[Cython] [cython-users] ANN: XDress v0.1 -- Automatic Code Generator and C/C++ Wrapper

[Anthony Scopatz]

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Anthony Scopatz <scopatz at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn <
> d.s.seljebotn at astro.uio.no> wrote:
>
>>
>>  Also, Cython devs, where's the wiki page listing all the wrapper
>> generators in existence? I tried to find it but couldn't..
>>
>
Dag,

Did you mean this page -- http://wiki.cython.org/AutoPxd .  I would really
appreciate it if xdress could go on here.

Be Well
Anthony


>
>> Dag Sverre
>>
>>
>> On 04/02/2013 08:26 PM, Anthony Scopatz wrote:
>>
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> I am spamming the lists which may be interested in a C/C++ automatic
>>> API wrapper / code generator / type system / thing I wrote.  I'll keep
>>> future updates more discrete.  I'd love to help folks get started with
>>> this
>>> and more participation is always welcome!  Release notes are below.
>>>
>>> Please visit the docs: http://bit.ly/xdress-code
>>>
>>> Or just grab the repo: http://github.com/scopatz/**xdress<http://github.com/scopatz/xdress>
>>>
>>> Be Well
>>> Anthony
>>>
>>> ========================
>>> XDress 0.1 Release Notes
>>> ========================
>>> XDress is an automatic wrapper generator for C/C++ written in pure
>>> Python. Currently,
>>> xdress may generate Python bindings (via Cython) for C++ classes &
>>> functions
>>> and in-memory wrappers for C++ standard library containers (sets,
>>> vectors, maps).
>>> In the future, other tools and bindings will be supported.
>>>
>>> The main enabling feature of xdress is a dynamic type system that was
>>> designed with
>>> the purpose of API generation in mind.
>>>
>>> Release highlights:
>>>
>>>    - Dynamic system for specifying types
>>>    - Automatically describes C/C++ APIs from source code with no
>>> modifications.
>>>    - Python extension module generation (via Cython) from C++ API
>>> descriptions
>>>    - Python views into C++ STL containers.  Vectors are NumPy arrays
>>> while maps
>>>      and sets have custom collections.MutableMapping and
>>> collections.MutableSet
>>>      subclasses.
>>>    - Command line interface to the above tools.
>>>
>>> Please visit the website for more information: http://bit.ly/xdress-code
>>>
>>> Or grab the code from GitHub: http://github.com/scopatz/**xdress<http://github.com/scopatz/xdress>
>>>
>>> XDress is free & open source (BSD 2-clause license) and requires Python
>>> 2.7,
>>> NumPy 1.5+, PyTables 2.1+, Cython 0.18+, GCC-XML, and lxml.
>>>
>>> New Features
>>> ============
>>>
>>> Type System
>>> -----------
>>> This module provides a suite of tools for denoting, describing, and
>>> converting
>>> between various data types and the types coming from various systems.
>>>   This is
>>> achieved by providing canonical abstractions of various kinds of types:
>>>
>>> * Base types (int, str, float, non-templated classes)
>>> * Refined types (even or odd ints, strings containing the letter 'a')
>>> * Dependent types (templates such arrays, maps, sets, vectors)
>>>
>>> All types are known by their name (a string identifier) and may be
>>> aliased with
>>> other names.  However, the string id of a type is not sufficient to
>>> fully describe
>>> most types.  The system here implements a canonical form for all kinds
>>> of types.
>>> This canonical form is itself hashable, being comprised only of strings,
>>> ints,
>>> and tuples.
>>>
>>> Descriptions
>>> ------------
>>> A key component of API wrapper generation is having a a top-level,
>>> abstract
>>> representation of the software that is being wrapped.  In C++ there are
>>> three
>>> basic constructs which may be wrapped: variables, functions, and classes.
>>> Here we restrict ourselves to wrapping classes and functions, though
>>> variables
>>> may be added in the future.
>>>
>>> The abstract representation of a C++ class is known as a description
>>> (abbr. desc).
>>> This description is simply a Python dictionary with a specific structure.
>>> This structure makes heavy use of the type system to declare the types
>>> of all needed
>>> parameters.
>>>
>>> Mini-FAQ
>>> ========
>>> * Why not use an existing solution (eg, SWIG)?
>>>
>>>      Their type systems don't support run-time, user provided refinement
>>> types,
>>>      and thus are unsuited for verification & validation use cases that
>>> often
>>>      arise in computational science.
>>>
>>>      Furthermore, they tend to not handle C++ dependent types well (i.e.
>>> vector<T>
>>>      does not come back as a np.view(..., dtype=T)).
>>>
>>> * Why GCC-XML and not Clang's AST?
>>>
>>>      I tried using Clang's AST (and the remnants of a broken visitor
>>> class remain
>>>      in the code base).  However, the official Clang AST Python bindings
>>> lack
>>>      support for template argument types.  This is a really big deal.
>>> Other C++ ASTs
>>>      may be supported in the future -- including Clang's.
>>>
>>> * I run xdress and it creates these files, now what?!
>>>
>>>      It is your job to integrate the files created by xdress into your
>>> build system.
>>>
>>> Join in the Fun!
>>> ================
>>> If you are interested in using xdress on your project (and need help),
>>> contributing
>>> back to xdress, starting up a development team, or writing your own code
>>> generation
>>> front end tool on top of the type system and autodescriber, please let
>>> me know.
>>> Participation is very welcome!
>>>
>>> Authors
>>> =======
>>> XDress was written by `Anthony Scopatz <http://scopatz.com/>`_, who had
>>> many
>>> type system discussions with John Bachan over coffee at the Div school,
>>> and was
>>> polished up and released under the encouragement of Christopher
>>> Jordan-Squire at
>>> `PyCon 2013 <https://us.pycon.org/2013/>`_**.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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