I work in a Unix environment with the typical Unix tools (emacs, vim, gvim, sunstudio, etc)
My project has huge gross boilerplate comments on every method. It makes the files thousands of lines long, with a couple hundred lines of actual code. I may be exagerrating a bit but you get the idea. I am looking for a way when viewing these files to hide (not remove) all comments so I can quickly go through the code. C++ comments '//' only.
It all depends on which editor you use. In vim, you can enable folding with :
set foldenable
Then, you'll be able to use different of folding methods, for mainstream languages, you can set :
set foldmethod=syntax
which will enable syntax folding.
There are half a dozen folding methods, I think the best would be to read
help folding
which should answer everything.
Related
I work with a medium sized team of developers, with half being Linux developers using VIM on Ubuntu and MacVIM on OSX, and the other half being Windows developers using Visual Studio 2010 or later.
A fair bit of time has been wasted in the past when handling things like SVN operations failing due to mixed line endings, or changes to code reviews due to a mix of hard-tabs versus spaces-as-tabs (and sometimes of varying lengths, ie: 4 spaces vs 2 spaces vs 8 spaces, etc), and I would like to put an end to it.
The plan is to adapt a common coding style we've designed, which is almost identical to the Linux Kernel coding style. For all developers, we could require them to run their code through the checkpatch.pl script used by Linux kernel devs, but our code includes C, C++, and C#, so we would need to generalize the rule checker script beyond just ANSI C.
Is there a generic way to implement a rule set for VIM, and another for Visual studio? We'd like to generate a script that checks entire files, which could be hooked into our version control system so that it's run on code before commits complete, and perhaps as a run-time script to enforce the style as coders type?
Thank you.
EditorConfig seems to do exactly what you want in Vim, Visual Studio, and a lot of other editors and IDEs.
The run-time "script" is the best first-line of defense. In this case, it will be various Vim and Visual Studio settings to help enforce your code style. That alone will catch quite a few problems. Keep in mind, this won't catch everything, but will encourage the coding style you want.
I've worked across Linux & Visual Studio in a team before (and sometimes by myself). The whole Tabs/Spaces issue drove me nuts as there would be wholesale groups of lines that were either shifted WAY over or not enough. To solve this, I ended up using these three settings in Vim (also set similar values in Visual Studio), thus catching one class of issues at the root.
Vim
set expandtab
set shiftwidth=4 " Mainly for if/for/while/general {} block indentation. 4 spaces.
set softtabstop=-1 " Allows us to use the Tab key and have it act like shiftwidth.
Visual Studio
Insert spaces when Tab key is pressed.
Shift 4 spaces on indent inside code block
They key is getting rid of the Tab characters, or at least having both systems use the SAME SETTINGS (i.e. both using Tab with the same values or SPACEs substituting as Tabs)
Something to watch out for:
Someone copying a file from one Operating System to a different one and then checking the file into SVN on that machine. SVN will blindly commit, say, a DOS line-ending file from a UNIX system. You want to checkout/commit files on the same system only. Otherwise, checking out/editing/committing files all on the same OS should present no issues, as SVN can convert the line endings upon checkout. You can "fix" this by loading a file into Vim and then converting the line-endings to the particular OS you want by typing ":set fileformat=dos" (if you want to change to Windows-style), ":set fileformat=unix" (for unix style), or finally ":set fileformat=mac" for Mac.
As far as the code style goes, as you probably already know, both Vim and Visual Studio offer lots of flexibility there. While I cannot give you the specific settings for Vim, the options to look at are
autoindent
cindent
cinoptions (implied from cindent)
cinkeys (implied from cindent)
comments (default is probably fine, but here for thoroughness)
So, you will want
set autoindent
and cindent should be automatically set when editing a C or C++ file. The defaults for cinoptions and cinkeys are ok for me, but I have tweaked them in the past when working with a different group.
Don't forget about using the '=' command over a selected range of lines to reformat the code! This can be very handy!
I shy away from the completely automatic SVN backend method because it may take longer than you expect to get it right, and when it screws up, it will probably take more time out of your day than you expect as well. After all, you really just want to be productive, right?.
Discipline up front is key!
I have a CS class that requires (or at least strongly suggests) 8 spaces for C++ indentation. I normally use 2, so this is quite different for me.
I have until recently been just toggling the indent code in my .emacs and running eval-buffer, but that seems like a poor solution with a programmable editor.
So I am wondering: how might I go about creating a minor Mode (or is there a better function for this?)? I'd like to be able to enable it with M-x comp-mode or something similar.
I have seen minor modes, but they seem to instead focus on key mappings. Perhaps I am looking at the wrong Emacs feature.
Perhaps I can extend the C++ mode to create a comp-mode with different indentation settings?
You could probably do this with a minor mode, but an easier solution is to use directory variables. Create a file called .dir-locals.el in the directory containing your coursework and put something like this in it:
((c++-mode . ((indent-tabs-mode . nil)
(c-basic-offset . 8))))
I've been researching existing C++ code style tools and have yet to find any packages which will allow me to highlight sections of a file which break a detailed code style configuration. While there seem to be several options for basic code style settings (what should/shouldn't be indented, line length > some threshold, etc), other issues do not seem to be addressed. For context, I'm hoping to be able to recognize when I do the following:
{ on same line as function definition (should be next line)
{ on next line after if statement (should be same line)
no space between ) and {
no space between comparisons (should be a == b instead of a== b,a==b, etc)
consecutive new lines
type *var_name or type * var_name instead of type* var_name
and so on...
