  C-C++ Beautifier HOW-TO
  Al Dev (Alavoor Vasudevan)        alavoor@yahoo.com
  v1.0, 7 February 2000

  This document will help you to format (beautify) the C/C++ programs so
  that it is more readable and confirms to your site C/C++ coding stan-
  dards.  The information in this document applies to all the operating
  sytems that is - Linux, MS DOS, Windows 95/NT, all flavors of Unix
  like Solaris, HPUX, AIX, SCO, Sinix, BSD, SCO, etc.. and to all other
  operating systems which support "C" compiler.
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. Introduction

  2. How can I trust Beautifier programs??!!

  3. Beautifiers for other Languages

  4. Other Formats of this Document

  5. Copyright



  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  Introduction

  Coding standards for C/C++ or any language is required in order to
  make the programs more readable/understandable by programmers. There
  are C/C++ beautifiers (formating tools) to accomplish this goal.
  Formatted (beautified) code improves the productivity of programmers
  by 2 times!!

  On Linux/Unixes there is a command called "indent" and "cb" . Refer to
  'man indent' and 'man cb'. Note that indent and cb work for only "C"
  programs. For "C++" programs use "bcpp". Download the beautifier
  program from one of the following

  o  C++ : BCPP site is at
     <http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey/bcpp/bcpp.html>

  o  C++ :  <http://www.consultix-inc.com/www.consultix-
     inc.com/c++b.html>

  o  C :  <http://www.chips.navy.mil/oasys/c/>

     I used BCPP to format the C++ programs and it worked fine for me.
     You may want to check other tools and use the one which you may
     like the most.

  2.  How can I trust Beautifier programs??!!

  For 100% assurance you need a SCIENTIFIC way to validate and trust a
  beautifier program. The method described in this section will enable
  the beautifier program to be accepted as "trust-worthy" and reliable.

  In order to verify that beautifier programs like bcpp, indent or cb is
  not damaging or changing the input source-code after formatting, use
  the following technique -

  Generate the object code from the original input source code using the
  compiler -
  ______________________________________________________________________
    g++ -c myprogram.cpp
  ______________________________________________________________________


  Here g++ is GNU C++ compiler. This will create object output mypro-
  gram.o

  Save this file -

  ______________________________________________________________________
     mv myprogram.o myprogram_orig.o
  ______________________________________________________________________



  Now run bcpp -

  ______________________________________________________________________
     bcpp myprogram.cpp
  ______________________________________________________________________


  This will create the formatted output program file myprogram.cpp and
  move the original file to myprogram.cpp.orig. Compile the new file
  with  -

  ______________________________________________________________________
     g++ -c myprogram.cpp
  ______________________________________________________________________



  Now use the unix 'diff' command to compare the two object files -

  ______________________________________________________________________
     diff myprogram.o myprogram_orig.o
  ______________________________________________________________________


  Both these files MUST BE IDENTICAL. This verifies that bcpp is working
  perfectly. On DOS or Windows 95 you may want to use the free Cygnus
  <http://www.cygnus.com> Cygwin

  Also you can use the assembler output instead of object output in
  compiler. Like -

  ______________________________________________________________________
      g++ -S myprogram.cpp
  ______________________________________________________________________


  This creates myprogram.s. Verify with -

  ______________________________________________________________________
      diff myprogram.s myprogram_orig.s
  ______________________________________________________________________


  This step gives 100% guarantee that your valuable source code is
  intact and bcpp is JUST doing ONLY formatting and is NOT changing or
  damaging your code in any way.  This method gives you 100% quality
  assurance and long term WARRANTY on beautifier programs like 'bcpp',

  It is strongly recommended that you do these two steps every time you
  run beautifier programs like bcpp, indent or cb.
  3.  Beautifiers for other Languages

  Visit the following sites to get beautifiers for other languages like
  HTML, SQL, Java, Perl, Fortran.

