The D operator xlate is used to perform a translation from an input expression to one of the defined translation output structures. The xlate operator is used in an expression of the form:

xlate <output-type> ( input-expression )

For example, to invoke the hypothetical translator for FILE structs defined above and access the file_fd member, you would write the expression:

xlate <struct file_info *>(f)->file_fd;

where f is a D variable of type FILE *. The xlate expression itself is assigned the type defined by the output-type. Once a translator is defined, it can be used to translate input expressions to either the translator output struct type, or to a pointer to that struct.

If you translate an input expression to a struct, you can either dereference a particular member of the output immediately using the “.” operator, or you can assign the entire translated struct to another D variable to make a copy of the values of all the members. If you dereference a single member, the D compiler will only generate code corresponding to the expression for that member. You may not apply the & operator to a translated struct to obtain its address, as the data object itself does not exist until it is copied or one of its members is referenced.

If you translate an input expression to a pointer to a struct, you can either dereference a particular member of the output immediately using the -> operator, or you can dereference the pointer using the unary * operator, in which case the result behaves as if you translated the expression to a struct. If you dereference a single member, the D compiler will only generate code corresponding to the expression for that member. You may not assign a translated pointer to another D variable as the data object itself does not exist until it is copied or one of its members is referenced, and therefore cannot be addressed.

A translator declaration may omit expressions for one or more members of the output type. If an xlate expression is used to access a member for which no translation expression is defined, the D compiler will produce an appropriate error message and abort the program compilation. If the entire output type is copied by means of a structure assignment, any members for which no translation expressions are defined will be filled with zeroes.

In order to find a matching translator for an xlate operation, the D compiler examines the set of available translators in the following order:

If no matching translator can be found according to these rules, the D compiler produces an appropriate error message and program compilation fails.