glib-mkenums - C language enum description generation utility
glib-mkenums [OPTION...] [FILE...]
GLIB-MKENUMS(1) User Commands GLIB-MKENUMS(1)
NAME
glib-mkenums - C language enum description generation utility
SYNOPSIS
glib-mkenums [OPTION...] [FILE...]
DESCRIPTION
glib-mkenums is a small utility that parses C code to extract enum
definitions and produces enum descriptions based on text templates
specified by the user. Typically, you can use this tool to generate
enumeration types for the GType type system, for GObject properties and
signal marshalling; additionally, you can use it to generate
enumeration values of GSettings schemas.
glib-mkenums takes a list of valid C code files as input. The options
specified control the text that generated, substituting various
keywords enclosed in @ characters in the templates.
Production text substitutions
Certain keywords enclosed in @ characters will be substituted in the
emitted text. For the substitution examples of the keywords below, the
following example enum definition is assumed:
typedef enum
{
PREFIX_THE_XVALUE = 1 << 3,
PREFIX_ANOTHER_VALUE = 1 << 4
} PrefixTheXEnum;
@EnumName@>
The name of the enum currently being processed, enum names are
assumed to be properly namespaced and to use mixed capitalization
to separate words (e.g. PrefixTheXEnum).
@enum_name@
The enum name with words lowercase and word-separated by
underscores (e.g. prefix_the_xenum).
@ENUMNAME@
The enum name with words uppercase and word-separated by
underscores (e.g. PREFIX_THE_XENUM).
@ENUMSHORT@
The enum name with words uppercase and word-separated by
underscores, prefix stripped (e.g. THE_XENUM).
@ENUMPREFIX@
The prefix of the enum name (e.g. PREFIX).
@VALUENAME@
The enum value name currently being processed with words uppercase
and word-separated by underscores, this is the assumed literal
notation of enum values in the C sources (e.g. PREFIX_THE_XVALUE).
@valuenick@
A nick name for the enum value currently being processed, this is
usually generated by stripping common prefix words of all the enum
values of the current enum, the words are lowercase and underscores
are substituted by a minus (e.g. the-xvalue).
@valuenum@
The integer value for the enum value currently being processed. If
the evaluation fails then glib-mkenums will exit with an error
status, but this only happens if @valuenum@ appears in your value
production template. (Since: 2.26)
@type@
This is substituted either by "enum" or "flags", depending on
whether the enum value definitions contained bit-shift operators or
not (e.g. flags).
@Type@
The same as @type@ with the first letter capitalized (e.g. Flags).
@TYPE@
The same as @type@ with all letters uppercased (e.g. FLAGS).
@filename@
The full path of the input file currently being processed (e.g.
/build/environment/project/src/foo.h).
@basename@
The base name of the input file currently being processed (e.g.
foo.h). Typically you want to use @basename@ in place of @filename@
in your templates, to improve the reproducibility of the build.
(Since: 2.22)
Trigraph extensions
Some C comments are treated specially in the parsed enum definitions,
such comments start out with the trigraph sequence /*< and end with the
trigraph sequence >*/.
The following options can be specified per enum definition:
skip
Indicates this enum definition should be skipped.
flags
Indicates this enum should be treated as a flags definition.
underscore_name
Specifies the word separation used in the *_get_type() function.
For instance, /*< underscore_name=gnome_vfs_uri_hide_options >*/.
since
Specifies the version tag that will be used to substitute the
@enumsince@ keyword in the template, useful when documenting
methods generated from the enums (e.g. Since: @enumsince@).
(Since: 2.66)
The following options can be specified per value definition:
skip
Indicates the value should be skipped.
nick
Specifies the otherwise auto-generated nickname.
Examples:
typedef enum /*< skip >*/
{
PREFIX_FOO
} PrefixThisEnumWillBeSkipped;
typedef enum /*< flags,prefix=PREFIX,since=1.0 >*/
{
PREFIX_THE_ZEROTH_VALUE, /*< skip >*/
PREFIX_THE_FIRST_VALUE,
PREFIX_THE_SECOND_VALUE,
PREFIX_THE_THIRD_VALUE, /*< nick=the-last-value >*/
} PrefixTheFlagsEnum;
OPTIONS
--fhead TEXT
Emits TEXT prior to processing input files.
