Bug 4480 – JSON: include location range, not just line numbers, for everything

If you include the location range for everything in the json output, it's much easier to implement navigate-to-declaration in an IDE. For example, if there is code: logger.trace(...); json only outputs "line": 18. But if it instead put: "range": { "start": {"line": 18, "col": 4}, "end": {"line": 18, "col": 16}} Then it's easier for an IDE to find the identifier under the cursor. Similarly, IDEs often allow you to "fold" code -- collapse a declaration so you don't have to see it, or collapse a function body or a block. Including a range means the IDE doesn't need to parse D.

DMD doesn't currently store line offset information, so this is a fairly invasive enhancement to do, although I agree it would be very nice to have this.