Is there an equivalent to tidy for HTML code for C++? I have searched on the internet, but I find nothing but C++ wrappers for tidy, etc... I think the keyword tidy is what has me hung up.
I am basically looking for something to take code written by two people, and clean it up to a standardized style. Does such an app exist?
Thanks a bunch!
Artistic Style
is a source code indenter, formatter,
and beautifier for the C, C++, C# and
Java programming languages.
GC Great Code
is a well known C/C++ source code
beautifier.
Of course I find an answer to my own question moments later. What luck, I probably spent an hour searching earlier.
Should anyone be looking for the same thing, check out Uncrustify at http://uncrustify.sourceforge.net/
If you're using Visual Studio then you could take a look at StyleManager*. It's a VS add-in that makes it easy to set up formatting styles and apply them to code whenever you need to. It's a popular choice with VS users, and in particular was used by the DirectX SDK team to tidy up their sample code.
*Huge disclaimer: I'm one of the authors of this software, so apologies for the shameless plug!
You can tidy your code online, with this website:
https://codebeautify.org/cpp-formatter-beautifier
https://codebeautify.org/cpp-formatter-beautifier
Related
My teacher recommended us to use notepad++ and cygwin for our programming needs. Are there any better solutions anyone can recommend out there to program and compile?
Myriad of various IDE's.... Eclipse CDT, Visual Studio Express, Code::Blocks, DevCPP....
And yes, Notepad++ and Cygwin with gcc would be a very viable option if you only need to compile single files for your homework.
Use a IDE
An integrated development environment (IDE) (also known as integrated design environment, integrated debugging environment or interactive development environment) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of:
a source code editor
a compiler and/or an interpreter
build automation tools
a debugger
A few of them to choose from
http://netbeans.org/index.html
http://www.codeblocks.org/
http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/
In my opinion, a very important tool for beginners is a debugger. A lot of question can be answered by yourself if you have a look into the debugger. You can use the gdb but it is hard to use and understand for beginners. So I would recommend to use Visual C++ 2010 Express which has an excellent and easy to use debugger.
Disclaimer:
The following are personal opinions, related to my personal taste on
the subject. Anyone in the programmer community has its own taste and
preferences an can agree or not. Here I just want to tell you about
some rationals. Consider products and related names as "examples."
My Answer
There are mainly three ways to write code:
The manual one
The assisted one
The automated one.
Think to them as:
Driving your car alone
Driving with a navigator
Driving with an autopilot.
Here "driving alone" means "use a generic text editor, a command-line based compiler and a command-line based debugger. The editor may eventually have a clue about the language syntax (thus differentiating different language structural elements, like keyword, literals, operators etc.) but knowing really nothing about what you are coding.
This is what notepad++ does. It makes coding harder, but for very simple things makes you really learn how to "drive".
A "navigator" is a basic IDE like Devc++, or like CodeBlocks: they have the notion of "project", manage the relation between files and manage the invocation of the compiler and debugger, managing the mapping on their output respect to your sources.
You write your own code, but the "road to compile" is told by the "navigator" you have to trust.
An "autopilot" is a more complex IDE (like VisualStudio, Netbeans, Eclipse ...) that can also "manage the code" providing code analysis for either syntax and semantics, context sensitive auto-completion, code generation for common tasks.
They can give you some code you have to complete and connect together.
They make you faster in producing code, testing it, debugging it, but you must have more trust in them or know how they "suggest".
They can be productive, but you have to "configure" them to suite your needs.
Now: since everything is a matter of "trust", and you cannot trust what you don't know yet, and is a matter of "knowing yuur needs" (but a learner may not yet have an idea abut them)
starting with "beasts" like VisualStudio (that mess arout 50% of your computer registry, pretend you to download GIGABYTES from the Internet and installs GIGABYTES of whatever MS library) is clueless: before you will start using all of that, will take years, and VS itself will be changed 2 or three times) or Eclipse (that has the more powerful syntax and semantic analizer, but requires lot of "arcane configuration" you don't even know since you didn't make the first step in programming) may be an excess. At least until your programs will stay in a couple of pages.
starting win notepad++ and GCC (or Mingw) is just a matter of dowload few megabytes, set a PATH, and you go. Fastest way to turn the key on.
when things become more complex, and require some help in organize them, simple IDE like CodeBloks or Codelite are more than effective at "to the point". I will avoid Dev-C++: it's OLD, and doesn't support the "state of art of the C++ language". You an live with them for all your scolarity
when going to more professional kind of projects, and your experience in "using tools" is better, things like Eclipse, or NetBeans may become more "effective". I will in any case avoid VisualStudio: it's not that "effective". But it is the best to develop in Microsoft environments producing MS oriented applications, especially in the ".Net" world. Something you will not see before 2/3 years of experience.
