anyone know of an existing program to convert c++ source into an AST containg all info (i think gcc rtl oesn't do this?) i've seen some reference to generating an AST on the visual studio development blog.. aparently they need such a thing as a component for intellisense.

Does this interest you: http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/ast-optimizer.html

yup . WIP. i see my original post title was confusing the interest comes from [1] having done a lot of low level work (e.g intrinsics & multi-threading on consoles) knowing that being able to submit AST transformations would be hugely usefull and.. [2] knowing the IDE we're given needs an ast.. seems like an open source ast tool would make the world a better place researching/recalling further, is there a political reason it doesn't yet exist: i.e. "if gcc made an ast, poeple could use it to circumvent the gpl and make proprietary compilers".. can't remember where i read that.