This style is heavily enforced on my team, and I am having difficulty minimizing inconsistencies. I'm looking for either an existing emacs tool which allow me to customize these settings extensively, or suggestions on how to create an emacs package myself identifies these errors.
As Noufal suggests, Flymake is one option.
Another is Flycheck. I switched from Flymake to Flycheck a few years ago and haven't looked back. Flycheck supports a large number of languages and tools, and seems to require less hand-holding than Flymake.
From its GitHub README:
Features
Supports over 30 programming and markup languages with more than 60 different syntax checking tools
Fully automatic, fail-safe, on-the-fly syntax checking in background
Nice error indication and highlighting
Optional error list popup
Many customization options
A comprehensive manual
A simple interface to define new syntax checkers
A “doesn't get in your way” guarantee
Many 3rd party extensions
For C and C++ code, Flycheck supports Clang and Cppcheck out of the box, and there is a plugin for Google's C++ style guide as well.
And of course you can add your own checkers if you wish.
If you can configure your tool to emit output in the format that can be understood by flymake, it should be able to do it.
Many tools such as gcc itself and others do this so that flymake works.
I am working on an really large multi language project (1000+ Classes + Configs + Scripts), with files distributed over network drives. I am having trouble fighting through the code, since the available Tools are not helping. The main problem is finding things. For the C++ Part: VS with VAX can only find files and symbols which are in the solution. A lot of them are not. Same problem with Reshaper. Right now i am stuck with doing unindexed string and file searches, which is highly inefficient on a network drive. I heared that SourceInsight would be an option since it allows you to just specify the folders that are part of the project and than indexes them, but my company wont spent money on it.
So my question ist: what Tools are there available to fight through an incredible large amount of code? And if possible they should be low cost or even free/open source.
Check out -
ctags
cscope
idutils
snavigator
In every one of these tools, you would have to invest(*) some time in reading the documentation, and then building your index. Consider switching to an editor that will work with these tools.
(*): I do mean invest, because it will reap dividends once you do.
hope this helps,
If you need to maintain a large amount of code, you really should have a source code managment system, a lot of them will help you find text by indexing all the files
And Most of them will work with various language.
Otherwise you can install some indexer like Apache Lucene and index all your files...
You should take a look at LXR. This is used by many Linux kernel source listings.
Try ndexer http://code.google.com/p/ndexer/
promises to Handle extremely large codebases!
The Perl program ack is also worth a look -- think of it as multi-file grep on steroids. The new version (in what I would call late beta) even lets you specify regexes for the files to process as well as regexes to search for -- a feature I've used extensively since it came out (I've got a subproject with 30k lines in 300+ classes, where this feature has been very helpful). You can even chain the new ack with itself so you can subselect the files to process.
VS with VAX can only find files and symbols which are in the solution. A lot of them are not.
You can add all the files that are not in your solution and set them to not build in the settings. Your VS build will not be affected by this, but now VS knows about those files and you can search them along with your VS native files.
I was going to create the C++ IDE Vim extendable plugin. It is not a problem to make one which will satisfy my own needs.
This plugin was going to work with workspaces, projects and its dependencies.
This is for unix like system with gcc as c++ compiler.
So my question is what is the most important things you'd need from an IDE? Please take in account that this is Vim, where almost all, almost, is possible.
Several questions:
How often do you manage different workspaces with projects inside them and their relationships between them? What is the most annoying things in this process.
Is is necessary to recreate "project" from the Makefile?
Thanks.
Reason to create this plugin:
With a bunch of plugins and self written ones we can simulate most of things. It is ok when we work on a one big "infinitive" project.
Good when we already have a makefile or jam file. Bad when we have to create our owns, mostly by copy and paste existing.
All ctags and cscope related things have to know about list of a real project files. And we create such ones. This <project#get_list_of_files()> and many similar could be a good project api function to cooperate with an existing and the future plugins.
Cooperation with an existing makefiles can help to find out the list of the real project files and the executable name.
With plugin system inside the plugin there can be different project templates.
Above are some reasons why I will start the job. I'd like to hear your one.
There are multiple problems. Most of them are already solved by independent and generic plugins.
Regarding the definition of what is a project.
Given a set of files in a same directory, each file can be the unique file of a project -- I always have a tests/ directory where I host pet projects, or where I test the behaviour of the compiler. On the opposite, the files from a set of directories can be part of a same and very big project.
In the end, what really defines a project is a (leaf) "makefile" -- And why restrict ourselves to makefiles, what about scons, autotools, ant, (b)jam, aap? And BTW, Sun-Makefiles or GNU-Makefiles ?
