Object Oriented Programming in ANSI C for Plan 9

[Hans-Peter Bischof bischof@informatik.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE]

Object Oriented Programming in ANSI C

Axel T. Schreiner developed this technique.  We ported the system
to Plan 9 and added a few classes.

ooc is a technique to do  object-oriented  programming  (classes,
methods,  dynamic  linkage,  simple  inheritance,  polymorphisms,
persistent objects, method existence testing, message forwarding,
exception handling, etc.) using ANSI-C.

ooc is a preprocessor to simplify the coding task  by  converting
class  descriptions  and  method  implementations  into ANSI-C as
required by the technique. You implement  the  algorithms  inside
the methods and the ooc preprocessor produces the boilerplate.

ooc consists of a shell script driving a modular awk script (with
provisions  for  debugging),  a set of reports -- code generation
templates -- interpreted by the script, and the source of a  root
class  to provide basic functionality.  Everything is designed to
be changed if desired. There are manual pages, lots of  examples,
among  them a calculator based on curses and X11, and you can ask
me about the book.

ooc as a technique requires an ANSI-C system -- classic  C  would
necessitate substantial changes. The preprocessor needs a healthy
Bourne-Shell and "new" awk as described in Aho,  Weinberger,  and
Kernighan's book.

ooc  was  developed  primarily  to  teach  about  object-oriented
programming  without  having  to learn a new language. If you see
how it is done in a familiar setting, it is much easier to  grasp
the  concepts  and  to  know  what  miracles  to  expect from the
technique and what not.  Conceivably,  the  preprocessor  can  be
used  for  production  programming  but this was not the original
intent. Being  able  to  roll  your  own  object-oriented  coding
techniques has its possibilities, however...

If you are interessted:
        ooc description  ps-files:
            ftp:informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/pub/plan9/O9_BOOK_PS.tar
        source:
            ftp:informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/pub/plan9/O9.tar

Hans-Peter Bischof
University of Osnabrueck
bischof@informatik.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE

gandalf plan9 95