cr.h

A single file header-only live reload solution for C, written in C++:

• simple public API, 3 functions to use only (and another to export);
• works and tested on Linux, MacOSX and Windows;
• automatic crash protection;
• automatic static state transfer;
• based on dynamic reloadable binary (.so/.dylib/.dll);
• support multiple plugins;
• MIT licensed;

NOTE: The only file that matters in this repository is cr.h.

This file contains the documentation in markdown, the license, the implementation and the public api. All other files in this repository are supporting files and can be safely ignored.

Installation

Run:

$ npm i cr.cxx

And then include cr.h as follows:

// main.cxx
#include "node_modules/cr.cxx/cr.h"

int main() { /* ... */ }

And then compile with clang++ or g++ as usual.

$ clang++ main.cxx  # or, use g++
$ g++     main.cxx

You may also use a simpler approach:

// main.cxx
#include <cr.h>

int main() { /* ... */ }

If you add the path node_modules/cr.cxx to your compiler's include paths.

$ clang++ -I./node_modules/cr.cxx main.cxx  # or, use g++
$ g++     -I./node_modules/cr.cxx main.cxx

Example

A (thin) host application executable will make use of cr to manage live-reloading of the real application in the form of dynamic loadable binary, a host would be something like:

#define CR_HOST // required in the host only and before including cr.h
#include "cr.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    // the host application should initalize a plugin with a context, a plugin
    cr_plugin ctx;

    // the full path to the live-reloadable application
    cr_plugin_open(ctx, "c:/path/to/build/game.dll");

    // call the update function at any frequency matters to you, this will give
    // the real application a chance to run
    while (!cr_plugin_update(ctx)) {
        // do anything you need to do on host side (ie. windowing and input stuff?)
    }

    // at the end do not forget to cleanup the plugin context
    cr_plugin_close(ctx);
    return 0;
}

While the guest (real application), would be like:

CR_EXPORT int cr_main(struct cr_plugin *ctx, enum cr_op operation) {
    assert(ctx);
    switch (operation) {
        case CR_LOAD:   return on_load(...); // loading back from a reload
        case CR_UNLOAD: return on_unload(...); // preparing to a new reload
        case CR_CLOSE: ...; // the plugin will close and not reload anymore
    }
    // CR_STEP
    return on_update(...);
}

Changelog

2025-03-30

• Removed FIPS and moved to pure CMake.
• As a result, cr.h has been moved into the cr directory.
• Using cr as a cmake dependency (target_link_libraries(<my_target> PRIVATE cr)) will expose the cr.h header file to the target.

2020-04-19

• Added a failure CR_INITIAL_FAILURE. If the initial plugin crashes, the host must determine the next path, and we will not reload the broken plugin.

2020-01-09

• Deprecated cr_plugin_load in favor to cr_plugin_open for consistency with cr_plugin_close. See issue #49.
• Minor documentation improvements.

2018-11-17

• Support to OSX finished, thanks to MESH Consultants Inc.
• Added a new possible failure CR_BAD_IMAGE in case the binary file is stil not ready even if its timestamp changed. This could happen if generating the file (compiler or copying) was slow.
• Windows: Fix issue with too long paths causing the PDB patch process to fail, causing the reload process to fail.
• Possible breaking change: Fix rollback flow. Before, during a rollback (for any reason) two versions were decremented one-shot so that the in following load, the version would bump again getting us effectively on the previous version, but in some cases not related to crashes this wasn't completely valid (see CR_BAD_IMAGE). Now the version is decremented one time in the crash handler and then another time during the rollback and then be bumped again. A rollback due an incomplete image will not incorrectly rollback two versions, it will continue at the same version retrying the load until the image is valid (copy or compiler finished writing to it). This may impact current uses of cr if the version info is used during CR_UNLOAD as it will now be a different value.

Samples

Two simple samples can be found in the samples directory.

The first is one is a simple console application that demonstrate some basic static states working between instances and basic crash handling tests. Print to output is used to show what is happening.

The second one demonstrates how to live-reload an opengl application using Dear ImGui. Some state lives in the host side while most of the code is in the guest side.

