unfuckify

Fixes readability of C++ sourcecode by resolving auto and replacing it with the real type.

Why

auto is the worst thing to have happened to C++.

Source code is written once and read many times, so spend the two seconds it takes to write out the type of the variable. Then people that just want to read the code don't have to go look up the return type of everything you call.

Usage

To use just run pass -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON to cmake when building the project you want to fix, and then run unfuckify path/to/buildfolder/compile_commands.json and either the name of a file or --all to fix all files in the project.

By default it will write the fixed source to foo.cpp-fixed, pass --replace to replace the existing file.

This uses libclang to parse and resolve the types, so if your project builds with clang this should work as well.

Example

In a random CMake based project:

• mkdir build && cd build
• CC="clang" CXX="clang++" cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON -GNinja ..
• ninja (to make sure generated files are available)
• unfuckify --replace compile_commands.json ../src/main.cpp

Why the offensive name

Like all great projects this was written in a moment of frustration and anger.

Official upstream suggestions for alternative names, if you want to package this for a distro that doesn't allow swearing:

• Antonyms of autonomy (courtesy of wordhippo.com):
  • Heteronomy
  • Bondage
  • Subservience
  • Subjugation
  • Other BDSM terms, apparently
• Auto Annihilator
• Auto-b-Gone
• auto-was-a-mistake-please-help
• N1984, The Name Should Have Given It Away
• no-n1984

Known issues

auto is very magic and hides a lot of complexity, so trying to resolve the actual types is hard.

If libclang is unable to give a proper type for something (like lambdas), we can't replace it.

There are some issues with libclang's handling of tokens vs. cursors, e. g. it will give us the fully qualified type (including const, *, &, etc.), but the extent we get only covers auto itself.

We should handle the cases here properly now, but no guarantees that I have catched all cases. So make sure you review the code it changes.

Cases it fails on:

• Some extremely magic function pointer stuff. I don't really know myself what the people who wrote it are trying to do, so I don't blame clang.

TODO

• Handle structured binding (the auto there hides std::pairs, or sometimes QPairs).
• Chop off the 'const' in std::functions.