D Programming Language Area

Introduction

This section aims to be a permanent home for the programs and guides I have made using D. Some of the content has been on this site before but spread across various sections. Admittedly D is not the primary language in use here, but it is a great language and hopefully this new section will help increase awareness of it.

What is the D Programming Language?

From the D website:

The language aims to be fast and reduce errors, both very important features! Reading the aims of the language, there are a lot of things to like about it.

Applications / Programs

The following are D versions of some of the command line programs that are on this site. Source is included with each of them.

To keep the download size small, these are provided as a 7zip archives.

Anim2Bmp (v0.1)

All New! 27/01/2024
Converts an Amiga Animation to a sequence of Windows BMP files!
Download now! (177KB 7Zip)

Avi2Cvc (v2.8) / Bmp2Cvi (v2.4)

Freshly compiled: 20/01/2024
These tools can convert AVI videos and BMP images to a format more suitable for the Cybiko handheld computer. Source is included and demonstrates how modules can be used to reduce code duplication. Download now! (244KB 7Zip)

Avi2Flc (v0.5)

Freshly compiled: 20/01/2024
Takes an uncompressed/msvc AVI and converts it to an 8bit FLC file which is compatible with VLC. (All new!)
Download now! (178KB 7Zip)

Iff2Bmp (v0.3)

Freshly compiled: 20/01/2024 Converts an Amiga 8bit, 24bit or HAM IFF ILBM image to a Windows BMP file. (All new!)
Download now! (174KB 7Zip) | Read more!

Bmp2Qoi (v0.1)

All New! 07/07/2024
Converts a 24bit bitmap to a QOI compressed image! The quide give more details about the image format and how it was ported to D.
Download now! (174KB 7Zip) | Read more!

Path Tracer (v0.1a)

All New! 14/02/2024
Port of Andrew Kensler's Path Tracer to D! Read the guide for more about this program and how using D's parallelism made it much faster!
Download now! (195KB 7Zip) | Read more!

Ray Tracer (v0.1)

All New! 16/02/2024
Port of Andrew Kensler's Ray Tracer to D! Read the guide for benchmarks and more information!
Download now! (195KB 7Zip) | Read more!

Squish (v0.2)

All New! 10/02/2024
Command line file compression utility. Experimental, originally used to compress files for the Cybiko. Does a reasonable job with text files.
Download now! (174KB 7Zip) | Read more!

Guides

• Avi2Cvc - Converting from C to D

  Summary of porting my Cybiko video conversion utility from C to D. The main reasons for this were to improve its memory safety (I had already found one memory issue) and to take advantage of the other benefits that using D provides.
  Read more!

• Avi2Cvc / Bmp2Cvi - Using Modules

  How modules were used to reduce code duplication in these two programs making bug fixing and improvements easier.
  Read more!

• Memory Safety - How D Prevents Out Of Bound Errors

  In C, an out of bounds error / exception occurs if you try to read or write to an area of memory that is outside the amount allocated. This guide shows how D can help prevent this type of error.
  Read more!

• Memory Safety - How D Can Prevent Use After Free Errors

  A 'Use After Free' error is where after giving back (freeing) some memory, you carry on using it, in language like C these can cause security and stability problems. This guide shows how using D can avoid this.
  Read more!

• Squish - Performance Optimisation in D

  Porting my Squish compression program from C to D initially resulted in terrible performance, this guide shows how I managed to make it nearly 30 times faster!
  Read more!