KDevelop4/Manual/Working with templates

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    Some of KDevelop's code generation features use templates. These define the output structure, while you supply the needed parameters and data.

    Using templates instead of fixed functionality allows greater flexibility and customizability. Templates can be chosen and modified to suite your particular needs, programming language and coding style. In the cases of project and class templates, they can be shared and downloaded, providing additional functionality to KDevelop without extra code.

    Project Templates

    Instructions for starting a new project are avaliable in the section Setting up a new project.

    File structure

    A project template is a compressed archives with specific contents. Every template needs a description file with the same base name as the archive itself, and an extension ".kdevtemplate". Other files are treated as template contents and will be present in the generated project.

    The directory structure within the archive can be similar to this

    my_template.tar.bz2
    |-- my_template.kdevtemplate
    |-- src/
    |   |-- CMakeLists.txt
    |   |-- main.cpp
    |   |-- %{APPNAMELC}.h
    |   +-- %{APPNAMELC}.cpp
    +-- CMakeLists.txt
    +-- %{PROJECTDIRNAME}.kdev4
    

    Let's say we create the project using the above template and application name Example. The resulting project tree will look like this

    ~/projects/Example
    |-- src/
    |   |-- CMakeLists.txt
    |   |-- main.cpp
    |   |-- example.h
    |   +-- example.cpp
    +-- CMakeLists.txt
    +-- Example.kdev4
    

    The .kdevtemplate description file was removed, as it is used to describe the template, not the resulting project. Other files have been copied from the archive to the project folder. Variables in files names have been replaced with their values. Although not visible from the file structure, variables in the files' contents have been replaced as well.

    Variables

    Project templates in KDevelop, just like in KAppTemplate, use KMacroExpander to substitute variable placeholders with their real values. This means that when generating a project, strings of the form %{VARIABLE_NAME} will be replaced with the value of VARIABLE_NAME.

    The recognized variables in KDevelop are

    Variable name Description Example value
    APPNAME The application name, specified when starting a project Example
    APPNAMELC The application name in lowercase example
    APPNAMEUC The application name in uppercase EXAMPLE
    APPNAMEID The application name with all non-alphanumeric characters replaced with undescores. Useful for identifiers. Example
    PROJECTDIR Absolute path to the directory where the project is being created /home/<user>/projects/Example
    PROJECTDIRNAME The name of the directory where the project is being created Example
    VERSIONCONTROLPLUGIN The version control plugin, chosen in the assistant dialog kdevgit,kdevsvn,kdevcvs, or empty of no version control was selected

    Description file structure

    Template description files, with the extension of ".kdevtemplate", follow the freedesktop.org desktop file specification. They are quite simple, with a single category, and four entries.

    Here is an example template description file

    [General]
    Name=Simple C++ application
    Comment=An example C++ application, showing the features of templates for project generation. 
    ShowFilesAfterGeneration=%{PROJECTDIR}/src/%{APPNAMELC}.cpp
    Category=KDE/Examples
    

    The name and comment can be translated, as they are in all .desktop files, by appending locale-specific identifier to the keys. The other two entries are read by KDevelop and are used mainly for user convenience. If a ShowFileAfterGeneration key entry is present, the specified file is opened after the project is created. The Category serves to better divide templates in a tree view for selection. It can contain any number of levels, separated by slashes, but it is recommended to always use two levers for consistency.

    Class Templates

    Documentation Templates