XDress 0.4 Release Notes¶
XDress is a numpy-aware automatic wrapper generator for C/C++ written in pure Python. Currently, xdress may generate Python bindings (via Cython) for C++ classes, functions, and certain variable types. It also contains idiomatic 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:
- Clang support! All kudos to Geoffrey Irving!
- NumPy dtypes may be created independently of C++ STL vectors
- A complete test suite refactor
- Arbitrary source code locations
- Global run control files
- A plethora of useful bug fixes
This version of xdress is not 100% backwards compatible with previous versions of xdress. We apologize in the name of progress. It represents ans impressive 245 files changed, 44917 aggregate line insertions (+), and 7893 deletions (-).
Please visit the website for more information: http://xdress.xyz/
Ask questions on the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xdress
Download the code from GitHub: http://github.com/xdress/xdress
XDress is free & open source (BSD 2-clause license) and requires Python 2.7+, NumPy 1.5+, Cython 0.19+, and optionally Clang, GCC-XML, pycparser, dOxygen, or lxml.
New Features¶
Clang Support¶
Through the herculean efforts of Geoffrey Irving xdress finally has full, first-class Clang/LLVM support! This is major advancement as it allows xdress to wrap more modern versions of C++ than GCC-XML can handle. Because of deficiencies in the existing libclang and Python bindings it was necessary for us to fork libclang for xdress in the short term. We hope to integrate these changes upstream. Clang versions 3.2 - 3.4 are supported.
Independent NumPy Dtypes¶
In previous versions of xdress, to create a dtype of type T the user needed to declare the desire for a wrapper of an STL vector of type T. These two desires have now been separated. It is now possible to create a dtype via the dtypes run control parameter. STL vectors are still wrapped via dtypes. See the dtypes module for more information.
Shiny New Test Suite¶
The xdress test suite has been completely revamped to include both unit and integration tests which are run for all available parsers. The integration tests are accomplished though two fake projects - cproj and cppproj - on which the xdress CLI is run. These tests are now fully platform independent, unlike the previous BASH-based test suite.
Source Paths¶
Source file paths are now given by either their absolute or relative path. This allows source code to be located anywhere on the user’s file system and enable the wrapping of dependencies or externally supplied libraries as needed. The run control parameter sourcedir has been deprecated.
Global Run Control Files¶
It is sometimes useful to be able to set system-wide run control parameters. XDress will now search the following files in order of increasing precedence.
- $HOME/.xdressrc
- $HOME/.xdressrc.py
- $HOME/.config/xdressrc
- $HOME/.config/xdressrc.py
$HOME is the user’s home directory. Settings in the project run control file take precedence over the values here.
Major Bug Fixes¶
- Debug file now always written when in debug mode.
- STL sets of custom types now allowed.
- Template parameters now allowed to be enum values.
- Allow classes with no default constructor.
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 plugin tool, please let us know. Participation is very welcome!
Authors¶
- Anthony Scopatz
- Geoffrey Irving *
- James Casbon *
- Kevin Tew *
- Spencer Lyon
- John Wiggins
- Matt McCormick
- Brad Buran
- Chris Harris *
- Gerald Dalley *
- Micky Latowicki *
- Mike C. Fletcher *
- Robert Schwarz *
An * indicates a first time contributor.
Links¶
- Homepage - http://xdress.xyz/
- Mailing List - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xdress
- GitHub Organization - https://github.com/xdress
