PLOOC (Protected Low-overhead Object Oriented programming with ANSI-C) v4.6.3

Introduction

The Protected Low-overhead Object Oriented Programming with ANSI-C, a.k.a PLOOC ['plu:k] is a set of well-polished C macro templates which:

• Provide protection for private class members

NOTE: The protection can be disabled by defining macro __OOC_DEBUG__ to facilitate debug.

• Support protected members
• Support multiple inheritance
• Support interface implementation
• Support strict type checking/validation in certain compilers, such as IAR with multi-file compilation enabled.
• Compliant with ANSI-C99
  • ANSI-C90 is also supported but the protection for private feature is disabled.
• Support Overload
  • Require C11 or _Generic
• Low-overhead

NOTE: Almost ZERO OVERHEAD. The template fully utilises the ANSI-C enforced compilation rules to deliver desired OO features with the the least necessary cost.

    - Suitable for both bare-metal and RTOS.
    - Suitable for both 8bit and 32bit MCU

What makes PLOOC different from other OOCs?

The concept of OOC is not new. There are plenty of libraries, SDKs, templates providing objected-oriented programming extensions to ANSI-C language. Although PLOOC emphasises its low-overhead feature in both code size and performance, but a lot of macro template based ooc solutions are also low-overhead. PLOOC doesn't force you to use heap or pool for memory management, it doesn't provide GC feature. It simply leaves those options to users, so it is suitable for even 8bit system. Well, you can take this as draw-backs of PLOOC. I don't want to argue about this.

So what really sets PLOOC different from the others? Is it simply another re-invented wheel?

The answer is NO. Of course. PLOOC brings an unique feature most of others don't have. It lets private members of a class truly become private, i.e. protected. So users outside of the class source code are prevented from accessing the private members. What they see will be a solid memory, a mask created with byte array. Since class is mimicked by structure in C, the class in PLOOC is implemented with the masked-structure. As people expected, only class source code can access the private members, only class source code of a derived class can access the protected members of the base class and everyone can access the public members.

How could this be? You might already figure it out simply through the word "masked-structure". As you noticed, it could be nothing more than a fancy type-cheating trick in header files. The type-cheating trick works well until some strict-type-checking compiler is encountered. The most famous (notorious) one is IAR with multi-file compilation mode enabled. No type-cheating can survive from the bloody axe of IAR multi-file compilation mode.

//! the original structure in class source code
struct byte_queue_t {
    uint8_t   *pchBuffer;
    uint16_t  hwBufferSize;
    uint16_t  hwHead;
    uint16_t  hwTail;
    uint16_t  hwCount;
};

//! the masked structure: the class byte_queue_t in header file
typedef struct byte_queue_t {
    uint8_t chMask [sizeof(struct {
        uint8_t   *pchBuffer;
        uint16_t  hwBufferSize;
        uint16_t  hwHead;
        uint16_t  hwTail;
        uint16_t  hwCount;
    })];
} byte_queue_t;

In order to make it work, we have to make sure the class source codes don't include their own interface header file. you can even do this...if you are serious about the content

//! the masked structure: the class byte_queue_t in header file
typedef struct byte_queue_t {
    uint8_t chMask [sizeof(struct {
        uint32_t        : 32;
        uint16_t        : 16;
        uint16_t        : 16;
        uint16_t        : 16;
        uint16_t        : 16;
    })];
} byte_queue_t;

NOTE: Aforementioned code pieces are only used to show the underlying scheme but are not practical, as you can see, the alignment of the original structure is missing when creating the mask array. To solve the problem, you have to extract the alignment information via __alignof__() operator and set the mask array alignment attribute accordingly using __attribute__((aligned())).

PLOOC provides the "private-protection" feature with a different scheme other than type-cheating, so it support almost all C compilers with C99 feature enabled. As the author, I have to confess that it took me a lot of time to figure it out how to deal with strict-type-checking and the initial scheme was ugly and counter-intuition. Thanks to some inspiring contribution of SimonQian, it took me another 3 months to make PLOOC elegant and simple. The supports from HenryLong are also vital.

