any C/C++ refactoring tool based on libclang? (even simplest "toy example" )
As I've pointed out - here - it seems clang's libclang should be great for implementing the hard task that is C/C++ code analysis and modifications (check out video presentation and slides).
Do you know of any C/C++ refactoring tool based on libclang ?
"Any" includes even simple alpha state project, with support of one refactoristation technique. It can be without preprocessor support. As an example of the functionally about which I'm talking: changing method names, whether it supports multiple files or only one file at a time. You might be wondering what the goal is of asking for even small working examples My thought is that creating a list of code examples and small tools that are in one place will provide a better resource to learn how to implement refactorisation with libclang. I believe that from simple projects might grow bigger projects - in a proper opensource manner :).
Answer
Clang contains a library called "CIndex" which was developed, I believe, for doing code completion in IDEs. It can also be used for parsing C++ and walking the AST, but doesn't have anything in the way of refactoring. See Eli Bendersky's article here.
I have started such a project recently: cmonster. It's a Python-based API for parsing C++ (using libclang), analyzing the AST, with an interface for "rewriting" (i.e. inserting/removing/modifying source ranges). There's no nice way (yet) for doing things like modifying function names and having that translated into source-modifications, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to do that.
I have not yet created a release with this functionality (although it's in the github repo), as I'm waiting for llvm/clang 3.0 to be released.
Also, I should point out a couple of things:
- The code is very rough, calling it alpha would be perhaps generous.
- I'm by no means an expert on this subject (unlike, say, Dr. Ira Baxter over there).
Adjust expectations appropriately.
Update: cmonster 0.2 has been released, which includes the described features. Check it out on Github.