cpp

Scans C/C++ source files for #include directives and adds header file dependencies to the build graph.

Native: No (may invoke gcc, pkg-config).

Auto-detects: Projects with .c, .cc, .cpp, .cxx, .h, .hh, .hpp, or .hxx files.

Features

• Recursive header scanning (follows includes in header files)
• Queries compiler for system include paths (only tracks project-local headers)
• Handles both #include "file" (relative to source) and #include <file> (searches include paths)
• Supports native regex scanning and compiler-based scanning (gcc -MM)
• Uses the dependency cache for incremental builds

System header detection

The cpp analyzer queries the compiler for its include search paths using gcc -E -Wp,-v -xc /dev/null. This allows it to properly identify which headers are system headers vs project-local headers. Only headers within the project directory are tracked as dependencies.

Configuration

[analyzer.cpp]
include_scanner       = "native"          # or "compiler" for gcc -MM
include_paths         = ["include", "src"]
pkg_config            = ["gtk+-3.0", "libcurl"]
include_path_commands = ["gcc -print-file-name=plugin"]
src_exclude_dirs      = ["/kernel/", "/vendor/"]
cc                    = "gcc"
cxx                   = "g++"
cflags                = ["-I/usr/local/include"]
cxxflags              = ["-std=c++17"]

include_path_commands

Shell commands whose stdout (trimmed) is added to the include search paths. Useful for compiler-specific include directories:

[analyzer.cpp]
include_path_commands = [
    "gcc -print-file-name=plugin",  # GCC plugin development headers
    "llvm-config --includedir",     # LLVM headers
]

pkg_config integration

Runs pkg-config --cflags-only-I for each package and adds the resulting include paths to the search path. Useful when your code includes headers from system libraries:

[analyzer.cpp]
pkg_config = ["gtk+-3.0", "glib-2.0"]

This automatically finds headers like <gtk/gtk.h> and <glib.h> without manually specifying their include paths.

See also

• icpp — native (no-subprocess) C/C++ dependency analyzer