Ruby/Python - generating and parsing C/C++ code

Question

I need to generate C structs and arrays from data stored in a db table, and alternately parse similar info. I use both ruby and python for this task, and was wondering if anyone heard of a module/lib that handles this for either/both languages? I could do this on my own with some string processing, but wanted to check if there's a known and tested parser out there that people know of. thanks.

Answer 1

Check out open-source software tool SWIG (Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator). First sentence of the intro on the webpage:

SWIG is a software development tool that connects programs written in C and C++ with a variety of high-level programming languages. SWIG is used with different types of languages including common scripting languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl and Ruby.

Very mature (initial release - February 1996 according to Wikipedia) and there are lots of tutorials, documentation, and help.

Answer 2

There is a basic C struct parser here on the pyparsing wiki. Pyparsing is a Python module for creating parsers by assembling separate parsing building blocks together. (No help on the Ruby part of the question, though.)