Using CDT's Abstract Syntax Tree API to generate/write C code?

Question

I have been able to use CDT's AST API for parsing source code successfully. My question involves the reverse: How can I build an C AST programmatically, and then tell it to write itself to a file? I have seen the class ASTWriter (but that is internal) and can't find any tutorials or documentation on building the actual AST.

I have found a paper that goes over the idea of what I want to do: Generating Rewritable Abstract Syntax Trees which makes it seem like generating code would be easy if I could construct the tree and say 'write yourself'. Is this possible in CDT and how might I get started (preferably without deprecated/internal methods?)

Are you more interested in a CDT based solution, or any solution that will let you build/transform arbitrary ASTs for C, and then prettyprint the result? — Ira Baxter
Due to focus change on the project of which spawned this question, this is no longer a majour need. If we do revisit it though, I would prefer a CDT based solution (like the refactoring solution mentioned by Eugene) since the project is an Eclipse based plugin. — Erika Redmark

Aykut Kllic Aykut Kllic · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-21T13:52:52

What you need is using an ASTWriter:

ASTWriter writer = new ASTWriter()
String code = writer.write(myAST);

Then you can dump the string to a file which is in the context of eclipse resources plugin.

Using CDT's Abstract Syntax Tree API to generate/write C code?

2 Answers