ecto is a dynamically configurable Directed Acyclic processing Graph (DAG) framework. Users may write reusable ecto::modules which become the nodes in the DAG, or ecto::plasm. Modules may be written in c++ as boost::python extensions, or in pure python, and python is used for the declaration of the DAG.

• Simple processing node interface for building your own modules.

#include <ecto/ecto.hpp>
using ecto::tendrils;
struct MyModule
{
  static void declare_params(tendrils& params);
  static void declare_io(const tendrils& params, tendrils& in, tendrils& out);
  void configure(tendrils& params);
  int process(const tendrils& in, tendrils& out);
  void destroy();
};

• Inputs, outputs and parameters are templated, and type erasing, giving typesafety and the ability to use your own data types..

void MyModule::declare_params(tendrils& params)
{
    params.declare<Foo>("foo","Foo is for spam. This is a doc string", 
                        Foo(3.14));
    params.declare<std::string>("str", "str is a standard string.",
                                "default");
}

• Python is used as the plugin architecture of ecto. Exposing your modules to python is dead simple. The use of boost::python means that the python bindings for your data types are an optional powerful tool.

BOOST_PYTHON_MODULE(hello_ecto)
{
  ecto::wrap<Printer>("Printer", "Prints a string input to standard output.");
  ecto::wrap<Reader>("Reader", "Reads input from standard input.");
}

• ecto forces your modules to be somewhat self documenting, and allows full introspection from python and c++, including type names, docstrings and variable names.
• The plasm (DAG) executes in compiled code.
• Python is used for declaring the processing graph, or as its known to ecto, the plasm.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import ecto #ecto core library
import hello_ecto #a user library, that has a few ecto modules

#instantiate a plasm, our DAG structure
plasm = ecto.Plasm()

#instantiate processing modules
r = hello_ecto.Reader()

#notice the keyword args, these get mapped
#as parameters
p = hello_ecto.Printer(str="default")

#connect outputs to inputs
plasm.connect(r, "output", p, "str")

#an execution loop
print "Enter input, q to quit"
while r.outputs.output != 'q':
  plasm.execute() #this executes the graph  

• The ecto::plasm is easily inspected using graphviz tools.

• Each module is self documenting by design.