I hope you can enjoy this unique trying for the object-oriented programming challenge.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to let us know.

Update Log

• [11/02/2022] Fix class template, version 4.6.3

• [12/05/2022] Improve compatibility with the latest C++ language, version 4.6.2

• [02/01/2022] Add helper macros for heap, version 4.6.1

  • Add __new_class() and __free_class() for using malloc and free together with constructors and destructors, i.e. xxxx_init() and xxxx_depose().
  • Update example project
  • Add CI to github.

• [30/12/2021] Improved CMSIS-Pac, version 4.6.0

  • Added example project to CMSIS-Pack
  • Added code templates for creating new base classes and derived classes.
  • Other minor updates

• [29/12/2021] Add CMSIS-Pack, version 4.5.9

  • Suppressed warnings when c99 is used for the LLVM and GCC.
  • Fixed an unaligned access issue in the example
  • Added CMSIS-Pack

• [28/11/2020] Minor update, version 4.5.7

  • Fixed a typo in plooc.h
  • Applied unified capitalisation in macros, i.e. if the macro is uppercase, the parameters are in uppercase, if the macro is lowercase, the parameters are in lowercase.
  • Added warning to indicate that black box template is incompatible with other templates and should be used alone or under special rule when mixed with other templates.

• [05/08/2020] Add __PLOOC_CLASS_IMPLEMENT__ and __PLOOC_CLASS_INHERIT__ version 4.5.6

  • used __xxxxx__ as emphasis because __xxxxx usually means "internal"
  • The original __PLOOC_CLASS_IMPLEMENT and __PLOOC_CLASS_INHERIT are deprecated and will be kept for a while before completely removed.

• [18/05/2020] Introduce both short- and long- style of macro, version 4.5.5

  • dcl_xxxxx/declare_xxxxx
  • def_xxxx/define_xxxxx; end_def_xxxx/end_define_xxxx

• [16/05/2020] Minor Update, version 4.5.4a

  • Introduced __OOC_CPP__ to replace __OOC_DEBUG__ when you want to mix C source code with C++ source code. Please put it in the project global configuration.

• [11/05/2020] Minor Update, version 4.5.4

  • Made it possible to use PLOOC based C source code in C++ project
    • Please make sure __OOC_DEBUG__ is defined in the project

• [15/04/2020] Update __PLOOC_EVAL, version 4.5.3

  • Increased the range of number of arguments, from 18 to 016.

• [19/02/2020] Minor update to enable RAM footprint optimisation, version 4.52

  • Introduced macro PLOOC_CFG_REMOVE_MEMORY_LAYOUT_BOUNDARY___USE_WITH_CAUTION which removes structure layout boundaries for PLOOC_VISIBLE. It can save RAM when certain condition is met and __OOC_DEBUG__ is defined. Please use it with caution as it will cause different memory layouts when __OOC_DEBUG__ is not defined.

• [21/01/2020] Misc update for C90, version 4.51

• [09/06/2019] Added support for C89/90, version 4.50

  • Added full support for overload (require C11)

• [09/05/2019] Added support for C89/90, version 4.40

  • When C89/90 is enforced, __OOC_DEBUG__ should always be defined.
  • The protection for private and protected members is turned off.

• [08/15/2019] Updated plooc_class_strict.h to use more soften syntax, version 4.31

  • Users now can use arbitrary order for public_member, private_member and protected_member.
  • The separator "," can be ignored.
  • Simplified the plooc_class_strict.h template. Some common macros are moved to plooc_class.h, which will be shared by other template later.

• [08/14/2019] Introduced support for limited support for overload, version 4.30

  • Used can use macro __PLOOC_EVAL() to select the right API which has the corresponding number of parameters.

• [07/26/2019] Syntax update, version 4.21

  • Modified plooc_class_black_box.h to use unified syntax as other templates.
  • Added extern_class and end_extern_class to all templates

• [07/24/2019] Added new ooc class template, version 4.20

  • Added plooc_class_black_box.h. This template is used for creating true-black-box module. It only support "private" and "public" but no "protected".

