An illustrated guide to using Sublime Text 3 for D programming

We will see how to setup Sublime text 3 with syntax highlighting, automatic code formatting, auto-completion, on-the-fly syntax checking and build system integration (build, run, unittest).

Created: Jan 21, 2016 by Pradeep Gowda Updated: Nov 25, 2023 Tagged: dlang · sublime-text

Package management with Dub

dub is D’s package manager. The dub binary as well as many of third-party packages that use the dub package management are available on code.dlang.org.

Installing Dub

brew install dub
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/dub-0.9.24.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring dub-0.9.24.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/dub/0.9.24: 5 files, 9.5M

Auto completion with DCD

Installing DCD

DCD is the D completion daemon. DCD can be installed on the Mac using homebrew.

brew install dcd
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/dcd-0.7.5.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/dcd-0.7.5.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
==> Pouring dcd-0.7.5.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/dcd/0.7.5: 5 files, 11.5M...

Make a note of the dcd-server path, you will need it to configure DKit.

which dcd-server
/usr/local/bin/dcd-server

Standard library

We will need the sources for druntime and d standard libarry (phobos) to help DCD.

The location of this can be found by running dmd without arguments and looking for the “Config file:” value.

The config file, (/usr/local/etc/dmd.conf) tells me it is /usr/local/Cellar/dmd/2.069.0/include/d2 (the path after the -I flag).

DKit, the sublime text plugin for D

Dkit combines the power of DCD (for auto completion), Dub (for package management and build management) into one sublime text plugin.

Install DKit

Clone DKit to sublimetext’s packages directory. On Mac OSX it is ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages. You can find out the corresponding directory for your operating system by going to Preferences -> Browse Packages menu.

cd ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages
git clone git@github.com:yazd/DKit.git

Configuring DKit

We will be modifying Dkit’s default settings to match our system. To do so, first view the default settings by visiting Preferences -> Package Settings -> DKit -> Settings - Default menu. Copy the contents to Preferences -> Package Settings -> DKit -> Settings - User.

{
  "dcd_path": "/usr/local/bin/dcd-server",
  "dcd_port": 9166,
  "include_paths": [
    "/usr/local/Cellar/dmd/2.069.0/include/d2"
  ]
}

DKit fundamentals

Press super+shift+p to bring up the context menu. Type “dkit” to start searching for commands that relate to the DKit extension.

Keyboard shortcuts

Goto definition of a keyword – super+shift+g

Show documentation of a keyword – super+\

Project/package Management

Creating a new package

{
  "name": "project-name",
  "description": "An example project skeleton",
  "homepage": "http://example.org",
  "copyright": "Copyright (c) 2014, Your Name",
  "authors": [],
  "dependencies": {},
  "targetType": "executable"
}

Edit the dub.json to add the sourcePaths option.

  "sourcePaths": ["."],

Building projects

Assuming you have a project structure like this:

tree .
.
├── app.d
├── dub.json
├── dub.selections.json
└── hellost.sublime-project

0 directories, 4 files

You would like to build the project using Sublime Text’s default super+shift+b build command to bring up build options.

Do do this, let’s create a new build system that supports three actions:

1. Run
2. Unittest
3. Build

Open Tools -> Build System -> New build system and paste the following text into the buffer

{
    "cmd": ["dmd", "-g", "-debug", "$file"],
    "file_regex": "^(.*?)\\(([0-9]+),?([0-9]+)?\\): (.*)",
    "selector": "source.d",
    "path": "/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin",

    "variants": [
        {
            "name": "Run",
            "cmd": ["rdmd", "-g", "-debug", "$file"]
        },
        {
            "name": "unittest",
            "cmd": ["rdmd", "-g", "-debug", "-unittest", "$file"]
        },
        {
            "name": "dub",
            "working_dir": "$project_path",
            "cmd": ["dub"]
        }
    ]
}

Save the file into the default location prompted by Sublime Text (eg: ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User on Mac).

Make sure you select your recently created build configuration as the default for your project from the Tools -> Build Systems -> Dlang.

Now press super+shift+b to bring up the build menu.

Select “Dlang - dub” to build your project with dub.

You should see the compile and run messages in the console.

Code linting with dscanner

Install dependencies

Install sublimelinter using package control.

Install Sublimelinter-dscanner

cd ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages
git clone https://github.com/economicmodeling/SublimeLinter-dscanner.git

Using DScanner

Restart sublime text.

Hover over yello and red dot annotated lines to see DScanner’s error messages / warnings.

Code formatting

Editorconfig

This is my ~/.editorconfig:

[*]
trim_trailing_whitespace = true
end_of_line = lf
insert_final_newline = true

[*.d]
dfmt_align_switch_statements = true
dfmt_brace_style = allman
dfmt_outdent_attributes = true
dfmt_outdent_labels = true
dfmt_soft_max_line_length = 80
dfmt_space_after_cast = true
dfmt_space_after_keywords = true
dfmt_split_operator_at_line_end = false
end_of_line = lf
indent_size = 4
indent_style = space
insert_final_newline = true
max_line_length = 120
tab_width = 8

dfmt

Install “dformat for sublime” using git

cd ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages
git clone https://github.com/dmi7ry/dfmt-sublime.git

Edit dformat.sublime-settings to suite your location of .editorconfig. On my Mac, it is ~/.editorconfig.

{
    "config_path": "/Users/pgowda/.editorconfig"
}

Use the context menu to “Dformat” the code

Keyboard shortcuts

DFormat – super+. followed by super+f.

Todo

• Project specific settings for include_paths
• d-scanner
• d-linter
• SublimeGDB

See also: Using Xamarin Studio for D programming