Chris Frey wrote:

Yes, it's a problem. But we are beset by problems currently, too. I am proposing trading a large problem set for a smaller one.

...even if the library comes with good examples for you to hack up to meet your personal requirements? I can't imagine it needing a syntax more complicated than:

<ssqls name="MyStruct"> <int name="MyNumber"/> <mysqlpp:Date name="MyDate"/> ... </ssqls>

Pretty much the same as the current syntax.

Another advantage I forgot to mention is that you could put several of these declarations into a single file, and the tool would be able to spit out as many source files as needed.

And another advantage just popped out of the XML syntax I just invented: because the types are tags, we can verify in advance that the caller is using appropriate types. Currently, nothing stops someone from saying:

sql_create_3(doomed, 1, 3, char*, x, std::complex, y, MyOwnStrangeType, z)

This will generate a perfectly legal C++ structure. But, using it will at best cause the compiler to barf in the middle of some hideous macros. Even worse, the code may compile, and then cause who knows what kind of run-time havoc when trying to do the type conversions.

If the syntax is all that bugs you, we could make the generator accept the current SSQLS macro syntax. It's pretty straightforward. The main reasons not to are that it rules out several classes of tools (e.g. XSLT) and it makes the parser more complex than it has to be. A middle ground would be to write a translator from the SSQLS syntax to the new one.

If those advantages aren't sufficient, what would it take?