From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mark Mitchell To: martin@loewis.home.cs.tu-berlin.de Cc: ttn@gnu.org, gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: C/C++ front-end extension a la SWIG? Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 01:14:00 -0000 Message-id: <20000629011412G.mitchell@codesourcery.com> References: <200006290021.RAA31270@revel.glug.org> <200006290740.JAA00956@loewis.home.cs.tu-berlin.de> X-SW-Source: 2000-06/msg00746.html >>>>> "Martin" == Martin v Loewis writes: >> does this make sense? Martin> In my opinion, separating the C++ front-end from gcc is Martin> pointless. What you get is more or less the parser, and Martin> the g++ parser is not something you want to use unless you Martin> really have to. There are a number of other good C++ Martin> parsers - I'd consider those first if I needed one for a Martin> project. I rather strongly disagree -- at least if we're talking about the future. The G++ parser will always be very useful for one thing: parsing the code the same way that G++ does. For example, one can imagine hooking it into GDB so that you could type C++ expressions at GDB for interpretation; GDB would use the G++ front-end to parse the expression, and then interpret the tree structure. A source-browser designed to work with G++ could use the G++ parser, and be sure to handle G++ extensions and bugs just like G++. As the parser itself (in the sense of the bison bits) are replaced (and they will be, they will be) then this will become even more useful. There is no reason the G++ front-end cannot be as useful in the free software community as the EDG front-end has been in other communities, for example. -- Mark Mitchell mark@codesourcery.com CodeSourcery, LLC http://www.codesourcery.com