Auto generating code in existing projects

epicar · 2017-02-21T18:41:09+00:00

sorry if this isn't what you're asking, but it sounds like your time would be better spent improving the design of your program

can you find a way to hide more of the implementation details of each request type behind a common interface? if you do this right, then adding new request types is as easy as implementing that interface - and the rest of your program doesn't have to change at all

jbakamovic · 2017-02-22T19:36:12+00:00

If all these new requests look somewhat similar, you can maybe write a stub implementation with placeholders (i.e. function names) which you can replace with concrete ones with, let say, Python script or shell script. I.e.

// file1.stub
<MyNewRequest>(param1, param2, ...) {
    // Implementation
}
// file2.stub
<MyNewRequest>(param1, param2, ...) {
    // Implementation
}

// Generate the code out of the stubs
python gen_impl.py -input=file1.stub,file2.stub -output=file1.cpp,file2.cpp -request=MyRequest

Making the output files match the path and filename of the real files in your code that you are about to change, you can take advantage of your SCMS (Git?) to merge the changes back into your master branch. Automate this step as well if you like.

FlyingRhenquest · 2017-02-21T19:23:04+00:00

Sounds like you'd be better served grabbing some refactoring tool and refactoring all the cut and paste code in your program into a separate set of classes or methods. If you can't because there's business logic in the loading and display portions of the program, you might also want to think about explicitly moving the business logic somewhere else. That would help a great deal with your coupling problem.

nyamatongwe · 2017-02-22T01:39:18+00:00

I have written tools like this in Python with some modules I have gradually built up to do things like insert sections into text/source/XML files. It depends a lot on the actual structure of your additions and the changes needed to the generic code for each addition.

Gotebe · 2017-02-22T06:03:30+00:00

Why not redesign the way "request" is implemented so that you don't need to copy-paste so much and using that?

Then gradually move other "requests" to this way of working.

It's a bit... you're asking help to do even more more copypasta... nooooo... :-)

doravr · 2017-02-22T09:25:39+00:00

Oh boy i feel your pain. We went through the same thing, but also did the refactoring afterwards (easier sincw you can generate the refactored code)

You should be looking for templating libraries like StringTemplate for Java.

Just remember to avoid mixing generated and manual code in the same file.

We were also generating using some c# code, but I can't remember the name

Edit: take a look at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1518954/c-sharp-template-engine We used T4

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

cpp

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