You can use cpp. As for "capture groups", you can use lex. I wrote a "code generator" shell script to produce .l files and another script that compiles .l fil

You can use cpp. As for "capture groups", you can use lex. I wrote a "code generator" shell script to produce .l files and another script that compiles .l files to one-off utilities. There is perhaps more coherence to the whole thing than you are aware of. Whether "Linux distros" or "OSX" have maintained that coherency I do not know.