For example, suppose we have a string like:
string x = "for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){cout << \"Hello World!\n\";}"
What is the simplest way to complete the following function definition:
void do_code(string x); /* given x that's valid c++ code, executes that code as if it were written inside of the function body */
The standard C++ libraries do not contain a C++ parser/compiler. This means that your only choice is to either find and link a C++ compiler library or to simply output your string as a file and launch the C++ compiler with a system call.
The first thing, linking to a C++ compiler, would actually be quite doable in something like Visual Studio for example, that does indeed have DLL libraries for compiling C++ and spitting out a new DLL that you could link at runtime.
The second thing, is pretty much what any IDE does. It saves your text-editor stuff into a C++ file, compile it by system-executing the compiler and run the output.
That said, there are many languages with build-in interpreter that would be more suitable for runtime code interpretation.
Not directly as you're asking for C++ to be simultaneously compiled and interpreted.
But there is LLVM, which is a compiler framework and API. That would allow you to take in this case a string containing valid C++, invoke the LLVM infrastructure and then afterwards use a LLVM-based just in time compiler as described at length here. Keep in mind you must also support the C++ library. You should also have some mechanism to map variables into your interpreted C++ and take data back out.
A big but worthy undertaking, seems like someone might have done something like this already, and maybe Cling is just that.
This has been tested in Linux and OSX.
#include<fstream>
#include<string>
#include<cstdlib>
#include<dlfcn.h>
void do_code( std::string x ) {
{ std::ofstream s("temp.cc");
s << "#include<iostream>\nextern \"C\" void f(){" << x << '}'; }
std::system( "g++ temp.cc -shared -fPIC -otemp.o" );
auto h = dlopen( "./temp.o", RTLD_LAZY );
reinterpret_cast< void(*)() >( dlsym( h, "f" ) )();
dlclose( h );
}
int main() {
std::string x = "for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){std::cout << \"Hello World!\\n\";}";
do_code( x );
}
Try it online! You'll need to compile with the -ldl parameter to link libdl.a. Don't copy-paste this into production code as this has no error checking.
Works for me:
system("echo \"#include <iostream> \nint main() { for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){std::cout << i << std::endl;} }\" >temp.cc; g++ -o temp temp.cc && ./temp");
