Hi,

while browsing the sources of gdc, ldc and dmd I noticed that gdc and ldc both include the verbatim frontend source code from dmd.

Wouldn't it make sense to split the free dmd frontend into a standalone project that could then easier be referenced also by gdc and ldc?

I'm also asking because I was surprised that debian also contains (a very old version of) ldc[1]. If one day we'd have proper d packages in Debian, it would surely be nice to have only one d frontend package instead of three times the same source code in different packages.

[1] http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ldc.html

Regards, Thomas Koch

On 19 November 2012 07:24, Thomas Koch <thomas@koch.ro> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> while browsing the sources of gdc, ldc and dmd I noticed that gdc and ldc both include the verbatim frontend source code from dmd.
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to split the free dmd frontend into a standalone project that could then easier be referenced also by gdc and ldc?
>
> I'm also asking because I was surprised that debian also contains (a very old version of) ldc[1]. If one day we'd have proper d packages in Debian, it would surely be nice to have only one d frontend package instead of three times the same source code in different packages.
>
> [1] http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ldc.html
>
> Regards, Thomas Koch

Yes it would make sense - no it can't be done because gdc/ldc makes changes to their own copies of dfe.  The solution would be to fix dfe so that multiple backends can use it.  But that it not currently the case.

Regards
-- 
Iain Buclaw

*(p < e ? p++ : p) = (c & 0x0f) + '0';

On 11/19/2012 08:24 AM, Thomas Koch wrote:
> while browsing the sources of gdc, ldc and dmd I noticed that gdc and ldc
> both include the verbatim frontend source code from dmd.
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to split the free dmd frontend into a standalone
> project that could then easier be referenced also by gdc and ldc?

I think Iain Buclaw is working on this, though the realization will probably come only after some other GDC priorities are addressed:
http://forum.dlang.org/post/mailman.1565.1352137245.5162.d.gnu@puremagic.com

On 2012-11-19 15:46, Iain Buclaw wrote:

> Yes it would make sense - no it can't be done because gdc/ldc makes
> changes to their own copies of dfe.  The solution would be to fix dfe
> so that multiple backends can use it.  But that it not currently the
> case.

Wouldn't those changes be easier to make and maintain if the front end was a separate project, even if it can't be used unmodified.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Jacob Carlborg wrote:

> On 2012-11-19 15:46, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> 
>> Yes it would make sense - no it can't be done because gdc/ldc makes changes to their own copies of dfe.  The solution would be to fix dfe so that multiple backends can use it.  But that it not currently the case.
> 
> Wouldn't those changes be easier to make and maintain if the front end was a separate project, even if it can't be used unmodified.

From an outsiders view I'd believe that it would be much simpler to fork git branches for the dmd frontend versions of gdc and ldc and use the git machinery for merges. - But the developers must decide. I don't want to annoy them.

Regards, Thomas