litgen: Generating binding code automatically

[pthom]

litgen is an automatic Python bindings generator designed for developers who appreciate clean, well-documented, and discoverable code and APIs.

It simplifies the process of creating Python bindings for C++ libraries using nanobind or pybind11, and generating bindings that are easy to use, properly documented, and fully integrated into Python IDEs.

litgen puts a strong emphasis on emitting documented and discoverable code, thus providing a great experience for the final python user.

It is based on srcML, a high-performance, multi-language parsing tool. The C++ API to be exposed to Python must be C++14 compatible, although the implementation can leverage more modern C++ features.

Here is an example when using bindings generated by litgen inside a python IDE:

Example of auto-completion in an IDE: all bindings are discoverable

Parameters type are accurately reproduced, and the function documentation is accessible

In the example above, the bindings were generated from the following C++ function signature:

// Parameters stacks (current window)
IMGUI_API void          PushItemWidth(float item_width); // push width of items for common large "item+label" widgets. >0.0f: width in pixels, <0.0f align xx pixels to the right of window (so -FLT_MIN always align width to the right side).

And the generated code consists of two parts:

• a python stub file, which contains the documentation and the function signatures, e.g.:

# Parameters stacks (current window)
# IMGUI_API void          PushItemWidth(float item_width);        /* original C++ signature */
def push_item_width(item_width: float) -> None:
    """push width of items for common large "item+label" widgets. >0.0: width in pixels, <0.0 align xx pixels to the right of window (so -FLT_MIN always align width to the right side)."""
    pass

• a C++ bindings file, which contains the actual bindings, e.g.:

m.def("push_item_width",
    ImGui::PushItemWidth,
    nb::arg("item_width"),
    "push width of items for common large \"item+label\" widgets. >0.0: width in pixels, <0.0 align xx pixels to the right of window (so -FLT_MIN always align width to the right side).");

It comes with an extensive documentation, and supports a wide range of features

It can be installed locally (pip install litgen) or used online with no install

If you have some feedback, I'd be very happy to read it!