can we access any c program editor through java

Question

I need to develop ac parser in order to extract the function names, macros and its definitions. my approach was not to start from scratch, just access any c program editors like geany which already parses the functions and macros , may be a simple api to this editor will get all my requirements, I have googled it, but most of the solutions are to use javacc, so some other parser ...

As this job is already done by editors, so it would be easy , not taking pain to start with building grammar.

this approach would be simple, but unable to find any such editors which have any apis to access it through java.

Answer 1

What you are looking for is existing parser-generator

You could see,

1. ANTLR
2. Lex
3. Yacc
4. JavaCC

Answer 2

I've already used lex, flex, yacc, bison etc. But nothing can beat Perl for doing it. Moreover Perl regular expressions can be used in Java, PHP.

At least use Perl like regular expression to get it done rather than writing in yacc is very difficult to maintain and which can easily be done in a few lines in Perl or PHP.

Answer 3

Another possibility could be to develop a GCC plugin or a MELT extension to customize the GCC compiler for your needs. (MELT is a domain specific language that I developed to easily extend GCC).

The advantage of customizing GCC for your purposes is that you'll work on the exact internal representations of GCC. However, GCC being complex, extending it requires some work (in particular, partly understanding the complex GCC internal representations and passes).

^{(It is possible for functions, variables and classes, perhaps not for macros today with GCC 4.7, since GCC preprocessor don't have yet any plugin hooks)}

And I am not sure you are right in believing that geany has a complete C parser. I believe it has some regexpr based thing, which eg ignores any preprocessor tricks. I don't think that geany is aware of eg functions or variables created by expanding complex macros (like some GTK implementation macros for instance).

Answer 4

There are several IDE's or programmers-editors with C parsers, written in Java. So getting at them shouldn't be too horrific (famous last words :-)

• Eclipse CDT which has several books on how to write and use plugins/extensions
• NetBeans

to mention just two. They both have active user communities who might be able to help too.

Their C editors, have a pretty good grasp of C syntax because they can fold functions. Eclipse's C editor keeps track of definitions, and I think NetBeans does too.

Personally, if I needed to parse C to get function bodies, and the code is syntactically correct, it wouldn't be too hard to use parser-development-tools. IIRC ANTLR might have a C grammar already.