NetBeans C++ is Cool
Friday Jan 16, 2009
Although I use NetBeans a lot writing Java, I've never really tried its C/C++ Pack before. Today I need to read some MIT Kerberos codes. There's a long time I haven't worked heavily on C so I find it quite difficult to find out which function does what and where it's defined. And then, I think of NetBeans, it's very good at parsing Java codes and give you multiple ways to navigate through the method calls and field definitions. How about trying it for C?
So I fire up NetBeans and go download the C/C++ pack. It's a huge 5MB module that takes care of projects, editing, debugging all in one place. Install and restart.
I create a C/C++ project, there's a choice called "Use existing codes" so I choose the Kerberos src directory and click go. The magic happens: it loads all the files inside the directory, and then starts to call the configure script, and I see yes/no lines flying in the output window. Then, it starts to build the source! With no human intervention, it does everything from the beginning to the end, and I'm now seeing MAKE SUCCESSFUL.
Brilliant, isn't it? I open a terminal window and run the newly-built kinit command with DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH pointing to the lib directory, and it runs smoothly and correctly, showing the kinit help page.
Now I'm browsing the Kerberos codes, using the familiar Command+click to go through function calls and variable definitions. A real charm!
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Yea, Netbeans is pretty awesome! even for php code...