hpp2plantuml - Convert C++ header files to PlantUML

.. _sec-intro:

Motivation

The purpose of this tool is to convert C++ header files to a UML representation in PlantUML <https://plantuml.com>_ syntax that can be used to generate diagrams with PlantUML.

PlantUML <https://plantuml.com>_ is a program rendering UML diagrams from plain text inputs using an expressive language.

This package generates the text input to PlantUML from C++ header files. Its ambition is limited but it should produce reasonable conversion for simple class hierarchies. It aims at supporting:

• class members with properties (private, method, protected), methods with basic qualifiers (static, abstract),

• inheritance relationships,

• aggregation relationships (very basic support).

• dependency relationships

The package relies on the CppHeaderParser <https://pypi.org/project/robotpy-cppheaderparser/>_ package for parsing of C++ header files.

.. _sec-module-usage:

Usage

The hpp2plantuml package can be used from the command line or as a module in other applications.

Command line

The command line usage is (``hpp2plantuml --help``):

::

    usage: hpp2plantuml [-h] -i HEADER-FILE [-o FILE] [-d] [-t JINJA-FILE]
                        [--version]

    hpp2plantuml tool.

    optional arguments:
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      -i HEADER-FILE, --input-file HEADER-FILE
                            input file (must be quoted when using wildcards)
      -o FILE, --output-file FILE
                            output file
      -d, --enable-dependency
                            Extract dependency relationships from method arguments
      -t JINJA-FILE, --template-file JINJA-FILE
                            path to jinja2 template file
      --version             show program's version number and exit

Input files are added using the ``-i`` option.  Inputs can be full file paths or
include wildcards.  Note that double quotes are required when using wildcards.
The output file is selected with the ``-o`` option.  The output is a text file
following the PlantUML syntax.

For instance, the following command will generate an input file for PlantUML
(``output.puml``) from several header files.

.. code:: sh
    :name: usage-sh

    hpp2plantuml -i File_1.hpp -i "include/Helper_*.hpp" -o output.puml

To customize the output PlantUML file, templates can be used (using the ``-t``
parameter):

.. code:: sh
    :name: usage-sh-template

    hpp2plantuml -i File_1.hpp -i "include/Helper_*.hpp" -o output.puml -t template.puml

This will use the ``template.puml`` file as template.  Templates follow the `jinja <http://jinja.pocoo.org/>`_
syntax.  For instance, to add a preamble to the PlantUML output, the template
file may contain:

::

    {% extends 'default.puml' %}

    {% block preamble %}
    title "This is a title"
    skinparam backgroundColor #EEEBDC
    skinparam handwritten true
    {% endblock %}

This will inherit from the default template and override the preamble only.

Module

To use as a module, simply import hpp2plantuml. The CreatePlantUMLFile function can then be used to create a PlantUML file from a set of input files. Alternatively, the Diagram object can be used directly to build internal objects (from files or strings). The Diagram.render() method can be used to produce a string output instead of writing to a text file. See the API documentation for more details.

.. _sec-module-install:

Installation

Using pip

The package is available on `PyPi <https://pypi.python.org/>`_ and can be installed using pip:

::

    pip install hpp2plantuml

From source

The code uses setuptools, so it can be built using:

::

python setup.py install

To build the documentation, run:

::

python setup.py sphinx

To run the tests, run:

::

python setup.py test

The full documentation is available via:

• This org-mode post <https://thibaultmarin.github.io/blog/posts/2016-11-30-hpp2plantuml_-_Convert_C++_header_files_to_PlantUML.html>_
• Read the docs <http://hpp2plantuml.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>_