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C++ API

The C++ reference documents every namespace, class, function, data member, signal and file of the simulator, generated from the comments in the source code each time this site is built. It is split into four parts:

Part Contents
Library API The public interface of the two libraries that other programs can link: core, the simulation engine and every encoder, with no Qt dependency, and io, the profiles, transports and runner built on Qt's non-GUI modules.
Library internals The implementation files and private headers of both libraries, with the helpers local to them. Not part of the library interface.
Applications The desktop application (nmeasim::app) and the nmeasim command-line tool.
Test suite The test files, with their test cases, fixtures and helpers.

The architecture overview explains how the parts fit together, and the Library API page names good starting points.

Library CMake target Namespace Depends on
core nmeasim::core nmeasim::core C++20 standard library, GeographicLib, pugixml
io nmeasim::io nmeasim::io core, Qt Core, Network, SerialPort, WebSockets

The libraries are linked statically into the desktop application and the command-line tool. Their interfaces follow Semantic Versioning only in so far as the applications do; programs that embed them should pin a release.

Reading the reference

  • Every page links to the declaration on GitHub at the commit the site was built from, and its Edit button opens the source file whose comments produced it.
  • Units are part of the names: speed_kn, depth_m, bearing_deg, period_ms. Angles are degrees true unless marked magnetic, times are UTC.
  • Unless a page says otherwise, an object is used by one thread at a time, and a QObject is used only from the thread that created it.

The rules the comments follow are in Documentation comments, and the way the reference is generated in ADR 0017.

Building the reference locally

doxygen --version                  # 1.18 or later; CI uses 1.18.0
pip install -r docs/requirements.txt
mkdocs serve                       # or: mkdocs build --strict

The MkDocs hook in tools/doxygen/mkdocs_hook.py runs Doxygen with tools/doxygen/Doxyfile, fails on missing or malformed documentation comments, and generates the pages with tools/doxygen/cppreference.py. Without Doxygen, the build replaces the reference with placeholder pages. To look at the generated Markdown directly:

doxygen tools/doxygen/Doxyfile
python3 tools/doxygen/cppreference.py build/doxygen/xml build/reference