On 4/22/23 7:33 PM, Zachary Yedidia wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've been tinkering with setting up incremental compilation in my D
projects by using `.di` files to ensure that a module is only recompiled
if its interface changes (not its implementation). I've written an
article about it here:
https://zyedidia.github.io/blog/posts/4-incremental-d-knit/. Hopefully
you find it interesting! Thanks!
Nice! Your build system sounds pretty cool.
On your section on "Areas for improvements in D interface files":
The previous section holds the answer -- templates. Templates must be
included in full because they are instantiated by the caller. But a
template can still use:
* private variables/functions
* private types
* private imports
etc. Basically anything that can be used in the implementation. The only
thing that's hidden is non-template function implementations.
In order to avoid copying those things, the compiler would have to prove
that no template inside the module can use these things.
One possible mechanism could be if *no* templates exist, it could
exclude them. But to determine whether an existing template might use
them, I believe is the halting problem.
So we are stuck with it.
-Steve