If you're learning you can download VStudio Express. I believe it's free. Easier to use than notepad and cygwin. This isn't a biased opinion. I'm a Linux C++ developer most days but acknowledge the fact that it might be easier to learn using VStudio.
If you are using linux, you can use kate and g++ for editing and compiling c++ files.
If you are using windows, I think your teacher's recommendations are good. Althought there are various IDE's for C++, it is better to use a simple editor that doesn't have code completion and compilation feature while learning a programming language for the first time. IDE's are nice but not good for learners I think.
It's probably a good idea to go with your teacher's suggestion, since you might also need some help in the future, either from him or your colleagues. Another advantage is that, being in school, you'll probably develop using more than one programming language. Notepad++ has support for almost everything you can think of, so you can use it not only for this course. That way you'll have an advantage because you'll learn shortcuts, etc...
If you plan on doing a lot of programming in the future, I highly recommend putting the effort into learning VIM. Nothing else can touch it in terms of speed and power. It has built-in shell access and it is programmable. It is like having God in your text editor. The major down-side is the steep learning curve.
Also, you want to use Git in-case you screw-up and want to go back to a previous point. It lets you periodically check-point your code so you can always go back. For example, maybe you delete something, then later on decide you want to use that code after all. If you've been check-pointing with Git, you can get it back.
Graphical differs sometimes come in handy too.
I started coding in C++ using Turbo C++(the default program available on college computers, I told them it was prehistoric), but then I found Visual Studio Express and never looked back since that day.
Also since i could not install Visual Studio on College computers, I put a portable version of DevC++ on my pen drive to use there.
Eventually I got the College to install Visual Studio Express editions on all Lab Computers (Once I managed to convince them that it was free with no Licensing issues)
For a beginner, go with a text editor and a compiler. Helps you in understanding what actually goes on.
You could use Dev-C++, which is a good compiler for C and C++, if you want lightweight.
Otherwise Visual Studio probably.
I'm reading "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable OOSW". In chapter two, the authors provide a case study of an editor they refer to as Lexi, which seems to be written in C++. I've looked around everywhere, but the only useful link I could find said this:
The Gof tell us in a note that Lexi is
based on "Doc, a text editing
application developed by Calder". But
this paper only outlines an editor,
without any source. And I even believe
today that Lexi never truly existed as
a program.
The link provides Delphi source. I'm after C++, cause that's what I'm comfortable with, and that's what's used in the book.
Does anybody know where I can find C++ source for Lexi? If the original never existed, it would be good to find something that I can use as a base. I really don't feel like writing my own text editor from scratch just so I can work through the case study in this book.
Doc was developed using the InterViews UI toolkit. I believe that doc source is part of the InterViews distribution. Doc was used to typeset Paul's thesis. (Paul Calder was my lecturer at Flinders University)
If you look at the InterViews code you might be surprised. It was developed before modern C++ existed. For example, there are no templates. And there are no comments in the code.
To my understanding, Lexi never existed. It was created as an example for the book by GoF.
Maybe a Java implementation can help, being it more similar to c++. Here it is:
jexieditor - A WYSIWYG editor based on JavaSE. I have not had a look at the code yet, anyway
I may be showing my age here but are you sure about C++? I have a funny feeling that when that book came out originally it may have been oriented toward Smalltalk. Its just something nagging at the back of my mind, I can't substantiate it I'm afraid
I'm currently implementing Lexi analog, pls take a look https://github.com/romaonishuk/LexI. Implementation is still in progress, but most of the described in GoF patterns and concepts are implemented using C++.
This is the code source of LEXI, written in Delphi unfortunately for you: LEXI sources.
It appears that the source code might be on the CD-ROM version of Design Patterns that came out in 1998. According to the Amazon listing, the CD contains (among other things):
Sample code demonstrating pattern implementation
Furthermore,
All patterns are compiled from real-world examples and include code that demonstrates how they may be implemented in object-oriented programming languages such as C++ and Smalltalk. Readers who already own the book will want the CD to take advantage of its dynamic search mechanism and ready-to-install patterns.
Whether these code samples include the full Lexi source is impossible to tell from the listing, and the current price of the CD (£86.87) is rather high. But it might be worth checking if any local libraries have the CD in stock.
