includes from headers

Do any of you know of any smart tool that can extract include files out of headers. So that private members and other data irrelevant for usage og my libraray doesnt get installed

I don't know any tool like that, sincerely. Anyway I will try to answer your question. I'm not sure to understand you, so correct me if I'm wrong.

You want to take out methods & members of private section's of classes ? That will change class signature and nobody could link against your library !

Perhaps, you have to do a *manual* cleanup of your classes, putting all private ( or irrelevant to the final user ) members & methods in a private class & out of public headers. Have you heard about pimpl idiom ? See the wiki, It's a good beginning.

Using pimpl, It's a good approach to write libraries. I'm using an strategy like this in a big project I'm working on and makes me live happier ;) . I usually create 3 files for each class :

* Class.h => Public interface, with the minimal includes I can put in it. That means : if I don't have to instantiate an object of that class, i don't have to #include it's header. As an example :

Code:

---

#include <BaseClass>
Class A;
Class B_Private;
 
Class B : public BaseClass // <== I HAVE TO #include, of course
{
  // PIMPL zone...
  B_Private * d_ptr;
  Q_DECLARE_PRIVATE(B_Private);
 
  public :
 
     B();
   ~B();
 
   void foo ( const A & Data ) const; // <== I DON'T HAVE TO #include
}

---

* ClassB_p.h : declaration of private class, that hides implementation. Those headers doesn't have to be deployed, of course. And you can always put some code to forbid using those headers :

Code:

---

#if !defined(__INTO_MYLIBRARY__)
  #error "This File is only for MYLIBRARY internal use !!"
#endif

---

Defining __INTO_MYLIBRARY__ into your library's .pro file it's enough to allow you to re-compile the library.

* Class.cpp : implementation of public & private parts of the class. Here I make the major part of #includes, as needed. At least, this pair

Code:

---

#include "ClassB.h"
#include "ClassB_p.h"
 
( ... implementation ... )

---

Thanks. That excactly what i need. I wasnt aware that changin the header would make it useless.