Parsing a String in D

Parsing a String

First thing is first we want to read in a file. I won't be writing full compiling examples as I'm usually doing this on my phone. However, in general any examples can be pasted directly into a main function because D has nested everything.

void main() {
   import std.file;
   auto data = readText("filename.ext");
}

readText reads the entire file into memory. Usually not a bad start but could be a problem with very large files. D also utilizes immutable strings, so techniques I'm showing generally do not use additional memory.

Matching Beginning or End

startsWith

Sometimes all that is needed is a check if the beginning or end matches a value.

import std.algorithm;
auto data = "word word"
assert(data.startsWith("word"));
assert(data.endsWith("word"));
assert(data.skipOver("word"));
assert(data == " word");

skipOver will not only identify if the string is found at the beginning, but also move data past the string.

Removing Whitespace

strip

import std.string;
auto data = " str ";
assert(data.strip == "str");
assert(data.stripLeft == " str");
assert(data.stripRight == "str ");

Along with whitespace an argument can be past in to specify a specific string to strip off.

Find a String

find

Rather than reiterate here, see my previous post. I also am preparing the next post which dives into more of the variations.

String Contained in a String in D

Jesse Phillips ・ Aug 25 '19

#dlang #tutorial #string

Regular Expressions

The standard regex library is very nice. I won't be going over examples because regular expressions themselves are a more advanced topic.

https://dlang.org/phobos/std_regex.html