Samples and Tests

To build, use the given CMake preset:

$ cmake --preset Default .
$ cmake --build build

To run the tests, you can use the vscode Launch Tests option (Windows only, currently), or:

$ cd build/tests
$ ctest build

To use the basic sample, you can use the vscode Launch basic sample option (Windows only, currently), or:

$ cd build/samples/basic
$ ./basic_host # or basic_host_b

# Edit basic_guest.c, or just:
$ touch basic_guest.c

# rebuild
$ cmake --build ../../

For the imgui sample, after building:

$ cd build/samples/imgui
$ ./imgui_host

# Edit imgui_guest.cpp, or just:
$ touch imgui_guest.cpp

# rebuild
$ cmake --build ../../

Documentation

int (*cr_main)(struct cr_plugin *ctx, enum cr_op operation)

This is the function pointer to the dynamic loadable binary entry point function.

Arguments

• ctx pointer to a context that will be passed from host to the guest containing valuable information about the current loaded version, failure reason and user data. For more info see cr_plugin.
• operation which operation is being executed, see cr_op.

Return

• A negative value indicating an error, forcing a rollback to happen and failure being set to CR_USER. 0 or a positive value that will be passed to the host process.

bool cr_plugin_open(cr_plugin &ctx, const char *fullpath)

Loads and initialize the plugin.

Arguments

• ctx a context that will manage the plugin internal data and user data.
• fullpath full path with filename to the loadable binary for the plugin or NULL.

Return

• true in case of success, false otherwise.

void cr_set_temporary_path(cr_plugin& ctx, const std::string &path)

Sets temporary path to which temporary copies of plugin will be placed. Should be called immediately after cr_plugin_open(). If temporary path is not set, temporary copies of the file will be copied to the same directory where the original file is located.

Arguments

• ctx a context that will manage the plugin internal data and user data.
• path a full path to an existing directory which will be used for storing temporary plugin copies.

int cr_plugin_update(cr_plugin &ctx, bool reloadCheck = true)

This function will call the plugin cr_main function. It should be called as frequently as the core logic/application needs.

Arguments

• ctx the current plugin context data.
• reloadCheck optional: do a disk check (stat()) to see if the dynamic library needs a reload.

Return

• -1 if a failure happened during an update;
• -2 if a failure happened during a load or unload;
• anything else is returned directly from the plugin cr_main.

void cr_plugin_close(cr_plugin &ctx)

Cleanup internal states once the plugin is not required anymore.

Arguments

• ctx the current plugin context data.

cr_op

Enum indicating the kind of step that is being executed by the host:

• CR_LOAD A load caused by reload is being executed, can be used to restore any saved internal state.
• CR_STEP An application update, this is the normal and most frequent operation;
• CR_UNLOAD An unload for reloading the plugin will be executed, giving the application one chance to store any required data;
• CR_CLOSE Used when closing the plugin, This works like CR_UNLOAD but no CR_LOAD should be expected afterwards;

cr_plugin

The plugin instance context struct.

• p opaque pointer for internal cr data;
• userdata may be used by the user to pass information between reloads;
• version incremetal number for each succeded reload, starting at 1 for the first load. The version will change during a crash handling process;
• failure used by the crash protection system, will hold the last failure error code that caused a rollback. See cr_failure for more info on possible values;

cr_failure

If a crash in the loadable binary happens, the crash handler will indicate the reason of the crash with one of these:

• CR_NONE No error;
• CR_SEGFAULT Segmentation fault. SIGSEGV on Linux/OSX or EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION on Windows;
• CR_ILLEGAL In case of illegal instruction. SIGILL on Linux/OSX or EXCEPTION_ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION on Windows;
• CR_ABORT Abort, SIGBRT on Linux/OSX, not used on Windows;
• CR_MISALIGN Bus error, SIGBUS on Linux/OSX or EXCEPTION_DATATYPE_MISALIGNMENT on Windows;
• CR_BOUNDS Is EXCEPTION_ARRAY_BOUNDS_EXCEEDED, Windows only;
• CR_STACKOVERFLOW Is EXCEPTION_STACK_OVERFLOW, Windows only;
• CR_STATE_INVALIDATED Static CR_STATE management safety failure;
• CR_BAD_IMAGE The plugin is not a valid image (i.e. the compiler may still writing it);
• CR_OTHER Other signal, Linux only;
• CR_USER User error (for negative values returned from cr_main);

CR_HOST define

This define should be used before including the cr.h in the host, if CR_HOST is not defined, cr.h will work as a public API header file to be used in the guest implementation.