I was just trying to find out if a real working Lexi version exists, to have a concrete reference, but I didn't find it.
I found this Java version on GitHub: https://github.com/AmitDutta/lexi
I don't know, maybe it could be useful for someone's purpose here.
When programming in C++ in Visual Studio 2008, why is there no functionality like that seen in the refactor menu when using C#?
I use Rename constantly and you really miss it when it's not there. I'm sure you can get plugins that offer this, but why isn't it integrated in to the IDE when using C++? Is this due to some gotcha in the way that C++ must be parsed?
The syntax and semantics of C++ make it incredibly difficult to correctly implement refactoring functionality. It's possible to implement something relatively simple to cover 90% of the cases, but in the remaining 10% of cases that simple solution will horribly break your code by changing things you never wanted to change.
Read http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/defective.html#defect-8 for a brief discussion of the difficulties that any refactoring code in C++ has to deal with.
Microsoft has evidently decided to punt on this particular feature for C++, leaving it up to third-party developers to do what they can.
I'm not sure why it is like this, but third-party tools exist that help. For example, right now I'm evaluating Visual Assist X (by Whole Tomato). We're also using Visual Studio 2005.
devexpress provides Add-in Refactor! for C++ for VS2005 and VS2008.
Don't feel hard-done-by, it isn't available in VB.Net either :)
C++ is a HARD language to parse compared with C# (VB too unless you've "Option Explicit" and "Option Strict" switched on, it's difficult to tell exactly what any line of code is doing out of a MUCH larger context).
At a guess it could have something to do with the "difficulty" of providing it.
P.S. I marked my answer as community wiki because I know it's not providing any useful information.
Eclipse does few c++ refactorings including 'rename'. Check out this question here on StackOverflow.
It is also possible to use Microsoft compiler with Eclipse. Check out here.
Try Eclipse and see if it fits for you.
There is a lot of fud and confusion around this issue. This amazing youtube video should clear up why C++ refactoring is hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVbDzTM21BQ
tl;dr Google refactors their entire 100 million line C++ codebase by using a compiler (Clang + LLVM) that allows access to its intermediate format.
Bottom line, third parties are screwed here, there is no realistic way for them to refactor VS C++ unless MS outputs intermediate results the same way. If you think of it from the programming problem perspective this is obvious: in order to refactor VS C++ you have to be able to compile C++ the exact same way VS does with the same bugs, limitations, flaws, hacks, shortcuts, workarounds, etc. The usual suspects like Coderush and Resharper do not have the budget for that kind of insanity although apparently they are trying but it has been years...
http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper-cpp/
Update 2016: Resharper now does a decent job at C++ refactor. Limitations are purely for large / gigantic projects.
MS has finally done this: https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/C9-GoingNative/GoingNative-33-C-Refactoring-in-Visual-Studio-2015#time=04m37s
They have started doing this about 10 years ago, I remember watching ms channel9 long ago.
I've been using Visual Assist X with visual studio for about one year and a half. It's an incredible tool that helps you a lot with ordinary C++ code, but it doesn't perform very well on templated code. For instance, you if have a sophisticated policy-based template design, it won't know how to rename your variables, and the project won't compile anymore.
Install plugin which enables you that functionality: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/164904b2-3b47-417f-9b6b-fdd35757d194
I'd like to point out that Qt Creator (a C++ IDE which is compatible with VC++ libraries and build system) provides symbol renaming that works very well:
You can rename symbols in all files in a project. When you rename a class, you can also change filenames that match the class name.
Qt Creator - Refactoring: Renaming Symbols
Qt Creator's rename functionality gives you a list of the symbol references it found and an opportunity to exclude any of them before performing the replace. So if it gets a symbol reference wrong, you can exclude it.
So C++ symbol renaming is possible. Coming to VS from Qt Creator I feel your pain, to the point where I've considered converting preexisting VS projects of considerable size to use Qt Creator instead.
I don't buy the argument that this is specifically hard in C++. In addition to the fact that it already works very well in Qt Creator, there's the fact that the compiler and linker can find and match symbols: If that wasn't possible you couldn't build your application.
In fact, languages like Python that are dynamically typed also have renaming tools. If you can create such a tool for a language where there are no explicit references to variable type you can definitely do it for C++.
Case in point:
... Rope, a python refactoring library... I tried it for a few renames, and that definitely worked as expected.
Stack Overflow - What refactoring tools do you use for Python?
