CWhy

("See why")

Explains and suggests fixes for compiler error messages for a wide range of programming languages, including C, C++, C#, Go, Java, LaTeX, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Swift, and TypeScript.

Installation

[!NOTE]

CWhy needs to be connected to an OpenAI account. Your account will need to have a positive balance for this to work (check your OpenAI balance). Get an OpenAI key here.

You may need to purchase $0.50 - $1 in OpenAI credits depending on when your API account was created.

Once you have an API key, set it as an environment variable called OPENAI_API_KEY.
# On Linux/MacOS:
export OPENAI_API_KEY=<your-api-key>

# On Windows:
$env:OPENAI_API_KEY=<your-api-key>

python3 -m pip install cwhy

Usage

Linux/MacOS

The wrapper mode is now default and mandatory, with a slightly modified interface. CWhy can either be used standalone by passing the full command after the triple dashes ---, or as part of a build tool by creating a short executable script wrapping the compiler command.

# Invoking the compiler directly.
cwhy --- g++ mycode.cpp

# Using CWhy with Java and an increased timeout.
cwhy --timeout 180 --- javac MyCode.java

# Invoking with GNU Make, using GPT-3.5.
CXX=`cwhy --llm=gpt-3.5-turbo --wrapper --- c++` make

# Invoking with CMake, using GPT-4 and clang++.
CWHY_DISABLE=1 cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=`cwhy --llm=gpt-4 --wrapper --- clang++` ...

Configuration tools such as CMake or Autoconf will occasionally invoke the compiler to check for features, which will fail and invoke CWhy unnecessarily if not available on the machine. To circumvent this, CWHY_DISABLE can be set in the environment to disable CWhy at configuration time.

CWHY_DISABLE='ON' cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=`cwhy --wrapper --- c++` ...

Windows

Windows support has been tested using Powershell. On the command line, using Ninja is required as MSBuild / .vcxproj will override any option set.

$env:CWHY_DISABLE='ON'
cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER="$(python -m cwhy --wrapper --- cl)"  ...
$env:CWHY_DISABLE=''

Continuous Integration

CI using GitHub actions is straightforward on both Linux and MacOs. On Windows, Ninja is not installed by default on the image, and cl is not bound to the compiler. We recommend using choco install ninja and ilammy/msvc-dev-cmd to work around these two issues.

An example action YAML file covering all three platforms can be found here.

Important: Set the CWHY_DISABLE environment variable at configure-time to save money and cycles.

Options

These options can be displayed with cwhy --help.

--llm: pick a specific OpenAI LLM. CWhy has been tested with gpt-3.5-turbo and gpt-4.
--timeout: pick a different timeout than the default for API calls.
--show-prompt (debug): print prompts before calling the API.

Examples

C++

This highlighted example is missing-hash.cpp, which is one of the first cases we experimented with.

<details> <summary> Expand to see the original (pretty obscure) error message: </summary>

% clang++ --std=c++20 -c missing-hash.cpp
missing-hash.cpp:13:45: error: call to implicitly-deleted default constructor of 'std::unordered_set<std::pair<int, int>>'
    std::unordered_set<std::pair<int, int>> visited;
                                            ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/unordered_set.h:135:7: note: explicitly defaulted function was implicitly deleted here
      unordered_set() = default;
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/unordered_set.h:100:18: note: default constructor of 'unordered_set<std::pair<int, int>>' is implicitly deleted because field '_M_h' has a deleted default constructor
      _Hashtable _M_h;
                 ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable.h:451:7: note: explicitly defaulted function was implicitly deleted here
      _Hashtable() = default;
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable.h:174:7: note: default constructor of '_Hashtable<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>, std::allocator<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Identity, std::equal_to<std::pair<int, int>>, std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Mod_range_hashing, std::__detail::_Default_ranged_hash, std::__detail::_Prime_rehash_policy, std::__detail::_Hashtable_traits<true, true, true>>' is implicitly deleted because base class '__detail::_Hashtable_base<pair<int, int>, pair<int, int>, _Identity, equal_to<pair<int, int>>, hash<pair<int, int>>, _Mod_range_hashing, _Default_ranged_hash, _Hashtable_traits<true, true, true>>' has a deleted default constructor
    : public __detail::_Hashtable_base<_Key, _Value, _ExtractKey, _Equal,
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1791:5: note: explicitly defaulted function was implicitly deleted here
    _Hashtable_base() = default;
    ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1726:5: note: default constructor of '_Hashtable_base<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>, std::__detail::_Identity, std::equal_to<std::pair<int, int>>, std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Mod_range_hashing, std::__detail::_Default_ranged_hash, std::__detail::_Hashtable_traits<true, true, true>>' is implicitly deleted because base class '_Hash_code_base<pair<int, int>, pair<int, int>, _Identity, hash<pair<int, int>>, _Mod_range_hashing, _Default_ranged_hash, _Hashtable_traits<true, true, true>::__hash_cached::value>' has a deleted default constructor
  : public _Hash_code_base<_Key, _Value, _ExtractKey, _H1, _H2, _Hash,
    ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1368:7: note: explicitly defaulted function was implicitly deleted here
      _Hash_code_base() = default;
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1344:7: note: default constructor of '_Hash_code_base<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>, std::__detail::_Identity, std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Mod_range_hashing, std::__detail::_Default_ranged_hash, true>' is implicitly deleted because base class '_Hashtable_ebo_helper<1, hash<pair<int, int>>>' has a deleted default constructor
      private _Hashtable_ebo_helper<1, _H1>,
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1112:7: note: explicitly defaulted function was implicitly deleted here
      _Hashtable_ebo_helper() = default;
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1110:7: note: default constructor of '_Hashtable_ebo_helper<1, std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>, true>' is implicitly deleted because base class 'std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>' has a deleted default constructor
    : private _Tp
      ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/functional_hash.h:101:19: note: default constructor of 'hash<std::pair<int, int>>' is implicitly deleted because base class '__hash_enum<pair<int, int>>' has no default constructor
    struct hash : __hash_enum<_Tp>
                  ^
In file included from missing-hash.cpp:1:
In file included from /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/functional:61:
In file included from /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/unordered_map:46:
In file included from /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable.h:35:
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable_policy.h:1377:2: error: static assertion failed due to requirement 'std::__is_invocable<const std::hash<std::pair<int, int>> &, const std::pair<int, int> &>{}': hash function must be invocable with an argument of key type
        static_assert(__is_invocable<const _H1&, const _Key&>{},
        ^             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable.h:1675:29: note: in instantiation of member function 'std::__detail::_Hash_code_base<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>, std::__detail::_Identity, std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Mod_range_hashing, std::__detail::_Default_ranged_hash, true>::_M_hash_code' requested here
        __hash_code __code = this->_M_hash_code(__k);
                                   ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/hashtable.h:788:11: note: in instantiation of function template specialization 'std::_Hashtable<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>, std::allocator<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Identity, std::equal_to<std::pair<int, int>>, std::hash<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Mod_range_hashing, std::__detail::_Default_ranged_hash, std::__detail::_Prime_rehash_policy, std::__detail::_Hashtable_traits<true, true, true>>::_M_emplace<const std::pair<int, int> &>' requested here
        { return _M_emplace(__unique_keys(), std::forward<_Args>(__args)...); }
                 ^
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/../../../../include/c++/10/bits/unordered_set.h:377:16: note: in instantiation of function template specialization 'std::_Hashtable<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>, std::allocator<std::pair<int, int>>, std::__detail::_Identity, std::equal

Cwhy

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