# Parsing a string containing code

This example shows how to setup pygccxml to parse a string containing c++ code, and how to access the declaration tree. Often, pygccxml is used to parse files containing code, but there may be reasons to parse a string (for example for debugging purposes).

The following code will show you how to create a configuration for the xml generator (an external tool, either castxml or gccxml), and how to parse the string containing the c++ code:

    from pygccxml import utils
    from pygccxml import declarations
    from pygccxml import parser

    # Find the location of the xml generator (castxml or gccxml)
    generator_path, generator_name = utils.find_xml_generator()

    # Configure the xml generator
    xml_generator_config = parser.xml_generator_configuration_t(
        xml_generator_path=generator_path,
        xml_generator=generator_name)

    # Write a string containing some c++ code
    code = """
        class MyClass {
            int a;
        };
    """

    # Parse the code
    decls = parser.parse_string(code, xml_generator_config)

    # Get access to the global namespace
    global_ns = declarations.get_global_namespace(decls)