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Phobos Runtime Library

Phobos is the standard runtime library that comes with the D language compiler.

Generally, the std namespace is used for the main modules in the Phobos standard library. The etc namespace is used for external C/C++ library bindings. The core namespace is used for low-level D runtime functions.

The following table is a quick reference guide for which Phobos modules to use for a given category of functionality. Note that some modules may appear in more than one category, as some Phobos modules are quite generic and can be applied in a variety of situations.


Modules	Description
*Algorithms & ranges*
std.algorithm std.range std.range.primitives std.range.interfaces	Generic algorithms that work with ranges of any type, including strings, arrays, and other kinds of sequentially-accessed data. Algorithms include searching, comparison, iteration, sorting, set operations, and mutation.
*Array manipulation*
std.array std.algorithm	Convenient operations commonly used with built-in arrays. Note that many common array operations are subsets of more generic algorithms that work with arbitrary ranges, so they are found in std.algorithm.
*Containers*
std.container.array std.container.binaryheap std.container.dlist std.container.rbtree std.container.slist	See std.container.* for an overview.
*Data formats*
std.base64	Encoding / decoding Base64 format.
std.csv	Read Comma Separated Values and its variants from an input range of dchar.
std.json	Read/write data in JSON format.
std.xml	Read/write data in XML format.
std.zip	Read/write data in the ZIP archive format.
std.zlib	Compress/decompress data using the zlib library.
*Data integrity*
std.experimental.checkedint	Checked integral types.
std.digest	Compute digests such as md5, sha1 and crc32.
std.digest.crc	Cyclic Redundancy Check (32-bit) implementation.
std.digest.hmac	Compute HMAC digests of arbitrary data.
std.digest.md	Compute MD5 hash of arbitrary data.
std.digest.murmurhash	Compute MurmurHash of arbitrary data.
std.digest.ripemd	Compute RIPEMD-160 hash of arbitrary data.
std.digest.sha	Compute SHA1 and SHA2 hashes of arbitrary data.
*Date & time*
std.datetime	Provides convenient access to date and time representations.
core.time	Implements low-level time primitives.
*Exception handling*
std.exception	Implements routines related to exceptions.
core.exception	Defines built-in exception types and low-level language hooks required by the compiler.
*External library bindings*
etc.c.curl	Interface to libcurl C library.
etc.c.odbc.sql	Interface to ODBC C library.
etc.c.odbc.sqlext
etc.c.odbc.sqltypes
etc.c.odbc.sqlucode
etc.c.sqlite3	Interface to SQLite C library.
etc.c.zlib	Interface to zlib C library.
*I/O & File system*
std.file	Manipulate files and directories.
std.path	Manipulate strings that represent filesystem paths.
std.stdio	Perform buffered I/O.
*Interoperability*
core.stdc.complex core.stdc.ctype core.stdc.errno core.stdc.fenv core.stdc.float_ core.stdc.inttypes core.stdc.limits core.stdc.locale core.stdc.math core.stdc.signal core.stdc.stdarg core.stdc.stddef core.stdc.stdint core.stdc.stdio core.stdc.stdlib core.stdc.string core.stdc.tgmath core.stdc.time core.stdc.wchar_ core.stdc.wctype	D bindings for standard C headers. These are mostly undocumented, as documentation for the functions these declarations provide bindings to can be found on external resources.
*Memory management*
core.memory	Control the built-in garbage collector.
std.typecons	Build scoped variables and reference-counted types.
*Metaprogramming*
core.attribute	Definitions of special attributes recognized by the compiler.
core.demangle	Convert mangled D symbol identifiers to source representation.
std.demangle	A simple wrapper around core.demangle.
std.meta	Construct and manipulate template argument lists (aka type lists).
std.traits	Extract information about types and symbols at compile time.
std.typecons	Construct new, useful general purpose types.
*Multitasking*
std.concurrency	Low level messaging API for threads.
std.parallelism	High level primitives for SMP parallelism.
std.process	Starting and manipulating processes.
core.atomic	Basic support for lock-free concurrent programming.
core.sync.barrier	Synchronize the progress of a group of threads.
core.sync.condition	Synchronized condition checking.
core.sync.exception	Base class for synchronization exceptions.
core.sync.mutex	Mutex for mutually exclusive access.
core.sync.rwmutex	Shared read access and mutually exclusive write access.
core.sync.semaphore	General use synchronization semaphore.
core.thread	Thread creation and management.
*Networking*
std.socket	Socket primitives.
std.net.curl	Networking client functionality as provided by libcurl.
std.net.isemail	Validates an email address according to RFCs 5321, 5322 and others.
std.uri	Encode and decode Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).
std.uuid	Universally-unique identifiers for resources in distributed systems.
*Numeric*
std.bigint	An arbitrary-precision integer type.
std.complex	A complex number type.
std.math	Elementary mathematical functions (powers, roots, trigonometry).
std.mathspecial	Families of transcendental functions.
std.numeric	Floating point numerics functions.
std.random	Pseudo-random number generators.
core.checkedint	Range-checking integral arithmetic primitives.
core.math	Built-in mathematical intrinsics.
*Paradigms*
std.functional	Functions that manipulate other functions.
std.algorithm	Generic algorithms for processing sequences.
std.signals	Signal-and-slots framework for event-driven programming.
*Runtime utilities*
object	Core language definitions. Automatically imported.
std.getopt	Parsing of command-line arguments.
std.compiler	Host compiler vendor string and language version.
std.system	Runtime environment, such as OS type and endianness.
core.cpuid	Capabilities of the CPU the program is running on.
core.memory	Control the built-in garbage collector.
core.runtime	Control and configure the D runtime.
*String manipulation*
std.string	Algorithms that work specifically with strings.
std.array	Manipulate builtin arrays.
std.algorithm	Generic algorithms for processing sequences.
std.uni	Fundamental Unicode algorithms and data structures.
std.utf	Encode and decode UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 strings.
std.format	Format data into strings.
std.path	Manipulate strings that represent filesystem paths.
std.regex	Regular expressions.
std.ascii	Routines specific to the ASCII subset of Unicode.
std.encoding	Handle and transcode between various text encodings.
std.windows.charset	Windows specific character set support.
std.outbuffer	Serialize data to ubyte arrays.
*Type manipulations*
std.conv	Convert types from one type to another.
std.typecons	Type constructors for scoped variables, ref counted types, etc.
std.bitmanip	High level bit level manipulation, bit arrays, bit fields.
std.variant	Discriminated unions and algebraic types.
core.bitop	Low level bit manipulation.
*Vector programming*
core.simd	SIMD intrinsics

Library Reference

Phobos Runtime Library