Well in spite of comments by all you experts I totally disagree that refactoring support issue has something to do with C++ language semantics or any language semantics for that matter. Except the compiler builder themselves don't choose to implement one in first case due to their own reasons or constraints whatsoever they maybe.
And offense not to be taken but I am sorry to say Mr jsb the above link you provided to support your case (i.e of yosefk) about C++ defect is totally out of question. Its more like you providing direction to "Los angeles" when someone asked for of "San Franisco".
In my opinion raising refactoring difficulty issue for certain language is more like raising a finger on language integrity itself. Especially for languages which is sometimes just pain.... when it comes to their variable declaration and use. :) Okay! tell me how come you loose track of some node within a node tree ... eh? So what it is do with any language be it as simple as machine level code. You know you VS compiler can easily detect if some variable or routine is dead code. Got my point?
About developing third party tool. I think compiler vendors can implement it far more easily and effectively if they ever wanted to then a third party tool which will have to duplicate all the parsing database to handle it. Nowadays compiler can optimize code very efficiently at machine code level and I am hearing here that its difficult to tell how some variable is used previously. You haven't paid any real attention to inner working of compiler I suppose. What database it keep within.
And sure its the almost same database that IDE use for all such similar purposes. In previous time compiler were just a separate entity and IDE just a Text Editor with some specialization but as times goes by the gap between compiler and IDE Editor become less and its directly started working on similar parsed database. Which makes it possible to handle all those intellisense and refactoring or other syntax related issues more effectively. With all precompile things and JIT compiling this gap is almost negligent. So it almost make sense to use same database for both purpose or else your memory demand go higher due to duplication.
You all are programmers - I am not! And you guys seems to be having difficulty visualizing how refactoring can be implemented for C++ or any language that I can't comprehend. Its just all about for something you have to put more effort for some less depending on how heavy is a person you trying push.
Anyway way VS a nice IDE especially when it comes to C#.
I was a C++ developer (mostly ATL/COM stuff) until, as many of us, I switched to C# in 2001. I didn't do much C++ programming since then.
Do you have any tips on how to revive my C++ skills? What has changed in C++ in the last years? Are there good books, articles or blogs covering the language. The problem is that most material I could find either targets people who are new to the language or those with a lot of experience.
Which C++ libraries are popular these days? I guess I will need to read on the STL because I didn't use it much. What else? Boost? ATL? WTL?
Boost - though it, and other libraries were around back then, its only relatively recently that it's taken off in a big way. Google for TR1 and c++0x standards too. You should defintely read up on STL because (IMHO) its the thing that makes C++ special.
ATL is as good a dead technology (don't get me wrong, I liked it and still use it somewhat, but its not fashionable in the MS world anymore).
Something like QT is probably more new and cool for C++ developers, and has the advantage of getting you into all the new Linux and web development that'll be increasingly popular over the next few years.
However, once you start looking at the things you can do, I think it'll all come back quite quickly.
I personally find that syntax is where i mostly need to catch up when i wander back to a language i havent used in a long time. But the concepts and what the language is about stays the same in memory.
Assuming its the same with you, i would say its a good idea to relook at the texts you remember to have been useful to you while learning C++. I would recommned Thinking in C++ for getting up fast on the syntax.
STL would be really useful yes. Thats one thing i have found commonly appreciated by all mature C++ programmers. It would be useful to know the libraries that Boost provides.
The changes to C++ world, depends on the changes your favourite compiler has decided to implement. Since you mentioned ATl/COM i assume it would be VC++. The changes to MFC would be support for Windows Forms (2005 vc++) and Vista compliant uI's and ribbon support(?) (2008 Vc++)
VC++ now supports managed C++ -i'm sure you know what that is coming from the C# world - 2008 adds supports for managed STL too.
VC++ is trying to be more standards compliant and are making some progress in that area.
They have introduced lots of secure functions that depreciate the old stds like strcpy and the compilers will also give warnings if you use the old fns.
VC++2005 also has something called function attributes, which it uses to describe the parameters so that it can do more checking on the inputs you pass in and statically flag a warning if it sees soething amiss. Usefuli would say though our shop has not progressed to using the 2005 compiler.
MSDN has the list of breaking changes for each releases. Oh & Support for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, and Windows NT 4.0 has been removed from 2005 version of VC++. Additionally the core libraries you required till now (CRT, ATL, MFC etc) now support a new deployment model which makes them shared side sy side assemblies and requires a manifest.
This link should get you going - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y8bt6w34.aspx
2008 adds even more like Tr1 recommendations, more optimizning compiler, parallel compilation(/mp), support for new processor architectures etc. Open Mp support has also been enhanced in one of these versions is what i remember.
