[Opencxx-users] [opencxx] Let's break OpenC++ up

[Grzegorz J. <ja...@he...>]

Hi,

In his e-mail Stefan Reuther offered several patches to OpenC++ parser.
Those patches are welcome, however I think we again hit recurring problem:

Conceptually OpenC++ consists of three sybsystems:

    Frontend --- reads preprocessed sources, makes parse tree
        out of them; possibly OpenC++ static analyzer also belongs
        in this subsystem

    Translator --- traverses syntax tree and transforms it
        according to rules described by metaclasses

    Driver --- runs preprocessor, Frontend, Translator,
        native compiler and linker.

As I understand Michael and Stefan work with Frontend and are not interested
in the rest of the system. I believe, that this is the most frequently
reused part of OpenC++ and I know of at least three more projects that
reuse just this part.

Thus I suggest that we take it out and make it a separate library.
Otherwise I can see serious problems with testing.

As you now, out present methodology is regression testing, e.g. we run
'make test' each time we modify anything.

This is very important, as this allows somebody who is not a guru to come
and commit some fixes without fear that he/she breaks some distant parts
of the package. Our testsuite is pathetically small at the moment, but
it already helps and I believe that it can grow.

But now comes the problem: when we just extend Frontend itself, without
proper support in Translator (e.g. your patches will make 'if ({...}) '
parse, but Translator will choke on it), we do not have way to add tests
that make sure the new Frontend functionality works.

With separate Frontend library, we can test the library on its own, and
this is what we need at the moment, because we somehow have to add tests
for the new features implemented by patches from Fiasco project.

BTW: Over a year ago there was a resolution on this forum to factor out the
Driver subsystem and make it a shell script (for easier maintenance
and to make underlying compiler/preproc/linker settable with Autoconf).

Let me know what you think.

Best regards
Grzegorz

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# Grzegorz Jakacki                       Huada Electronic Design #
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