Re: [Swig-devel] Extension for generated C++ files

[William S F. <ws...@fu...>]

On 7 January 2015 at 00:08, Olly Betts <ol...@su...> wrote:

> Currently the extension for generated C++ files is ".cxx" for all languages
> except for PHP where it's ".cpp" (there is no good reason for this
> divergence
> that I'm aware of - tracking the change back it appears to come from
> "The great merge" back in 2002).
>
> You can change this for PHP with:
>
>  swig -php -cppext cc
>
> And in fact our own testsuite uses this to change the extension back to
> cxx!
>
> For Ocaml we provide an option with the same effect, but a different name:
>
>  swig -ocaml -suffix cc
>
> For other languages you can't change the extension directly, but you can
> specify a filename with extension using -o:
>
>  swig -python -o foo_wrap.cc
>
> The current situation seems less than ideal to me, but I thought I should
> canvas opinions rather than just changing things.
>
> I think it is useful to be able to specify the extension, as some compilers
> and build tools are fussy about it, and there's no good reason why this
> shouldn't be supported for all backends.  That would just be a matter of
> moving the code which handles this option, as it just calls
> SWIG_config_cppext(ext).
>
> I think -cppext is a better name than -suffix - (particularly as this is
> only used for C++ files), so I propose that -suffix remain supported for
> now as an Ocaml-specific option, but prints a warning that it is deprecated
> and that -cppext is preferred as of SWIG 3.0.4 (or whatever version).
>
> I don't like the PHP backend having a different default, though changing
> that is an incompatible change for anyone generating PHP bindings and not
> using -cppext or -o.
>
> Agreed a consistent approach is best. Let's go for -cppext for all
languages. A deprecated warning for ocaml is fine too. Please also modify
the html manual appropriately.

William