar character
    \U00101234		dchar character
    \&reg;			® dchar character
    \r\n			carriage return, line feed

Undefined escape sequences are errors. Although string literals are defined to be composed of UTF characters, the octal and hex escape sequences allow the insertion of arbitrary binary data. \u and \U escape sequences can only be used to insert valid UTF characters.

#### Hex Strings

Hex strings allow string literals to be created using hex data. The hex data need not form valid UTF characters.

    x"0A"			// same as "\x0A"
    x"00 FBCD 32FD 0A"	// same as "\x00\xFB\xCD\x32\xFD\x0A"

Whitespace and newlines are ignored, so the hex data can be easily formatted. The number of hex characters must be a multiple of 2.

Adjacent strings are concatenated with the ~ operator, or by simple juxtaposition:

    "hello " ~ "world" ~ \n	// forms the string 'h','e','l','l','o',' ',
    			// 'w','o','r','l','d',linefeed

The following are all equivalent:

    "ab" "c"
    r"ab" r"c"
    r"a" "bc"
    "a" ~ "b" ~ "c"
    \x61"bc"

The optional Postfix character gives a specific type to the string, rather than it being inferred from the context. This is useful when the type cannot be unambiguously inferred, such as when overloading based on string type. The types corresponding to the postfix characters are:

Postfix | Type
--- | ---
c | char[ ]
w | wchar[ ]
d | dchar[ ]

    "hello"c          // char[]
    "hello"w          // wchar[]
    "hello"d          // dchar[]

String literals are read only. Writes to string literals cannot always be detected, but cause undefined behavior.

#### Delimited Strings

Delimited strings use various forms of delimiters. A nesting delimiter nests, and is one of the following characters:

Nesting Delimiters
Delimiter | Matching Delimiter
--- | ---
[ | ]
( | )
< | >
{ | }

    q"(foo(xxx))"   // "foo(xxx)"
    q"[foo{]"       // "foo{"

If the delimiter is an identifier, the identifier must be immediately followed by a newline, and the matching delimiter is the same identifier starting at the beginning of the line:

    writefln(q"EOS
    This
    is a multi-line
    heredoc string
    EOS"
    );

The newline following the opening identifier is not part of the string, but the last newline before the closing identifier is part of the string.

Otherwise, the matching delimiter is the same as the delimiter character:

    q"/foo]/"       // "foo]"
    q"/abc/def/"    // error

#### Token Strings

Token strings open with the characters q{ and close with the token }. In between must be valid D tokens. The { and } tokens nest. The string is formed of all the characters between the opening and closing of the token string, including comments.

    q{foo}               // "foo"
    q{/*}*/ }            // "/*}*/ "
    q{ foo(q{hello}); }  // " foo(q{hello}); "
    q{ @ }               // error, @ is not a valid D token
    q{ __TIME__ }        // " __TIME__ ", i.e. it is not replaced with the time
    q{ __EOF__ }         // error, as __EOF__ is not a token, it's end of file

### Character Literals

    CharacterLiteral:
    	' SingleQuotedCharacter '

    SingleQuotedCharacter:
    	Character
    	EscapeSequence

Character literals are a single character or escape sequence enclosed by single quotes, ' '.