• [07/12/2019] Minor Update, version 4.13

  • Added "__OOC_RELEASE__". The struct requires protection only at development stage. For private properties, setters and getters are provided for controlling the access. It is possible to remove masks and allow private members observable in release stage, during this stage, the setters and getters can be changed from API functions to macros. By doing so, the code size can be smaller.

• [05/30/2019] Minor Update, version 4.12

  • removed "this", "target" and "base" to prevent naming pollution.
  • removed PLOOC_ALIGN from top-level class definition to prevent inconsistent compiler interpretation towards this alignment decoration.

• [05/02/2019] Efficiency improve, version 4.11

  • Used __alignof__ to improve the code efficiency when dealing with masked structure
  • Used PLOOC_INVISIABLE and PLOOC_VISIBLE in both simple and strict version
  • Simplified the structure
  • Improved capability between IAR and armclang (LLVM)

• [05/01/2019] Compatibility Improving, version 4.04

  • Added PLOOC_PACKED and PLOOC_ALIGN to add alignment support
  • Used uint_fast8_t to replace uint8_t to use target machine implied alignment.

• [04/20/2019] Upload PLOOC to github, version 4.03

  • Added default class alignment control
  • updated examples and readme

• [04/17/2019] Uploaded PLOOC to github, version 4.01

  • Added method definition which support private method, protected method and public method
  • Added readme and example byte_queue

License

The PLOOC library was written by GorgonMeducer(王卓然）[email protected] and Simon Qian（钱晓晨）https://github.com/versaloon with support from Henry Long [email protected].

The PLOOC library is released under an open source license Apache 2.0 that allows both commercial and non-commercial use without restrictions. The only requirement is that credits is given in the source code and in the documentation for your product.

The full license text follows:

/*****************************************************************************
 *   Copyright(C)2009-2019 by GorgonMeducer<[email protected]>    *
 *                       and  SimonQian<[email protected]>             *
 *         with support from  HenryLong<[email protected]>                  *
 *                                                                           *
 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");          *
 *  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.         *
 *  You may obtain a copy of the License at                                  *
 *                                                                           *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0                            *
 *                                                                           *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software      *
 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,        *
 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. *
 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and      *
 *  limitations under the License.                                           *
 *                                                                           *
 ****************************************************************************/

Contribution

Template

Examples

Applications / Projects which claim to use PLOOC

• [VSF][https://github.com/vsfteam/vsf]
• [GMSI][https://github.com/GorgonMeducer/Generic_MCU_Software_Infrastructure]
• [mqttclient][https://github.com/jiejieTop/mqttclient]

How to Use

Examples for PLOOC

Introduction

In order to show how PLOOC is easy and simple to use, examples are provided to demonstrate different aspects of the new OOPC method. Currently, the available examples are:

• byte_queue
• enhanced_byte_queue

More examples will be added later...

• Example 1: How to define a class

  This example shows

  • How to define a class
    • How to add private member
    • How to add protected member
  • How to access class members
  • How to define user friendly interface

  Example 2: How to access protected members

  • How to inherit from a base class
    • How to access protected members which are inherited from base
  • How to inherit a interface
  • How to override base methods

  Example 3: How to implement Overload

  • How to implement overload using PLOOC

  • Require C11 support

LOG_OUT("\r\n-[Demo of overload]------------------------------\r\n");
LOG_OUT((uint32_t) 0x12345678);
LOG_OUT("\r\n");
LOG_OUT(0x12345678);
LOG_OUT("\r\n");
LOG_OUT("PI is ");
LOG_OUT(3.1415926f);
LOG_OUT("\r\n");

LOG_OUT("\r\nShow BYTE Array:\r\n");
LOG_OUT((uint8_t *)main, 100);

LOG_OUT("\r\nShow Half-WORD Array:\r\n");
LOG_OUT((uint16_t *)main, 100/sizeof(uint16_t));

LOG_OUT("\r\nShow WORD Array:\r\n");
LOG_OUT((uint32_t *)main, 100/sizeof(uint32_t));