Tuesday, October 25, 2011


A stronger C/C++ Preprocessor



Ever felt you needed some preprocessing to generate some C/C++ code for you, but the C preprocesssor is too lacking? Say for example you wanted to include part of another file, or include output from an application. Perhaps the compile should be based on some data found on a remote server? Well, there are stronger preprocessors which work for C/C++, such as PHP.

Here's an example:
/tmp> php test.cpp.php | g++ -x c++ -Wall -o test -
/tmp> ./test
Hello 0
Hello 1
Hello 2
Hello 3
Hello 4
/tmp> cat test.cpp.php
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
  <?php for ($i = 0; $i < 5; ++$i) { echo 'std::cout << "Hello ', $i, '" << std::endl;'; } ?>
  return(0);
}
/tmp>
Here's a more interesting example:
/tmp> php weather_example.c.php | gcc -x c -Wall -o weather_example -
/tmp> ./weather_example
Hi, when I was compiled, the weather here in New York City was 57F
/tmp> cat weather_example.c.php
<?php
$w = file_get_contents('http://www.google.com/ig/api?weather=New+York+City');
$f = '<temp_f data="';
echo '#define __WEATHER__ ', (int)substr($w, strpos($w, $f)+strlen($f)), 'U', "\n";
?>
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
  printf("Hi, when I was compiled, the weather here in New York City was %uF\n", __WEATHER__);
  return(0);
}
/tmp>

Sunday, October 16, 2011


Goodbye Google



Google announced they're shutting down Code Search.

I found Google Code Search to be invaluable in the kind of work I do. I saved tons of time by being able to find existing code for something tricky already invented. Or I could compare multiple implementations for things to learn about what different techniques there are for various operations and learn immensely from their pros and cons. If you're reimplementing something yourself, it's also nice to be easily able to find tests cases and other things with Google Code Search.

Now all that is going away. Are there any feasible alternatives? Do we need to start a competing search engine? What are programmers to do when Google cuts the number one online tool for researching code?