### Integer Literals

    IntegerLiteral:
    	Integer
    	Integer IntegerSuffix

    Integer:
    	Decimal
    	Binary
    	Octal
    	Hexadecimal

    IntegerSuffix:
    	L
    	u
    	U
    	Lu
    	LU
    	uL
    	UL

    Decimal:
    	0
    	NonZeroDigit
    	NonZeroDigit DecimalDigits

    Binary:
    	0b BinaryDigits
    	0B BinaryDigits

    Octal:
    	0 OctalDigits

    Hexadecimal:
    	0x HexDigits
    	0X HexDigits

    NonZeroDigit:
    	1
    	2
    	3
    	4
    	5
    	6
    	7
    	8
    	9

    DecimalDigits:
    	DecimalDigit
    	DecimalDigit DecimalDigits

    DecimalDigit:
    	0
    	NonZeroDigit
    	_

    BinaryDigits:
    	BinaryDigit
    	BinaryDigit BinaryDigits

    BinaryDigit:
    	0
    	1
    	_

    OctalDigits:
    	OctalDigit
    	OctalDigit OctalDigits

    OctalDigit:
    	0
    	1
    	2
    	3
    	4
    	5
    	6
    	7
    	_

    HexDigits:
    	HexDigit
    	HexDigit HexDigits

    HexDigit:
    	DecimalDigit
    	a
    	b
    	c
    	d
    	e
    	f
    	A
    	B
    	C
    	D
    	E
    	F
    	_

Integers can be specified in decimal, binary, octal, or hexadecimal.

Decimal integers are a sequence of decimal digits.

Binary integers are a sequence of binary digits preceded by a '0b'.

Octal integers are a sequence of octal digits preceded by a '0'.

Hexadecimal integers are a sequence of hexadecimal digits preceded by a '0x'.

Integers can have embedded '_' characters, which are ignored. The embedded '_' are useful for formatting long literals, such as using them as a thousands separator:

    123_456		// 123456
    1_2_3_4_5_6_	// 123456

Integers can be immediately followed by one 'L' or one 'u' or both.

The type of the integer is resolved as follows:

Decimal Literal | Type
--- | ---
0 .. 2_147_483_647 | int
2_147_483_648 .. 9_223_372_036_854_775_807L | long
Decimal Literal, L Suffix | Type
0L .. 9_223_372_036_854_775_807L | long
Decimal Literal, U Suffix | Type
0U .. 4_294_967_296U | uint
4_294_967_296U .. 18_446_744_073_709_551_615UL | ulong
Decimal Literal, UL Suffix | Type
0UL .. 18_446_744_073_709_551_615UL | ulong
Non-Decimal Literal | Type
0x0 .. 0x7FFF_FFFF | int
0x8000_0000 .. 0xFFFF_FFFF | uint
0x1_0000_0000 .. 0x7FFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFF | long
0x8000_0000_0000_0000 .. 0xFFFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFF | ulong
Non-Decimal Literal, L Suffix | Type
0x0L .. 0x7FFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFFL | long
0x8000_0000_0000_0000L .. 0xFFFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFFL | ulong
Non-Decimal Literal, U Suffix | Type
0x0U .. 0xFFFF_FFFFU | uint
0x1_0000_0000UL .. 0xFFFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFFUL | ulong
Non-Decimal Literal, UL Suffix | Type
0x0UL .. 0xFFFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFFUL | ulong

### Floating Literals

    FloatLiteral:
    	Float
    	Float Suffix
    	Integer ImaginarySuffix
    	Integer FloatSuffix ImaginarySuffix
    	Integer RealSuffix ImaginarySuffix

    Float:
    	DecimalFloat
    	HexFloat

    DecimalFloat:
    	DecimalDigits .
    	DecimalDigits . DecimalDigits
    	DecimalDigits . DecimalDigits DecimalExponent
    	. Decimal
    	. Decimal DecimalExponent
    	DecimalDigits DecimalExponent

    DecimalExponent
    	e DecimalDigits
    	E DecimalDigits
    	e+ DecimalDigits
    	E+ DecimalDigits
    	e- DecimalDigits
    	E- DecimalDigits

    HexFloat:
    	HexPrefix HexDigits . HexDigits HexExponent
    	HexPrefix . HexDigits HexExponent
    	HexPrefix HexDigits HexExponent

    HexPrefix:
    	0x
    	0X

    HexExponent:
    	p DecimalDigits
    	P DecimalDigits
    	p+ DecimalDigits
    	P+ DecimalDigits
    	p- DecimalDigits
    	P- DecimalDigits

    Suffix:
    	FloatSuffix
    	RealSuffix
    	ImaginarySuffix
    	FloatSuffix ImaginarySuffix
    	RealSuffix ImaginarySuffix

    FloatSuffix:
    	f
    	F

    RealSuffix:
    	L

    ImaginarySuffix:
    	i

Floats can be in decimal or hexadecimal format, as in standard C.

