Configuring Meta-Programming

[Dieter Schön]

Hi Mark,

so instead of each user configures his/her environment, you will have to 
build a bespoke

app for each user.

You will have to know the desired configuration for each user, and build 
a custom version

for each variant.


The technical part is relatively easy, I think. The parameters can be 
implemented as

-define(ParamX, ValueY).

Maybe add some -ifdef, if the configuration is complex.


And, from a CM perspective, I would definitely have everything in 
version-controlled files.

No ad-hoc commandline switch-triggered artifacts.

Also, for runtime introspection, add a function which outputs the 
configuration parameters

of the module.

 From my experience, in a commercial environment,

you should be most concerned how to be able to reliable and reproducible

build a version. And to be able to track which versions are in use where.


kind regards,

dieter


On 29.01.21 15:25, Mark S wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for advice on how to configure code generated at compile 
> time.  My current solution reads the configuration values from a file, 
> but the feedback I received indicates that requiring users to create 
> and maintain a config file, in order to use this library, will at the 
> very least, severely limit its usefulness.
>
> Is there another way to introduce configuration values at compile 
> time?  Is there a library you can point me to, that has resolved the 
> same issue differently?
>
> Specifically, I created code that generates a module, containing a 
> custom Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) calculation function that 
> utilizes a CRC look-up table.  Creating the function and the look-up 
> table requires specifying the bit width, polynomial, initial value, 
> final XOR value, and whether the input and output values are reflected 
> or not.
>
> To generate the code module, I used Ulf Wiger's parse_trans library. 
> In particular, ct_expand:term() to generate the look-up table, and 
> codegen:gen_module() to generate the code and finally calling 
> merl:compile() to compile the abstract syntax tree, generated by 
> gen_module().
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark Sebald