C-C++ Beautifier HOW-TO Al Dev (Alavoor Vasudevan) alavoor@yahoo.com v12.0, 08 Mar 2001 This document will help you to format (beautify) the C/C++ programs so that it is more readable and confirms to your site C/C++ coding stan­ dards. The information in this document applies to all the operating sytems that is - Linux, MS DOS, Windows 95/NT, BeOS, OS/2, IBM OSes, all flavors of Unix like Solaris, HPUX, AIX, SCO, Sinix, BSD, UnixWare, SCO, etc.. and to all other operating systems which support "C" compiler (it means almost all the operating systems on this planet!). ______________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. How can I trust Beautifier programs??!! 3. Beautifiers for other Languages 4. Verification Script 5. Related URLs 6. Other Formats of this Document 7. Copyright ______________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction Coding standards for C/C++ or any language is required in order to make the programs more readable/understandable by programmers. There are C/C++ beautifiers (formating tools) to accomplish this goal. Formatted (beautified) code improves the productivity of programmers by 2 times!! On Linux/Unixes there is a command called "indent" and "cb" . Refer to 'man indent' and 'man cb'. Note that indent and cb work for only "C" programs. For "C++" programs use "bcpp". Important NOTE: To compile bcpp under unix, unpack bcpp.tar.gz and you MUST change directory to "code" and give a make. Do not change to "unix" directory and give a make. That will give lots of errors. Download the beautifier program from one of the following · If you are having trouble downloading software from any of the sites below, then download from my site at · C++ : BCPP site is at or at . BCPP ftp site is at · C++ : · C : and mirror at Oasys · C++ : · C++, C, Java and Oracle Pro-C Beautifier · C++, C beautifier and site at · C++, C, Java, Perl beautifier CBP · GC! GreatCode! is a powerful C/C++ source code beautifier Windows 95/98/NT/2000 I used BCPP to format the C++ programs and it worked fine for me. You may want to check other tools and use the one which you may like the most. BCPP was written by Steven De Toni at steve@alpha.ocbbs.gen.nz 2. How can I trust Beautifier programs??!! For 100% assurance you need a SCIENTIFIC way to validate and trust a beautifier program. The method described in this section will enable the beautifier program to be accepted as "trust-worthy" and reliable. In order to verify that beautifier programs like bcpp, indent or cb is not damaging or changing the input source-code after formatting, you can use the shell script ``verification program'' or use the following technique - Generate the object code from the original input source code using the compiler - ______________________________________________________________________ g++ -c myprogram.cpp ______________________________________________________________________ Here g++ is GNU C++ compiler. This will create object output mypro­ gram.o Save this file - ______________________________________________________________________ mv myprogram.o myprogram_orig.o ______________________________________________________________________ Now run bcpp - ______________________________________________________________________ bcpp myprogram.cpp ______________________________________________________________________ This will create the formatted output program file myprogram.cpp and move the original file to myprogram.cpp.orig. Compile the new file with - ______________________________________________________________________ g++ -c myprogram.cpp ______________________________________________________________________ Now use the unix 'diff' command to compare the two object files - ______________________________________________________________________ diff myprogram.o myprogram_orig.o ______________________________________________________________________ Both these files MUST BE IDENTICAL. This verifies that bcpp is working perfectly. On DOS or Windows 95 you may want to use the free Cygnus Cygwin Also you can use the assembler output instead of object output in compiler. Like - ______________________________________________________________________ g++ -S myprogram.cpp ______________________________________________________________________ This creates myprogram.s. Verify with - ______________________________________________________________________ diff myprogram.s myprogram_orig.s ______________________________________________________________________ This step gives 100% guarantee that your valuable source code is intact and bcpp is JUST doing ONLY formatting and is NOT changing or damaging your code in any way. This method gives you 100% quality assurance and life term or long term WARRANTY on beautifier programs like 'bcpp', It is strongly recommended that you do these two steps every time you run beautifier programs like bcpp, indent or cb. 3. Beautifiers for other Languages Visit the following sites to get beautifiers for other languages like HTML, SQL, Java, Perl, Fortran. · HTML : · HTML : · HTML : · SQL : · Java, SQL, HTML, C++ : · Java : · Java JPretty : · Java JIndent · Java Pat · Java JStyle · Java JPrettyPrinter · Java JxBeauty and the JxBeauty Home · Java list · Perl : · Perl : · Fortran beautifier : · C++ : BCPP site is at or at . BCPP ftp site is at · C++ : · C : and mirror at Oasys · C++, C, Java, Oracle Pro-C Beautifier · C++, C beautifier and site at · GC! GreatCode! is a powerful C/C++ source code beautifier Windows 95/98/NT/2000 · White paper on beautifier : To create presentation of codes to display using HTML - · Presentation (C,C++,Java) to html : Also search the search engines like or and search for keyword "beautfier". 4. Verification Script This is a Korn shell script to verify beautifier program. Requires "pdksh*.rpm" from Linux 'contrib' cdrom. Save this file as 'text' file and chmod a+rx on it. You can re-write this shell script in PERL so that you can use it on Window 95/NT or MSDOS. Uncomment the PRGM variable to point to bcpp, cb or indent ______________________________________________________________________ #!/bin/ksh # Verification program to check C++ Beautifiers 'bcpp', 'indent' or cb ############################################################ # Copyright # The copyright policy is GNU/GPL. # Author: Al Dev (Alavoor Vasudevan) alavoor@yahoo.com ############################################################ check_beautify_now() { # Remove all the temp files.... \rm -f ${TMP_FILE} \rm -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}*.