Identification of Idiom Usage in C++ Generic Libraries

Abstract

A tool supporting the automatic identification of programming idioms specific to the construction of C++ generic libraries is presented. The goal is to assist developers in understanding the complex syntactic elements of these libraries. Large C++ generic libraries are notorious for being extremely difficult to comprehend due to their use of advanced language features and idiomatic nature. To facilitate automated identification, the idioms are equated to micropatterns, which can be evaluated by a fact extractor. These micropattern instances act as beacons for the idioms being identified. The method is applied to study a number of widely used open source C++ generic libraries.