Is there a working C++ refactoring tool?

I expect clang will significantly change the landscape of C++ refactoring tools out there over the next couple of years. It's an open-source, modular compiler that exposes an API for parsing and semantically analyzing C++ code. IDEs and other tools will be able to use this API rather than doing the difficult work of writing their own parser and semantic analyzer.

Google already made a large-scale refactoring tool using clang.

I recommend to try rtags if you use emacs and haven't tried it yet (there is also a package for vim available). It is a clang based client/server application that indexes C/C++ code, with these features included:

• go to definition/declaration
• find all references, go to next/previous
• rename symbol
• integration with clang’s “fixits”

I decided to give it a try after watching this talk which introduced rtags (and emacs) for me.

_{(I have to say that I went this far only after my QtCreator failed to rename some symbols properly, which is a show-stopper for my using this great IDE for now)}

Besides what is supported by rtags, I also need some additional neat features, including:

• create function definition/prototype
• extract function
• create getter/setter methods

For these, I recommend to use a semantic-refactor package for emacs (not sure if there are alternatives for vim)

Generally, clang based tools looks very promising. If you are interested in more information about clang tools for C++ refactoring, including for projects with large codebase, there are some great talks by Chandler Carruth.

The problem are C++ templates. As of 2019 I'm not aware of any refactoring tool that supports C++ templates. I've tried VS2019, VisualAssist, Clion, QtCreator.

Consider example:

#include <iostream>

struct foo { void print() {} };
struct bar { void print() {} };

template <typename T>
void call_print(T&& v) { v.print(); }

void print() {}

int main()
{
    call_print(foo{});
    call_print(bar{});
    return 0;
}

If I run Rename Refactoring on foo::print, bar::print should be also renamed automatically. Because they are linked through call_print function template instantiations.

One surely has to mention Klocwork as a commercial code refactoring suite. It does look very promising when you go through the demo video.

Sorry to only find this question so late. My students and assistants work on C++ refactoring since about 2006. Most of CDTs refactoring infrastrucure was built by my team at IFS institute of software. since a couple of years we provide Cevelop our version of CDT with support for C++ code modernization refactorings etc. Cevelop can work with large code bases, if workspace is set up correctly. Free available at https://cevelop.com

There is now a C++ refactoring extension for Visual Studio 2013 from Microsoft: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/164904b2-3b47-417f-9b6b-fdd35757d194