Bear is a tool that generates a compilation database for clang tooling.

The JSON compilation database is used in the clang project to provide information on how a single compilation unit is processed. With this, it is easy to re-run the compilation with alternate programs.

Some build systems natively support the generation of a JSON compilation database. For projects that do not use such a build tool, Bear generates the JSON file during the build process.

Bear is packaged for many distributions. Check out your package manager. Or build it from source.

After installation, use Bear like this:

bear -- <your-build-command>

The output file, compile_commands.json, is saved in the current directory.

For more options, check the man page or pass the --help parameter. Note that if you want to pass parameters to Bear, pass those before the -- sign, everything after that will be the build command.

Please be aware that some package managers still ship our old 2.4.x release. In that case, please omit the extra -- sign or consult your local documentation.

For more, read the man pages or wiki of the project, which talks about limitations, known issues and platform-specific usage.

Before you open a new problem report, please look at the wiki if your problem is a known one with a documented workaround. It's also helpful to look at older (maybe closed) issues before you open a new one.

If you decide to report a problem, try to give as much context as possible to help me reproduce the error you see. If you have a question about usage, please don't be shy, ask your question in an issue or in chat.

If you found a bug, but also found a fix for it, please share it with me and open a pull request.

Please follow the contribution guide when you do these.

Thanks to JetBrains for donating product licenses to help develop Bear