  o  HTML :  <http://www.digital-mines.com/htb/>

  o  HTML :
     <http://www.datacomm.ch/mwoog/software/perl/beautifier.html>

  o  HTML :  <http://www.watson-net.com/free/perl/s_fhtml.asp>

  o  SQL :  <http://www.netbula.com/products/sqlb>

  o  Java :  <http://home.wtal.de/software-
     solutions/jindent/frameset.html>

  o  Perl :  <http://www.consultix-inc.com/www.consultix-
     inc.com/talk.htm>

  o  Perl :  <http://www.consultix-inc.com/www.consultix-
     inc.com/perl_beautifier.html>

  o  Fortran beautifier :
     <http://www.aeem.iastate.edu/Fortran/tools.html>

  o  C++ : BCPP site is at
     <http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey/bcpp/bcpp.html>

  o  C++ :  <http://www.consultix-inc.com/www.consultix-
     inc.com/c++b.html>

  o  C :  <http://www.chips.navy.mil/oasys/c/>


  o  White paper on beautifier :  <http://www.consultix-
     inc.com/www.consultix-inc.com/talk.htm>

  To create presentation of codes to display using HTML -

  o  Presentation (C,C++,Java) to html :
     <http://www.perlstudio.de/cbindex.html>

     Also search the search engines like  <http://www.yahoo.com> or
     <http://www.lycos.com> and search for keyword "beautfier".

  4.  Other Formats of this Document

  This document is published in 10 different formats namely - DVI,
  Postscript, Latex, LyX, GNU-info, HTML, RTF(Rich Text Format), Plain-
  text, Unix man pages and SGML.

  o  You can get this HOWTO document as a single file tar ball in HTML,
     DVI, Postscript or SGML formats from -
     <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/> or
     <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/>

  o  Plain text format is in:
     <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO> or
     <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO>

  o  Translations to other languages like French, German, Spanish,
     Chinese, Japanese are in
     <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO> or
     <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO> Any help from you to
     translate to other languages is welcome.
     The document is written using a tool called "SGML tool" which can
     be got from - <http://www.xs4all.nl/~cg/sgmltools/> Compiling the
     source you will get the following commands like

  o  sgml2html C-C++Beautifier-howto.sgml     (to generate html file)

  o  sgml2rtf  C-C++Beautifier-howto.sgml     (to generate RTF file)

  o  sgml2latex C-C++Beautifier-howto.sgml    (to generate latex file)

  This document is located at -

  o  <http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.html>

  Also you can find this document at the following mirrors sites -

  o  <http://www.caldera.com/LDP/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.html>

  o  <http://www.WGS.com/LDP/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.html>

  o  <http://www.cc.gatech.edu/linux/LDP/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-
     HOWTO.html>

  o  <http://www.redhat.com/linux-info/ldp/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-
     HOWTO.html>

  o  Other mirror sites near you (network-address-wise) can be found at
     <http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/hmirrors.html> select a site and go to
     directory /LDP/HOWTO/C-C++Beautifier-HOWTO.html


  In order to view the document in dvi format, use the xdvi program. The
  xdvi program is located in tetex-xdvi*.rpm package in Redhat Linux
  which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Publishing
  | TeX menu buttons.


               To read dvi document give the command -
                       xdvi -geometry 80x90 howto.dvi
               And resize the window with mouse. See man page on xdvi.
               To navigate use Arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down keys, also
               you can use 'f', 'd', 'u', 'c', 'l', 'r', 'p', 'n' letter
               keys to move up, down, center, next page, previous page etc.
               To turn off expert menu press 'x'.




  You can read postscript file using the program 'gv' (ghostview) or The
  ghostscript program is in ghostscript*.rpm package and gv program is
  in gv*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through Con-
  trolPanel | Applications | Graphics menu buttons. The gv program is
  much more user friendly than ghostscript.  Ghostscript and gv are also
  available on other platforms like OS/2, Windows 95 and NT.


               To read postscript document give the command -
                       gv howto.ps

               To use ghostscript give -
                       ghostscript howto.ps





  You can read HTML format document using Netscape Navigator, Microsoft
  Internet explorer, Redhat Baron Web browser or any other web browsers.

  You can read the latex, LyX output using LyX a "X-Windows" front end
  to latex.

  5.  Copyright

  Copyright is GNU GPL but it is requested that you retain the author's
  name and email on all copies.
























































