Files
json/tools/amalgamate/README.md
T
Niels Lohmann d7af0f7d3b Fix stale install/usage instructions in the vendored amalgamate README
tools/amalgamate/README.md is the unmodified upstream text and no
longer matches how the tool is used here:

- It named a Bitbucket origin that no longer exists; CHANGES.md
  already tracks the GitHub mirror commit this copy is based on.
- It asked for Python 2.7, but CI and the Makefile run the script
  with python3.
- It told readers to run ./test.sh (not vendored) and install to
  /usr/local/bin; in this repository the tool runs through
  `make amalgamate`.
- Its usage synopsis showed `-v` taking no argument, but the script's
  own argparser requires `choices=["yes", "no"]`, so that form fails
  with "argument -v/--verbose: expected one argument". The Makefile
  calls it as `--verbose=yes`.
- It pointed at test/source.c.json and test/include.h.json, which are
  not vendored; the configs actually used are config_json.json and
  config_json_fwd.json.

Rewrote only the Installing and Using sections to match; left the
"Here be dragons" caveats and the rest of the vendored code untouched
to avoid diverging further from upstream.

Overlaps #5615, which edits amalgamate.py, this README and CHANGES.md.

#5717 item 6

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
2026-09-30 18:01:07 +02:00

70 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown

# amalgamate.py - Amalgamate C source and header files
Origin: https://github.com/edlund/amalgamate (formerly hosted at
https://bitbucket.org/erikedlund/amalgamate, which no longer exists; see
`CHANGES.md` for the upstream commit this copy is based on)
`amalgamate.py` aims to make it easy to use SQLite-style C source and header
amalgamation in projects.
For more information, please refer to: http://sqlite.org/amalgamation.html
## Here be dragons
`amalgamate.py` is quite dumb, it only knows the bare minimum about C code
required in order to be able to handle trivial include directives. It can
produce weird results for unexpected code.
Things to be aware of:
`amalgamate.py` will not handle complex include directives correctly:
#define HEADER_PATH "path/to/header.h"
#include HEADER_PATH
In the above example, `path/to/header.h` will not be included in the
amalgamation (HEADER_PATH is never expanded).
`amalgamate.py` makes the assumption that each source and header file which
is not empty will end in a new-line character, which is not immediately
preceded by a backslash character (see 5.1.1.2p1.2 of ISO C99).
`amalgamate.py` should be usable with C++ code, but raw string literals from
C++11 will definitely cause problems:
R"delimiter(Terrible raw \ data " #include <sneaky.hpp>)delimiter"
R"delimiter(Terrible raw \ data " escaping)delimiter"
In the examples above, `amalgamate.py` will stop parsing the raw string literal
when it encounters the first quotation mark, which will produce unexpected
results.
## Installing amalgamate.py
Python 3 is required.
In this repository, `amalgamate.py` is not installed separately; it is run in
place through `make amalgamate`, which calls it once for `json.hpp` and once
for `json_fwd.hpp` (see the root `Makefile`).
## Using amalgamate.py
amalgamate.py -c path/to/config.json -s path/to/source/dir \
[-p path/to/prologue.(c|h)] [--verbose=yes|no]
* The `-c, --config` option should specify the path to a JSON config file which
lists the source files, include paths and where to write the resulting
amalgamation. `config_json.json` and `config_json_fwd.json` in this
directory are the configs used for `json.hpp` and `json_fwd.hpp`; each
sets `target`, `sources` and `include_paths`.
* The `-s, --source` option should specify the path to the source directory.
This is useful for supporting separate source and build directories.
* The `-p, --prologue` option should specify the path to a file which will be
added to the beginning of the amalgamation. It is optional.
* The `-v, --verbose` option takes `yes` or `no` (for example
`--verbose=yes`, as used by the Makefile). It is optional.