Again refer MSDN - thats the suthentic source for all the answers.
Good luck.
Definitely read the latest edition of "Effective C++" by Scott Meyers. I would also recommend "C++ Gotchas: Avoiding Common Problems in Coding and Design" by Stephen C. Dewhurst.
To sharpen your C++ skills I'd suggest going over some of your old C++ code if you still have access to it. Revisiting it will hopefully trigger those parts of your brain that have laid dormant after switching to C# :)
For libraries STL is good, then boost. I don't think there is too much new stuff going on with ATL/WTL from what you would have known back in 2001.
Just start a project. The libraries you use will depend on your project, but you should certainly read up on the STL. If you haven't used C++ for a long time you might need learn more about templates.
Pickup one of the C++ Unit Test frameworks out there (I suggest Google C++ Testing Framework, aka. gtest). Pick a small project that you can start from scratch and try some TDD. The TDD will encourage you to make small steps and to reflect on your code. Also, as you build your suite of unit tests, it gives you a base from which you can experiment with different techniques.
Rewrite some of your C# stuff using C++
For a start, I'd say try writing code that will work on both a Mac and Windows or Linux and Windows. This will force you to write code that is much more portable than the type of C++ code you can get away with on Visual C++ - there a lot of finer points that are very different when you go cross platform.
I'd suggest stay away from libraries for now if you can - perfect your ANSI C++ game first. I'd also suggest reading up on C++0x - the next standard is due soon and it would help you more to work towards that. To that end, brush up on the STL (the concepts behind it, not the implementation so much) and templates.
If you'd like to try BOOST, go ahead, but you can generally get by without using it. The reason I stayed away from it mostly is because of the way templates are used to do what is needed - a lot of which will become much easier once the new standard is introduced.
UPDATE: Once you're comfortable with the STL and start needing to do things that require a lot of code with the STL or are just plain tricky, then head over to BOOST. Buy a book on BOOST and read it and understand it well.
Take some old piece of code and add to it. This won't get you back on top of the latest C++ trends but it will get your feet wet.
At my job I had to add some features to a C++ ActiveX control and I hadn't touched C++ in years and years and have never done it professionally. Figuring out how to do it again was actually pretty damn cool.
I was in a similar situation: switched from C++ to C# in 2005 and then switched back to C++ in 2007. I can't say C++ universe really changed in those 2 years. The most crucial thing was to regain my memory-management instincts, but that can only be done by practicing.
Now that you have both C++ and .NET under your belt you might want to study C++ CLI a bit (new incarnation of late "Managed C++").
As for books, read everything with "Meyers" and "Sutter" on the cover.
A rather comprehensive site explaining the difficulties and solutions involved in using a dll written in c/c++ and the conversion of the .h header file to delphi/pascal was posted to a mailing list I was on recently, so I thought I'd share it, and invite others to post other useful resources for this, whether they be links, conversion tools, or book/paper titles.
One resource per answer please, so we'll end up with the most popular/best resources bubbling to the top.
Over at Rudy's Delphi Corner, he has an excellent article about the pitfalls of converting C/C++ to Delphi. In my opinion, this is essential information when attempting this task. Here is the description:
This article is meant for everyone who
needs to translate C/C++ headers to
Delphi. I want to share some of the
pitfalls you can encounter when
converting from C or C++. This article
is not a tutorial, just a discussion
of frequently encountered problem
cases. It is meant for the beginner as
well as for the more experienced
translator of C and C++.
He also wrote a "Conversion Helper Package" that installs into the Delphi IDE which aids in converting C/C++ code to Delphi:
(source: rvelthuis.de)
His other relevant articles on this topic include:
Using C++ Objects in Delphi
Using C object files in Delphi
Article at Rudy's Delphi Corner
Also, CodeGear hosts a rudimentary translation tool called CToPas (written by Ural Gunaydin).
I would like to highlight the Jedi Api Library, it is the Delphi translation of the Windows SDK headers. Might save you a lot of work if you need to translate headers from the SDK and is of course a good sample of conversions!
Since FreePascal is aimed at Delphi compatibiltiy among other things, i think H2Pas may be helpful too.
https://www.freepascal.org/tools/h2pas.var
HeadConv from DrBob is used quite a lot too, although I concur with Graza that manual translation is best.
use this option so the byte alignment is the same as C/C++ and then you don't need to add padding bytes in structs.
{$MINENUMSIZE 4}