You can specify this option multiple times, and the TEXT will be
concatenated.
When used along with a template file, TEXT will be prepended to the
template's file-header section.
--fprod TEXT
Emits TEXT every time a new input file is being processed.
You can specify this option multiple times, and the TEXT will be
concatenated.
When used along with a template file, TEXT will be appended to the
template's file-production section.
--ftail TEXT
Emits TEXT after all input files have been processed.
You can specify this option multiple times, and the TEXT will be
concatenated.
When used along with a template file, TEXT will be appended to the
template's file-tail section.
--eprod TEXT
Emits TEXT every time an enum is encountered in the input files.
--vhead TEXT
Emits TEXT before iterating over the set of values of an enum.
You can specify this option multiple times, and the TEXT will be
concatenated.
When used along with a template file, TEXT will be prepended to the
template's value-header section.
--vprod TEXT
Emits TEXT for every value of an enum.
You can specify this option multiple times, and the TEXT will be
concatenated.
When used along with a template file, TEXT will be appended to the
template's value-production section.
--vtail TEXT
Emits TEXT after iterating over all values of an enum.
You can specify this option multiple times, and the TEXT will be
concatenated.
When used along with a template file, TEXT will be appended to the
template's value-tail section.
--comments TEXT
Template for auto-generated comments, the default (for C code
generations) is "/* @comment@ */".
--template FILE
Read templates from the given file. The templates are enclosed in
specially-formatted C comments:
/*** BEGIN section ***/
/*** END section ***/
section may be file-header, file-production, file-tail,
enumeration-production, value-header, value-production, value-tail
or comment.
--identifier-prefix PREFIX
Indicates what portion of the enum name should be interpreted as
the prefix (eg, the "Gtk" in "GtkDirectionType"). Normally this
will be figured out automatically, but you may need to override the
default if your namespace is capitalized oddly.
--symbol-prefix PREFIX
Indicates what prefix should be used to correspond to the
identifier prefix in related C function names (eg, the "gtk" in
"gtk_direction_type_get_type". Equivalently, this is the lowercase
version of the prefix component of the enum value names (eg, the
"GTK" in "GTK_DIR_UP". The default value is the identifier prefix,
converted to lowercase.
--help
Print brief help and exit.
--version
Print version and exit.
--output=FILE
Write output to FILE instead of stdout.
@RSPFILE
When passed as the sole argument, read and parse the actual
arguments from RSPFILE. Useful on systems with a low command-line
length limit. For example, Windows has a limit of 8191 characters.
USING TEMPLATES
Instead of passing the various sections of the generated file to the
command line of glib-mkenums, it's strongly recommended to use a
template file, especially for generating C sources.
A C header template file will typically look like this:
/*** BEGIN file-header ***/
#pragma once
/* Include the main project header */
#include "project.h"
G_BEGIN_DECLS
/*** END file-header ***/
/*** BEGIN file-production ***/
/* enumerations from "@basename@" */
/*** END file-production ***/
/*** BEGIN value-header ***/
GType @enum_name@_get_type (void) G_GNUC_CONST;
#define @ENUMPREFIX@_TYPE_@ENUMSHORT@ (@enum_name@_get_type ())
/*** END value-header ***/
/*** BEGIN file-tail ***/
G_END_DECLS
/*** END file-tail ***/
A C source template file will typically look like this:
/*** BEGIN file-header ***/
#include "config.h"
#include "enum-types.h"
/*** END file-header ***/
/*** BEGIN file-production ***/
/* enumerations from "@basename@" */
/*** END file-production ***/
/*** BEGIN value-header ***/
GType
@enum_name@_get_type (void)
{
static gsize static_g_@type@_type_id;
if (g_once_init_enter (&static_g_@type@_type_id))
{
static const G@Type@Value values[] = {
/*** END value-header ***/
/*** BEGIN value-production ***/
{ @VALUENAME@, "@VALUENAME@", "@valuenick@" },
/*** END value-production ***/
/*** BEGIN value-tail ***/
{ 0, NULL, NULL }
};
GType g_@type@_type_id =
g_@type@_register_static (g_intern_static_string ("@EnumName@"), values);
g_once_init_leave (&static_g_@type@_type_id, g_@type@_type_id);
}
return static_g_@type@_type_id;
}
/*** END value-tail ***/
Template files are easier to modify and update, and can be used to
generate various types of outputs using the same command line or tools
during the build.
