[capi-sig] intermediate parsed representation of C/C++ API descriptions for multiple wrapper generators

[Stefan Behnel]

[changing subject appropriately]

Jack Jansen, 01.05.2010 23:40:
> I would be very interested in a universal intermediate format for all
> the interface generators. I'm still using a version of Guido's old bgen,
> now grudgingly extended to handle C++ and do bidirectional bridging
> between Python and C++, and while I love and cherish the code generator
> the C++ parser is, uhm... challenging. Parsing C++ with per-line regular
> expressions is no fun:-)

Certainly not the right tool here. It appears that clang seems to work 
quite well for both C and C++.


> I looked at gccxml at some point, as well as at some of the competing
> Python interface generators, but it went nowhere. gccxml output is far
> too detailed, and the output is too much of a simple parse tree to be of
> any use. The intermediate formats of the other interface generators I
> looked at were all too inaccessible.

That's likely because the parser requirements grow with the tool itself.


> Maybe we can come up with something decent in this group?

I think it really makes sense to do this. A suitable level of detail for 
all generators may not be immediately obvious, but should be doable.


> If there is enough interest: I can start by describing bgen's
> intermediate format, and if other people do the same for theirs we may
> be able to get to common ground...

Please do. I'll ask over at the Cython-users list to see if others have 
something to contribute to this discussion.

Stefan