* FNAME=$1 if [ ! -f ${FNAME} ]; then print "\nError: The file ${FNAME} does not exist!!. Aborting now ...." exit fi \cp -f ${FNAME} ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp ${COMPILER} -c ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp if [ ! -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}.o ]; then print "Fatal Error: Failed to compile ${FNAME}. Aborting now... " exit fi \mv -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}.o ${TMP_CPPFILE}_orig.o aa=`basename $PRGM` print "\nRunning, verifying $aa on ${FNAME}" ${PRGM} ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp ${COMPILER} -c ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp \rm -f $TMP_FILE diff ${TMP_CPPFILE}.o ${TMP_CPPFILE}_orig.o 1> $TMP_FILE 2>> $TMP_FILE result="" result=`wc -c $TMP_FILE | awk '{print $1}' ` if [ "$result" = "0" ]; then print "Success!! Beautifier $aa is working properly!!\n" else print "Fatal Error: Something wrong!! Beautifier is not working!!" exit fi # ${COMPILER} -S ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp # diff ${TMP_CPPFILE}.s ${TMP_CPPFILE}_orig.s # Remove all the temp files.... \rm -f ${TMP_FILE} \rm -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}*.* } ########## Main of program begins here ##################3 #PRGM=/usr/bin/bcpp #PRGM=/usr/bin/cb PRGM=/usr/bin/indent COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++ TMP_FILE=beautify.tmp TMP_CPPFILE=beautify-tmp_cppfile print -n "Enter the C++ file name : " read ans if [ "$ans" = "" -o "$ans" = " " ]; then ans="ALL" else FILENAME=$ans fi # Remove all the temp files.... \rm -f ${TMP_FILE} \rm -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}*.* if [ "$ans" != "ALL" ]; then check_beautify_now ${FILENAME} else ls *.cpp | while read FILENAME do check_beautify_now ${FILENAME} done fi ______________________________________________________________________ 5. Related URLs Visit following locators which are related to C, C++ - · Vim color text editor for C++, C · C++ Programming HOWTO · CVS HOWTO for C++ programs · Linux goodies and mirrors at webjump , angelfire , geocities , virtualave , bizland , theglobe , spree , infoseek , bcity , 50megs 6. Other Formats of this Document This document is published in 12 different formats namely - DVI, Postscript, Latex, Adobe Acrobat PDF, LyX, GNU-info, HTML, RTF(Rich Text Format), Plain-text, Unix man pages, single HTML file and SGML. · You can get this HOWTO document as a single file tar ball in HTML, DVI, Postscript or SGML formats from - and · Plain text format is in: and · Single HTML file format is in: · Translations to other languages like French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese are in and Any help from you to translate to other languages is welcome. The document is written using a tool called "SGML-Tools" which can be got from - Compiling the source you will get the following commands like · sgml2html C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.sgml (to generate html file) · sgml2rtf C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.sgml (to generate RTF file) · sgml2latex C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.sgml (to generate latex file) LaTeX documents may be converted into PDF files simply by producing a Postscript output using sgml2latex ( and dvips) and running the output through the Acrobat distill ( ) command as follows: ______________________________________________________________________ bash$ man sgml2latex bash$ sgml2latex filename.sgml bash$ man dvips bash$ dvips -o filename.ps filename.dvi bash$ distill filename.ps bash$ man ghostscript bash$ man ps2pdf bash$ ps2pdf input.ps output.pdf bash$ acroread output.pdf & ______________________________________________________________________ Or you can use Ghostscript command ps2pdf. ps2pdf is a work-alike for nearly all the functionality of Adobe's Acrobat Distiller product: it converts PostScript files to Portable Document Format (PDF) files. ps2pdf is implemented as a very small command script (batch file) that invokes Ghostscript, selecting a special "output device" called pdfwrite. In order to use ps2pdf, the pdfwrite device must be included in the makefile when Ghostscript was compiled; see the documentation on building Ghostscript for details. This howto document is located at - · Also you can find this document at the following mirrors sites - · · · · · Other mirror sites near you (network-address-wise) can be found at select a site and go to directory /LDP/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.html In order to view the document in dvi format, use the xdvi program. The xdvi program is located in tetex-xdvi*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Publishing | TeX menu buttons. To read dvi document give the command - xdvi -geometry 80x90 howto.dvi man xdvi And resize the window with mouse. To navigate use Arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down keys, also you can use 'f', 'd', 'u', 'c', 'l', 'r', 'p', 'n' letter keys to move up, down, center, next page, previous page etc. To turn off expert menu press 'x'. You can read postscript file using the program 'gv' (ghostview) or The ghostscript program is in ghostscript*.rpm package and gv program is in gv*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Graphics menu buttons. The gv program is much more user friendly than ghostscript. Also ghostscript and gv are available on other platforms like OS/2, Windows 95 and NT, you view this document even on those platforms. · Get ghostscript for Windows 95, OS/2, and for all OSes from To read postscript document give the command - gv howto.ps ghostscript howto.ps You can read HTML format document using Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet explorer, Redhat Baron Web browser or any of the 10 other web browsers. You can read the latex, LyX output using LyX a X-Windows front end to latex. 7. Copyright Copyright policy is GNU/GPL as per LDP (Linux Documentation project). LDP is a GNU/GPL project. Additional restrictions are - you must retain the author's name, email address and this copyright notice on all the copies. If you make any changes or additions to this document then you should intimate all the authors of this document.