https://github.com/zehmatt/cpp-better-main

Better C++ main
https://github.com/zehmatt/cpp-better-main

Last synced: 17 days ago
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Better C++ main

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/zehmatt/cpp-better-main
• Owner: ZehMatt
• License: mit
• Created: 2023-09-07T10:33:22.000Z (over 1 year ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2023-10-13T17:44:10.000Z (about 1 year ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-10-29T23:33:52.487Z (2 months ago)
• Language: C++
• Size: 10.7 KB
• Stars: 2
• Watchers: 2
• Forks: 2
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
# cpp-better-main

Better C++ main

```cpp

#include 

#include 

// This is the entry point of your application. Arguments are passed in as a vector/span of strings with UTF-8

// encoding.

int bmain(bmain_args args)

{

    for (const auto& arg : args)

    {

        std::cout << arg << std::endl;

    }

    return 0;

}

```

# Why

On Windows the `main()` function uses ANSI for the arguments, using `wmain()` is not great as having to deal with `wchar_t` type is not well supported on other platforms and when creating cross platform applications having to deal with this is pretty annoying, other platforms typically have UTF-8 encoded strings for the arguments, to reduce the boilerplate code I opted to create this to just have one entry point that has always UTF-8 strings, also instead of the traditional C style `argc, argv` it uses vector or span depending on the cpp language version being used.

# Usage

The easiest way to use this is using CMake, simply add `better-main` to your targets linked libraries, if you are not using CMake you can just copy the source files into the project where you wish to use it. After that modify your `main(int argc, const char* argv[])` to `int bmain(bmain_args args)`, that's it. Be aware that this should not be used for static or shared libraries and will likely break your build.

On Windows the arguments will be converted to hold UTF-8 encoded strings, other platforms usually already pass the arguments UTF-8 encoded.

# Overhead

I acknowledge that there is a slight performance overhead due to the use of `std::vector` and `std::string`. However, on the Windows platform, it is necessary to convert the arguments to UTF-8 encoding, which requires some additional memory for storing the converted strings. In my view, this is the most compatible choice, and the minor overhead is typically negligible in most scenarios. Furthermore, I opted for this approach to maintain uniformity. This approach should work with even with older language versions like C++98.