Optionally CR_HOST may also be defined to one of the following values as a way to configure the safety operation mode for automatic static state management (CR_STATE):

• CR_SAFEST Will validate address and size of the state data sections during reloads, if anything changes the load will rollback;
• CR_SAFE Will validate only the size of the state section, this mean that the address of the statics may change (and it is best to avoid holding any pointer to static stuff);
• CR_UNSAFE Will validate nothing but that the size of section fits, may not be necessarelly exact (growing is acceptable but shrinking isn't), this is the default behavior;
• CR_DISABLE Completely disable automatic static state management;

CR_STATE macro

Used to tag a global or local static variable to be saved and restored during a reload.

Usage

static bool CR_STATE bInitialized = false;

Overridable macros

You can define these macros before including cr.h in host (CR_HOST) to customize cr.h memory allocations and other behaviours:

• CR_MAIN_FUNC: changes 'cr_main' symbol to user-defined function name. default: #define CR_MAIN_FUNC "cr_main"
• CR_ASSERT: override assert. default: #define CA_ASSERT(e) assert(e)
• CR_REALLOC: override libc's realloc. default: #define CR_REALLOC(ptr, size) ::realloc(ptr, size)
• CR_MALLOC: override libc's malloc. default: #define CR_MALLOC(size) ::malloc(size)
• CR_FREE: override libc's free. default: #define CR_FREE(ptr) ::free(ptr)
• CR_DEBUG: outputs debug messages in CR_ERROR, CR_LOG and CR_TRACE
• CR_ERROR: logs debug messages to stderr. default (CR_DEBUG only): #define CR_ERROR(...) fprintf(stderr, VA_ARGS)
• CR_LOG: logs debug messages. default (CR_DEBUG only): #define CR_LOG(...) fprintf(stdout, VA_ARGS)
• CR_TRACE: prints function calls. default (CR_DEBUG only): #define CR_TRACE(...) fprintf(stdout, "CR_TRACE: %s\n", FUNCTION)

FAQ / Troubleshooting

Q: Why?

A: Read about why I made this here.

Q: My application asserts/crash when freeing heap data allocated inside the dll, what is happening?

A: Make sure both your application host and your dll are using the dynamic run-time (/MD or /MDd) as any data allocated in the heap must be freed with the same allocator instance, by sharing the run-time between guest and host you will guarantee the same allocator is being used.

Q: Can we load multiple plugins at the same time?

A: Yes. This should work without issues on Windows. On Linux and OSX there may be issues with crash handling

Q: You said this wouldn't lock my PDB, but it still locks! Why?

If you had to load the dll before cr for any reason, Visual Studio may still hold a lock to the PDB. You may be having this issue and the solution is here.

Q: Hot-reload is not working at all, what I'm doing wrong?

First, be sure that your build system is not interfering by somewhat still linking to your shared library. There are so many things that can go wrong and you need to be sure only cr will deal with your shared library. On linux, for more info on how to find what is happening, check this issue.

Q: How much can I change things in the plugin without risking breaking everything?

cr is C reloader and dealing with C it assume simple things will mostly work.

The problem is how the linker will decide do rearrange things accordingly the amount of changes you do in the code. For incremental and localized changes I never had any issues, in general I hardly had any issues at all by writing normal C code. Now, when things start to become more complex and bordering C++, it becomes riskier. If you need do complex things, I suggest checking RCCPP and reading this PDF and my original blog post about cr here.

With all these information you'll be able to decide which is better to your use case.

cr Sponsors

MESH Consultants Inc.

For sponsoring the port of cr to the MacOSX.

Contributors

Danny Grein

Rokas Kupstys

Noah Rinehart

Niklas Lundberg

Sepehr Taghdisian

Robert Gabriel Jakabosky

@pixelherodev

Alexander

Vikram Saran

Contributing

We welcome ALL contributions, there is no minor things to contribute with, even one letter typo fixes are welcome.

The only things we require is to test thoroughly, maintain code style and keeping documentation up-to-date.

Also, accepting and agreeing to release any contribution under the same license.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Danny Angelo Carminati Grein

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.