# Rb++ / rbgccxml 0.8

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rb-rbgccxml-0-8/143772>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 22, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rb-rbgccxml-0-8/143772 "2008-07-22T17:10:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jruyle](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@jruyle](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jruyle)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rb-rbgccxml-0-8/143772/1 "2008-07-22T17:10:54Z")

</div>

= What is rb++ / rbgccxml?

For anyone who wants an alternative to SWIG for generating Ruby  
extensions from C++ header files, look no further. Generating Ruby  
extensions has never been easier!

The last few months have seen a slew of work on rb++ and rbgccxml,  
enough so that I feel the project is getting pretty close to a 1.0  
release.

There are so many changes to the two libraries that it would be very  
time-consuming to list them all out, but the highlights are:

rb++:  
Complete new system for managing how code is wrapped, from including /  
excluding and renaming nodes to be added to the extension.

rbgccxml:  
Much more robust and capable query system to help find whatever part  
of the C++ code you’re looking for.

== Project

Documentation: [http://rbplusplus.rubyforge.org](http://rbplusplus.rubyforge.org)

Project Page: [http://rubyforge.org/projects/rbplusplus](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rbplusplus)

== Installation

This single command will grab the whole stack needed for rb++ to work.

gem install rbplusplus

The stack includes three libraries: rb++, rbgccxml, and gccxml\_gem and  
will install rice

== rb++

Rb++ makes it almost trivially easy to create Ruby extensions for any  
C or C++ library / code. In the simplest of cases, there is no need to  
ever touch C, everything is done in a very simple and clean Ruby API.

== rbgccxml

RbGCCXML allows one to easily parse out and query C++ code. This  
library uses GCC-XML to parse out the C++ code into XML, and then  
Hpricot to parse and query that XML.

== gccxml\_gem

GCC-XML ([www.gccxml.org](http://www.gccxml.org)) is an application that takes takes the parse  
tree of G++ and constructs a very parsable and queryable XML file with  
all related information.

The third part of the stack is this gem that includes a binary build  
of GCC-XML for your platform, to make it trivially easy to install.  
Platforms currently supported are:

- Linux 32 & 64 bit
- Mac OS X
- Windows 32-bit via Cygwin

== Requirements

- rice ([http://rice.rubyforge.org](http://rice.rubyforge.org)) - The C++ interface for Ruby
- hpricot ([http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/hpricot/](http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/hpricot/)) - Does the XML  
parsing
- test/spec - For running the tests

== Code

All code is hosted at github

rb++: [GitHub - jameskilton/rbplusplus: Account name changed!](http://github.com/jameskilton/rbplusplus/tree/master)  
rbgccxml: [GitHub - jameskilton/rbgccxml: Account name changed!](http://github.com/jameskilton/rbgccxml/tree/master)  
gccxml\_gem: [GitHub - jameskilton/gccxml\_gem: Account name changed!](http://github.com/jameskilton/gccxml_gem/tree/master)

== Notes

Released under the MIT licence.

For those familiar with py++ / pygccxml, the similarities are in  
function only. Rb++ / rbgccxml were written from scratch to take  
advantage of the Ruby language to it’s fullest.

Bugs, patches, feature requests, et al should be posted to the  
project’s tracker.

Discussion can be here or the project’s rubyforge forums.