Using Eclipse CDT from command line

Question

I need to have some of my C++ classes, functions and namespaces renamed as a part of my build script, which is runned by my CI system.

Unfortunatly a simple sad/awk/gsar/... technique is not enough, and I need smart rename refactoring, that carefully analyses my code.

Actually I found out, that CDT C/C++ rename refactoring does, what I need. But it does it from Eclipse IDE. So I need to find a way to start it from command line, and to make it a part of my CI build script.

I know that Eclipse has eclipsec executable, that allowes running some Eclipse functions from command line (see e.g. here).

But I can't find any suitable documentation for functions, CDT exports to command line. The only thing, I found is the this. But it doesn't solve my problem.

So, I need help to run CDT rename refactoring from command line (or someway like that). If it is not possible, may be someone will advice another tool, that can do rename refactoring for C++ from command line ?

Answer 1

Pragmatic Approach

"I need to have renamed as a part of my build script"

This sounds a bit like a design problem. However, I remember having been guilty of the same sin once writing a C++ application on AIX/Win32: most notably, I wanted to be able to link 'conflicting' versions of shared objects. I solved it using a simple preprocessor hack like this:

# makefile

#if($(ALTERNATIVE))
    CPPFLAGS+=-DLIBNAMESPACE=MYLIB_ALTERNATIVE
#else
    CPPFLAGS+=-DLIBNAMESPACE=MYLIB
#endif

./obj64/%.o: %cpp
     xlC++ $(CPPFLAGS) $^ -o %@

Sample source/header file:

namespace MYLIB
{
     class LibService :
     {
     };
}

As you can see, this required only a single

find -iname '*.[hc]pp' -o -iname '*.[hc]' -print0 |
     xargs -0 sed -i 's/OldNamespace/MYLIB/g'

Eclipse Automation

You could have a look at eclim, which does most, if not all, of what you describe, however it targets the vim editor.

What eclim boasts, is full eclipse intergration (completion, refactoring, usage search etc.) from an external program. I'm not fully up to speed with the backend of eclim, but I do know that it works with a eclimd server process that exposes the service interface used by the vim plugin.

I suspect you should be able to reuse the code from eclimd if not just use eclim for your purposes.