Moreover, I don't see any point in having vim know the exact files in the current project. And even so, the well known project.vim plugin already does the job. Personally I use a local_vimrc plugin (I'm maintaining one, and I've seen two others on SF). With this plugin, I just have to drop a _vimrc_local.vim file in a directory, and what is defined in it (:mappings, :functions, variables, :commands, :settings, ...) will apply to each file under the directory -- I work on a big project having a dozen of subcomponents, each component live in its own directory, has its own makefile (not even named Makefile, nor with a name of the directory)
Regarding C++ code understanding
Every time we want to do something complex (refactorings like rename-function, rename-variable, generate-switch-from-current-variable-which-is-an-enum, ...), we need vim to have an understanding of C++. Most of the existing plugins rely on ctags. Unfortunately, ctags comprehension of C++ is quite limited -- I have already written a few advanced things, but I'm often stopped by the poor information provided by ctags. cscope is no better. Eventually, I think we will have to integrate an advanced tool like elsa/pork/ionk/deshydrata/....
NB: That's where, now, I concentrate most of my efforts.
Regarding Doxygen
I don't known how difficult it is to jump to the doxygen definition associated to a current token. The first difficulty is to understand what the cursor is on (I guess omnicppcomplete has already done a lot of work in this direction). The second difficulty will be to understand how doxygen generate the page name for each symbol from the code.
Opening vim at the right line of code from a doxygen page should be simple with a greasemonkey plugin.
Regarding the debugger
There is the pyclewn project for those that run vim under linux, and with gdb as debugger. Unfortunately, it does not support other debuggers like dbx.
Responses to other requirements:
When I run or debug my compiled program, I'd like the option of having a dialog pop up which asks me for the command line parameters. It should remember the last 20 or so parameters I used for the project. I do not want to have to edit the project properties for this.
My BuildToolsWrapper plugin has a g:BTW_run_parameters option (easily overridden with project/local_vimrc solutions). Adding a mapping to ask the arguments to use is really simple. (see :h inputdialog())
work with source control system
There already exist several plugins addressing this issue. This has nothing to do with C++, and it must not be addressed by a C++ suite.
debugger
source code navigation tools (now I am using http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1638 plugin and ctags)
compile lib/project/one source file from ide
navigation by files in project
work with source control system
easy acces to file changes history
rename file/variable/method functions
easy access to c++ help
easy change project settings (Makefiles, jam, etc)
fast autocomplette for paths/variables/methods/parameters
smart identation for new scopes (also it will be good thing if developer will have posibility to setup identation rules)
highlighting incorrect by code convenstion identation (tabs instead spaces, spaces after ";", spaces near "(" or ")", etc)
reformating selected block by convenstion
Things I'd like in an IDE that the ones I use don't provide:
When I run or debug my compiled program, I'd like the option of having a dialog pop up which asks me for the command line parameters. It should remember the last 20 or so parameters I used for the project. I do not want to have to edit the project properties for this.
A "Tools" menu that is configurable on a per-project basis
Ability to rejig the keyboard mappings for every possible command.
Ability to produce lists of project configurations in text form
Intelligent floating (not docked) windows for debugger etc. that pop up only when I need them, stay on top and then disappear when no longer needed.
Built-in code metrics analysis so I get a list of the most complex functions in the project and can click on them to jump to the code
Built-in support for Doxygen or similar so I can click in a Doxygen document and go directly to code. Sjould also reverse navigate from code to Doxygen.
No doubt someone will now say Eclipse can do this or that, but it's too slow and bloated for me.
Adding to Neil's answer:
integration with gdb as in emacs. I know of clewn, but I don't like that I have to restart vim to restart the debugger. With clewn, vim is integrated into the debugger, but not the other way around.
Not sure if you are developing on Windows, but if you are I suggest you check out Viemu. It is a pretty good VIM extension for Visual Studio. I really like Visual Studio as an IDE (although I still think VC6 is hard to beat), so a Vim extension for VS was perfect for me. Features that I would prefer worked better in a Vim IDE are:
The Macro Recording is a bit error prone, especially with indentation. I find I can easily and often record macros in Vim while I am editing code (eg. taking an enum defn from a header and cranking out a corresponding switch statement), but found that Viemu is a bit flakey in that deptartment.
The VIM code completion picks up words in the current buffer where Viemu hooks into the VS code completion stuff. This means if I have just created a method name and I want to ctrl ] to auto complete, Vim will pick it up, but Viemu won't.
For me, it's just down to the necessities
nice integration with ctags, so you can do jump to definition
intelligent completion, that also give you the function prototype
easy way to switch between code and headers
interactive debugging with breaakpoints, but maybe
maybe folding
extra bonus points for refactoring tools like rename or extract method
I'd say stay away from defining projects - just treat the entire file branch as part of the "project" and let users have a settings file to override that default
99% of the difference in speed I see between IDE and vim users is code lookup and navigation. You need to be able to grep your source tree for a phrase (or intelligently look for the right symbol using ctags), show all the hits, and switch to that file in like two or three keystrokes.
All the other crap like repository navigation or interactive debugging is nice, but there are other ways to solve those problems. I'd say drop the interactive debugging even. Just focus on what makes IDEs good editors - have a "big picture" view of your project, instead of single file.
In fact, are there any plugins for vim that already achieve this?