Coogle

Coogle is a lightweight C++ command-line tool for searching C/C++ functions based on their type signatures — inspired by Hoogle from the Haskell ecosystem.

🌟 Why Use It?

In large C/C++ codebases — especially legacy systems or unfamiliar third-party libraries — it’s often difficult to locate the right function just by grepping filenames or browsing header files. Coogle helps by allowing you to search functions using partial or full type signatures.

It enables you to:

• 🔍 Quickly locate functions that match a specific input/output structure
• 🧭 Navigate unfamiliar or legacy codebases with ease
• 📚 Explore large libraries without reading every header manually
• 🧠 Discover reusable APIs and learn from existing patterns
• ⚙️ Integrate function-based search into your editor or workflow

📦 Dependencies

• libclang
• GoogleTest (optional, for unit testing)

🚀 Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/TheCloudlet/Coogle
cd coogle

2. Install LLVM (macOS example)

brew install llvm

3. Configure environment variables (macOS with Homebrew LLVM)

Add these to your shell config (~/.zshrc, ~/.bash_profile, etc.):

export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin:$PATH"
export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include"
export CPATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include/c++/v1"

Then apply the settings:

source ~/.zshrc  # or source ~/.bash_profile

⚠️ If you see errors like fatal error: 'string' file not found, make sure your environment is properly configured.

4. Build the project

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..
make

This will generate the coogle executable inside the build/ directory.

🛠 Usage

./build/coogle path/to/source.cpp "type signatures"

Sigature is like

int(char *, int)

...to match any function returning int and taking two arguments. The first is char *, and the second is int

Example:

./build/coogle ./test/input/example "int(int, int)"

🧩 Implementation Notes

• Uses Clang’s C API (libclang) to parse translation units
• Detects system include paths automatically via clang -E -v
• Implements a simple visitor pattern to walk the AST and extract function signatures
• Enables strict argument matching
• Write tests to ensure code quality
• Supports wildcard-style queries (e.g. int(char *, *))
• Supports recursive search across multiple files

📜 License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.