Aha, I found the following advice in a 5/1 post:

# Title: Re: D Language and the MS Visual Studio Debugger
# Author: imr1984 <imr1984_member@pathlink.com>
# Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 11:17:19 +0000 (UTC)
#
# All you do (in VS.NET) is open your exe created in D as a project in .NET.
Then
# add your .d source files to the project and press F5. Thats all there is
to it.

This is pretty cool -- I can compile with the -g option (to add debug info), run the D EXE from within Visual Studio 6.0, hit Break on the VS toolbar, and it'll bring up the original D source.  I can set breakpoints within the editor and it'll break when it gets there.  I can even hover over variable names (or add to the Watch window), and it'll show me the the current value. Awesome.

Unforutnately (but understandably), it only understands C/C++ atomic types. Thus I can see int and float values, but I can't dereference class/structure pointers to get at their attributes.

So, this is a pretty great first step -- I'm really happy I can get this far.  But it's pretty sucky to be stuck with only debugging C atomic types. I guess I could cast everything into a C type (such as casting "char[] blah" into "char* debug_blah" in order to see "blah" in the debugger), but that's a bit of a pain.

Any suggestions on how to get around this?

-david

"David Barrett" <dbarrett@quinthar.com> wrote in message news:...
> I see there are a bunch of IDEs that give syntax highlighting,
intellisense,
> and so on.  However, I can't find any that offer integrated debugging.
>
> Does any IDE offer integrated debugging, including:
> - Breakpoints
> - Watches
> - Run/Break/Step In/Step Over/Step Out
> - ... etc ...
>
> In my dream world I could install some Visual Studio plug-in, and it'd
allow
> me to develop in C++ and D, compile both into a single executable, and
debug
> all together.
>
> Next best would be using Visual Studio for just D programming, even if I can't seamlessly switch between C++ and D.
>
> Next best would be some IDE that that lets me code, compile, and debug all in one.
>
> Basically, I'm not a fan of command-line debuggers, nor am I fan of *no* debugger.
>
> Any suggestions for a Visual Studio C++ programmer like me who wants to switch to D?
>
> -david
>
>
>