phusion/cxxcodebuilder

Generate C/C++ code with a Builder-style DSL

cxxcodebuilder: generate C/C++ code with a Builder-style DSL

Cxxcodebuilder gives you a simple Ruby API for programmatically outputting C/C++ code with proper indenting and formatting. Code using this API is much more readable than code building raw strings. Cxxcodebuilder is similar to Jbuilder, which is for outputting JSON.

Use cases

This library is useful in build systems for automatically generating C/C++ code. It is much cleaner compared to using ERB or other generic text templating systems for the job.

Example

Suppose that you want to write the following piece of code:

#include <stdio.h>

static int limit = 0;
static int magicNumbers[] = [1, 2, 3];
static Foo foos[] = [
    { "hello", 1 },
    { "world", 2 }
];

/*
 * This is an awesome model
 * for a futuristic car.
 */
struct Car {
    unsigned int seats;
};

static int
modifyLimit(int diff) {
    int oldLimit = limit;
    limit += diff;
    printf("The new limit is: %s\n", limit);
    return oldLimit;
}

Use Cxxcodebuilder as follows:

require 'cxxcodebuilder'

builder = CxxCodeBuilder::Builder.new do
  include '<stdio.h>'

  separator

  field 'static int limit', 0

  field 'static int magicNumbers[]' do
    array_initializer do
      element 1
      element 2
      element 3
    end
  end

  field 'static Foo foo[]' do
    array_initializer do
      struct_element do
        string_element 'hello'
        element 1
      end
      struct_element do
        string_element 'world'
        element 2
      end
    end
  end

  separator

  comment %q{
    This is an awesome model
    for a futuristic car.
  }
  struct 'Car' do
    field 'unsigned int seats'
  end

  separator

  function('static int modifyLimit(int diff)', %q{
    int oldLimit = limit;
    limit += diff;
    printf("The new limit is: %s\n", limit);
    return oldLimit;
  })
end

puts(builder)

API

See the comments in lib/cxxcodebuilder/builder.rb for the full API.