I have an app that runs a C++ server backend and Javascript on the client. I would like to define certain strings once only, for both pieces of code. For example, I might have a CSS class "row-hover" – I want to define this class name in one place only in case I change it later.
Is there an easy way to include, or read, some sort of common definitions file into both C++ and JavaScript? Ideally as a compile / preprocessing step but any neat approach good.
Best Answer
I had proposed a quite similar approach here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4248831/shared-config-file-between-php-and-c/4248881#4248881 for a similar issue.
I would suggest to write a small script that generates code for C++ and JavaScript, with the configuration you want to have common. You can also use two templates in a template library, that you will run as part of your build process that will generate the appropriate files for each language.
Using a freemarker-like syntax (although I do not suggest including another language!), there could be something like this for JavaScript:
and another template for the C++ implementation.
As suggested in the comments below, one good candidate for that, is to use sed, so that you would not have to introduce another language since your project has two already.