USING GLIB-MKENUMS WITH MESON
Meson supports generating enumeration types using glib-mkenums out of
the box in its "gnome" module.
In your meson.build file you will typically call the
gnome.mkenums_simple() method to generate idiomatic enumeration types
from a list of headers to inspect:
project_headers = [
'project-foo.h',
'project-bar.h',
'project-baz.h',
]
gnome = import('gnome')
enum_files = gnome.mkenums_simple('enum-types',
sources: project_headers,
)
The enum_files variable will contain an array of two elements in the
following order:
o a build target for the source file
o a build target for the header file
You should use the returned objects to provide a dependency on every
other build target that references the source or header file; for
instance, if you are using the source to build a library:
mainlib = library('project',
sources: project_sources + enum_files,
...
)
Additionally, if you are including the generated header file inside a
build target that depends on the library you just built, you must
ensure that the internal dependency includes the generated header as a
required source file:
mainlib_dep = declare_dependency(sources: enum_files[1], link_with: mainlib)
You should not include the generated source file as well, otherwise it
will be built separately for every target that depends on it, causing
build failures. To know more about why all this is required, please
refer to the corresponding Meson FAQ entry[1].
If you are generating C header and source files that require special
templates, you can use gnome.mkenums() to provide those headers, for
instance:
enum_files = gnome.mkenums('enum-types',
sources: project_headers,
h_template: 'enum-types.h.in',
c_template: 'enum-types.c.in',
install_header: true,
)
For more information, see the Meson documentation for
gnome.mkenums()[2].
USING GLIB-MKENUMS WITH AUTOTOOLS
In order to use glib-mkenums in your project when using Autotools as
the build system, you will first need to modify your configure.ac file
to ensure you find the appropriate command using pkg-config, similarly
as to how you discover the compiler and linker flags for GLib.
PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG([0.28])
PKG_CHECK_VAR([GLIB_MKENUMS], [glib-2.0], [glib_mkenums])
In your Makefile.am file you will typically use rules like these:
# A list of headers to inspect
project_headers = \
project-foo.h \
project-bar.h \
project-baz.h
enum-types.h: $(project_headers) enum-types.h.in
$(AM_V_GEN)$(GLIB_MKENUMS) \
--template=enum-types.h.in \
--output=$@ \
$(project_headers)
enum-types.c: $(project_headers) enum-types.c.in enum-types.h
$(AM_V_GEN)$(GLIB_MKENUMS) \
--template=enum-types.c.in \
--output=$@ \
$(project_headers)
# Build the enum types files before every other target
BUILT_SOURCES += enum-types.h enum-types.c
CLEANFILES += enum-types.h enum-types.c
EXTRA_DIST += enum-types.h.in enum-types.c.in
In the example above, we have a variable called project_headers where
we reference all header files we want to inspect for generating
enumeration GTypes. In the enum-types.h rule we use glib-mkenums with a
template called enum-types.h.in in order to generate the header file;
similarly, in the enum-types.c rule we use a template called
enum-types.c.in.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | library/glib2 |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
SEE ALSO
glib-genmarshal(1)
NOTES
1. corresponding Meson FAQ entry
https://mesonbuild.com/FAQ.html#how-do-i-tell-meson-that-my-sources-use-generated-headers
2. Meson documentation for gnome.mkenums()
https://mesonbuild.com/Gnome-module.html#gnomegenmarshal
Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
code-downloads.html.
This software was built from source available at
https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community
source was downloaded from
https://download.gnome.org/sources/glib/2.70/glib-2.70.5.tar.xz.
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GLib/.
GObject GLIB-MKENUMS(1)