Show HN: Anyone interested in a tool helps to explore C++ ASTs
ACAV is an interactive tool designed for visualizing Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) in C, C++, and Objective-C. It allows users to explore real codebases by inspecting ASTs and navigating between source code and AST nodes. The tool is particularly useful for students, researchers, and developers working with Clang-based tools, although it is limited to read-only exploration of ASTs.
- ▪ACAV is built with Clang and Qt and requires a JSON compilation database to function.
- ▪The tool features a three-program architecture that includes an interactive GUI application and background processing.
- ▪ACAV is intended for real codebases and maintains responsiveness through AST caching.
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Record
| Original publisher | Github |
| Canonical URL | https://uvic-aurora.github.io/acav-manual/index.html |
| Publication time | Thu, 21 May 2026 19:53:51 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-21T20:01:35.710Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-21T20:01:35.710Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | gYJd6xkRzWHx |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
ACAV (Aurora Clang AST Viewer) is an interactive Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) visualization tool for C, C++, and Objective-C, built with Clang and Qt. Given a JSON compilation database such as compile_commands.json, ACAV lets you open a real project, inspect the AST for a translation unit, and move directly between source code and AST nodes. Screenshot: ACAV displaying the file explorer, source-code panel, AST tree view, declaration-context panels, and log panel. Project Links Project codebase Project introduction page Online manual At a Glance With a valid compilation database, ACAV lets you: inspect the AST for a translation unit in a navigable tree, move in both directions between source locations and AST nodes, view declaration context while exploring program structure, search both…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Github.
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