[Insight-developers] Proposal to change file naming conventions

Wed Apr 20 07:46:02 EDT 2011

Tom and Bill,

Thank you for the quick response.

1)  Personally I like the google c++ style approach a lot (ie. -inl.h)
because it more clearly describes the intent of what should be in the file
(http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml#The_-inl.h_
Files).  I proposed the ".hpp" option mainly as a starting point for
discussion purposes.

2)  I agree completely with Tom, and would like to see the header files
and implementation files show up in the IDE.

I can easily change the .hpp to -inl.h as the proposed patch.

Thanks,
Hans

On 4/20/11 1:51 AM, "Tom Vercauteren" <tom.vercauteren at m4x.org> wrote:

>Hi Hans,
>
>I like the overall proposal but agree with Bill that simply changing
>.txx to .hpp (or .hxx) will be confusing. Many large libraries (e.g.
>boost) use .hpp for "all-in-one" template headers.
>
>I like, the alternative proposed in the google c++ style guide you
>sent use: "-inl.h". Anything similar to this would also be fine for
>me, e.g. "-inl.hpp",  "-impl.h",  "-impl.hpp", etc.
>
>The backward compatibility glitches seem ok to handle on my side given
>the benefits for newcomers. If other people feel differently, we may
>also create .txx files that simply wrap (i.e. include) the new files
>implementation files and move these .txx in the deprecated module.
>
>Also, while we are at improving support for common development tools,
>it would be add a list of all "headers" to the CMakeLists.txt. This is
>required at least in visual studio, qtcreator and maybe also xcode to
>make the template files appear in the IDE. See, e.g.
>
>http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1167154/listing-header-files-in-visual-
>studio-c-project-generated-by-cmake
>
>Hence, what we do in our projects goes along these lines:
>
>set( ITK-MyModule_SRC
>  itkFile0.cxx
>  )
>
>set( ITK-MyModule_HDR_ONLY
>  itkFile1.h
>  itkFile1-impl.h
>  itkFile2.h
>  itkFile2-impl.h
>  )
>
>source_group(
>  "Template and Header Only Files" FILES ${ITK-MyModule_HDR_ONLY}
>)
>
>add_library(ITK-MyModule ${ITK-MyModule_SRC} ${ITK-MyModule_HDR_ONLY})
>
>
>My two cents,
>Tom
>
>On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 05:42, Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>> Hans,
>>
>> This is an interesting proposal. And I think it is backwards compatible.
>>
>> However, .hpp is a bit confusing since we already use .h. I believe
>> that projects usually choose one or the other, but not both. Users may
>> get confused as to which to include, especially if their projects are
>> using .hpp for "include" files. Do you have an example of a project
>> that uses both .h and .hpp files?
>>
>> Perhaps we should look harder for a better convention.
>> For example, eigen just has .h files. The equivalent of our .txx is
>> kept in the .h file.
>> Also wtl uses the same convention. Also tclap.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Johnson, Hans J
>> <hans-johnson at uiowa.edu> wrote:
>>> Hello All,
>>> I have a proposal for easing development of ITK for many development
>>> environments.
>>> A reference implementation is given:
>>> http://review.source.kitware.com/#change,1450
>>>
>>> PREMISE:
>>>
>>> The  use of the .txx file extension for indicating the file that is to
>>>hold
>>> the implementation of a template class is only adopted by the ITK
>>>community
>>> and VNL communities (and has  slightly ³infected² a few other small
>>> components of other projects).
>>>
>>> Increasingly tools are being created to help the programmer better
>>> understand and analyze, and provide hints to proper coding options
>>> dynamically in the development environment (color coding,
>>>auto-completion).
>>> The obscure .txx file requires special configuration of each
>>>development
>>> environment tool to indicate that it is really a c++ header.  For new
>>> developers this is often a difficult and frustrating task.  This is
>>> confirmed by the large amount of documentation for just a few of the
>>>common
>>> editors.  Tools that recognize and respect the .hpp extension (or
>>> ³-ipl.h²):  uncrustify, vim, emacs, VisualStudios, clang, SlickEdit,
>>>kwrite,
>>> etc....)  None of these tools recognize the .txx extension without end
>>>user
>>> customizations.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> CONS:
>>>
>>> --Many files will be changed, and it will not be backwards compatible
>>>for
>>> those who accidently included the ³.txx² files in their projects.  The
>>>.txx
>>> files should not be included in external packages
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> BENEFITS:
>>>
>>> n  Implementation files are properly mapped to C++ language type by
>>>default
>>> for improved development environment experience.
>>>
>>> n
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> CONSIDERATIONS:
>>>
>>> There is no obvious single correct solution, but in general a common
>>>theme
>>> from other guides is that the final extension should be ³.hpp² or  some
>>> suffix that ends with ³.h².  The extension should be all lower case
>>>letters
>>> (to avoid problems on case insensitive file sysetms).
>>>
>>> http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/coding-standards.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/5882/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ³Back in the old CFront days, there was a .C and .H convention for C++
>>> source and header files to avoid conflict with .c and .h for C.
>>>However,
>>> MS-DOS used a case-insensitive file system and soused .cpp and .hpp
>>>instead.
>>> Visual Studio's parser still recongnises .hpp and .inl as C++ files,
>>>so it's
>>> not a completely forgotten form.²
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml#The_-inl.
>>>h_Files
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> PROPOSAL:
>>>
>>> In ITKv4 (and outside of the ThirdParty directory) change all
>>>implementation
>>> files that currently have a ³.txx² extension to have a ³.hpp²
>>>extension.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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