How to parse a C header file?

user_197108 0
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Does anyone know a spiffy way to use C header files in Python? For example I have a C program that includes a global variable:

typedef struct ImageInfo
{
    uint8_t revisionMajor;
    uint8_t revisionMinor;
    uint16_t checksum;    

} ImageInfo;

ImageInfo gImageInfo;   /* Placed at a specific address by the linker */

I would like to be able to take the binary generated by the C compiler/linker and parse this structure (and possibly modify it) with a Python script.

c python
4 Answers

This was mentioned on SO yesterday; I haven't had a chance to check it out more thoroughly yet, but I'm meaning to. The pycparser, a "C parser and AST generator written in Python".

https://github.com/eliben/pycparser

user_1969700
user_1335200

Take a look at pygccxml. I use it to build in-memory graphs of my C / C++ source code that I can use as the basis for many code generation tasks.

PS: When I first started out with Python based code-generation I actually tried to write a parser myself: save yourself the pain and don't even go there! (looks like your are clued up already though...) pygccxml is everything you want and more :)

user_9120

For the same purpose I'm considering pyclibrary, it is not a complete C parser but it is aimed at parsing C header files, so it is much easier to use than pycparser or some gccxml-based parser: although weakly documented, just try CParser.py testHeader.h and you'll see how it works.

Depends on pyparsing and, as far as I understand, it is pure python.

user_11946170
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