Hexadecimal floats are preceded with a 0x and the exponent is a p or P followed by a decimal number serving as the exponent of 2.

Floating literals can have embedded '_' characters, which are ignored. The embedded '_' are useful for formatting long literals to make them more readable, such as using them as a thousands separator:

    123_456.567_8		// 123456.5678
    1_2_3_4_5_6_._5_6_7_8	// 123456.5678
    1_2_3_4_5_6_._5e-6_	// 123456.5e-6

Floating literals with no suffix are of type double. Floats can be followed by one f, F, or L suffix. The f or F suffix means it is a float, and L means it is a real.

If a floating literal is followed by i, then it is an ireal (imaginary) type.

Examples:

    0x1.FFFFFFFFFFFFFp1023		// double.max
    0x1p-52				// double.epsilon
    1.175494351e-38F		// float.min
    6.3i				// idouble 6.3
    6.3fi				// ifloat 6.3
    6.3Li				// ireal 6.3

It is an error if the literal exceeds the range of the type. It is not an error if the literal is rounded to fit into the significant digits of the type.

Complex literals are not tokens, but are assembled from real and imaginary expressions in the semantic analysis:

    4.5 + 6.2i		// complex number

### Keywords

Keywords are reserved identifiers.

    Keyword:
    	abstract
    	alias
    	align
    	asm
    	assert
    	auto

    	body
    	bool
    	break
    	byte

    	case
    	cast
    	catch
    	cdouble
    	cent
    	cfloat
    	char
    	class
    	const
    	continue
    	creal

    	dchar
    	debug
    	default
    	delegate
    	delete
    	deprecated
    	do
    	double

    	else
    	enum
    	export
    	extern

    	false
    	final
    	finally
    	float
    	for
    	foreach
    	foreach_reverse
    	function

    	goto

    	idouble
    	if
    	ifloat
    	import
    	in
    	inout
    	int
    	interface
    	invariant
    	ireal
    	is

    	lazy
    	long

    	macro
    	mixin
    	module

    	new
    	nothrow
    	null

    	out
    	override

    	package
    	pragma
    	private
    	protected
    	public
    	pure

    	real
    	ref
    	return

    	scope
    	short
    	static
    	struct
    	super
    	switch
    	synchronized

    	template
    	this
    	throw
    	true
    	try
    	typedef
    	typeid
    	typeof

    	ubyte
    	ucent
    	uint
    	ulong
    	union
    	unittest
    	ushort

    	version
    	void
    	volatile

    	wchar
    	while
    	with

    	__FILE__
    	__LINE__
    	__traits

### Special Tokens

These tokens are replaced with other tokens according to the following table:

Special Token | Replaced with...
--- | ---
__DATE__ | string literal of the date of compilation "mmm dd yyyy"
__TIME__ | string literal of the time of compilation "hh:mm:ss"
__TIMESTAMP__ | string literal of the date and time of compilation "www mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy"
__VENDOR__ | Compiler vendor string, such as "Digital Mars D"
__VERSION__ | Compiler version as an integer, such as 2001

### Special Token Sequences

Special token sequences are processed by the lexical analyzer, may appear between any other tokens, and do not affect the syntax parsing.

There is currently only one special token sequence, `#line`.

    SpecialTokenSequence:
    	# line Integer EndOfLine
    	# line Integer Filespec EndOfLine

    Filespec:
    	" Characters "

This sets the source line number to Integer, and optionally the source file name to Filespec, beginning with the next line of source text. The source file and line number is used for printing error messages and for mapping generated code back to the source for the symbolic debugging output.

For example:

    int #line 6 "foo\bar"
    x;			// this is now line 6 of file foo\bar

Note that the backslash character is not treated specially inside Filespec strings.
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