syntax.md

Module Syntax:

The preprocessor recognizes the following syntaxes:

Imports

Import a modular c file without using a header

Syntax:

import a from "./awesome.module.c";

Description

All the exported functions/types from awesome.module.c are now available under the local namespace a. So if the function void do(void); is exported from awesome.module.c, after the above import, it can be used as a.do();

Generated Syntax

import a from "./awesome.module.c"; -> #include "./awesome.h"

a.do(); -> awesome_do();

Module Exports

Export the symbols of a different module

Syntax:

export * from "dependency.module.c";

Description

All of the symbols exported by dependency.module.c will become available to modules that import the current module. For Example:

// index.module.c

export * from "a.module.c";
export * from "b.module.c";
export * from "c.module.c";

This allows you to import just the index.module.c and get all the types and functions.

Generated Syntax

The generated syntax ends up in the header. export * from "a.module.c"; -> #include "a.h"

Symbol Exports

Export a symbol from your module

Syntax:

// without an alias
export void do(void){
  ...
}

// with alias
export void do_awesome_thing(void){
  ...
} as do_thing

do_awesome_thing();

Description

Putting export before a symbol declaration prefixes it with the module's namespace prefix. This prefix is based on the filename, or can be overwritten using the package command.

Generated Syntax

// without aliases.
export void do(void){
  ...
}

// with alias
export void do_awesome_thing(void){
  ...
} as do_thing

do_awesome_thing();

which would become

// without aliases
void awesome_do(void){
  ...
}

// with alias
void awesome_do_thing(void){
  ...
}

awesome_do_thing();

Build Options

Change the generated makefile.

Syntax:

/* Set variables in the Makefile */
build set VAR "VALUE"
build add CFLAGS "-g"
build set default LIBRARY_INCLUDE_DIR "/path/to/default"

/* Depend on external c files */
build depends "/path/to/some/file.c"

Description

build (set | set default | add) NAME "VALUE" will use :=, ?=, += respectively to set the variables in the generated makefile whenever the module is included in the build.

build depends "file.c" adds file.c to the dependency tree whenever the module is imported. It will be added to the generated makefile, so you can still just build your whole project with cbuild -m root.modul.c

Generated Syntax

the example above would result in the following lines being added to the generated makefile.

VAR := "VALUE"
CFLAGS += "-g"
LIBRARY_INCLUDE_DIR ?= "/path/to/default"

build depends will add the file.o to the dependencies of the current module, so it will be included in the build of the final executable.