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<h1>Tutorial for building tools using LibTooling and LibASTMatchers</h1>
<p>This document is intended to show how to build a useful source-to-source
translation tool based on Clang's <a href="LibTooling.html">LibTooling</a>. It
is explicitly aimed at people who are new to Clang, so all you should need is a
working knowledge of C++ and the command line.</p>
<p>In order to work on the compiler, you need some basic knowledge of the
abstract syntax tree (AST). To this end, the reader is incouraged to skim the
<a href="http://clang.llvm.org/docs/IntroductionToTheClangAST.html">Introduction
to the Clang AST</a></p>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2 id="obtainingclang">Step 0: Obtaining Clang</h2>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
As Clang is part of the LLVM project, you'll need to download LLVM's source code
first. Both Clang and LLVM are maintained as Subversion repositories, but we'll
be accessing them through the git mirror. For further information, see the
<a href="http://llvm.org/docs/GettingStarted.html">getting started guide</a>.
<pre class="doc_code">
mkdir ~/clang-llvm && cd ~/clang-llvm
git clone http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git
cd llvm/tools
git clone http://llvm.org/git/clang.git
</pre>
Next you need to obtain the CMake build system and Ninja build tool. You may
already have CMake installed, but current binary versions of CMake aren't built
with Ninja support.
<pre class="doc_code">
cd ~/clang-llvm
git clone https://github.com/martine/ninja.git
cd ninja
git checkout release
./bootstrap.py
sudo cp ninja /usr/bin/
cd ~/clang-llvm
git clone git://cmake.org/stage/cmake.git
cd cmake
git checkout next
./bootstrap
make
sudo make install
</pre>
<p>Okay. Now we'll build Clang!</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
cd ~/clang-llvm
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G Ninja ../llvm -DLLVM_BUILD_TESTS=ON # Enable tests; default is off.
ninja
ninja check # Test LLVM only.
ninja clang-test # Test Clang only.
ninja install
</pre>
<p>And we're live.</p>
<p>All of the tests should pass, though there is a (very) small chance that you
can catch LLVM and Clang out of sync. Running <tt>'git svn rebase'</tt> in both
the llvm and clang directories should fix any problems.</p>
<p>Finally, we want to set Clang as its own compiler.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
cd ~/clang-llvm/build
ccmake ../llvm
</pre>
<p>The second command will bring up a GUI for configuring Clang. You need to set
the entry for <tt>CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER</tt>. Press <tt>'t'</tt> to turn on
advanced mode. Scroll down to <tt>CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER</tt>, and set it to
<tt>/usr/bin/clang++</tt>, or wherever you installed it. Press <tt>'c'</tt> to
configure, then <tt>'g'</tt> to generate CMake's files.</p>
<p>Finally, run ninja one last time, and you're done.</p>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2 id="clangtool">Step 1: Create a ClangTool</h2>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<p>Now that we have enough background knowledge, it's time to create the
simplest productive ClangTool in existence: a syntax checker. While this already
exists as <tt>clang-check</tt>, it's important to understand what's going
on.</p>
<p>First, we'll need to create a new directory for our tool and tell CMake that
it exists. As this is not going to be a core clang tool, it will live in the
<tt>tools/extra</tt> repository.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
cd ~/clang-llvm/llvm/tools/clang
mkdir tools/extra/loop-convert
echo 'add_subdirectory(loop-convert)' >> tools/extra/CMakeLists.txt
vim tools/extra/loop-convert/CMakeLists.txt
</pre>
CMakeLists.txt should have the following contents:
<pre class="doc_code">
set(LLVM_LINK_COMPONENTS support)
set(LLVM_USED_LIBS clangTooling clangBasic clangAST)
add_clang_executable(loop-convert
LoopConvert.cpp
)
target_link_libraries(loop-convert
clangTooling
clangBasic
clangASTMatchers
)
</pre>
<p>With that done, Ninja will be able to compile our tool. Let's give it
something to compile! Put the following into
<tt>tools/extra/loop-convert/LoopConvert.cpp</tt>. A detailed explanation of why
the different parts are needed can be found in the
<a href="LibTooling.html">LibTooling documentation</a>.</p>
<pre>
// Declares clang::SyntaxOnlyAction.
#include "clang/Frontend/FrontendActions.h"
#include "clang/Tooling/CommonOptionsParser.h"
#include "clang/Tooling/Tooling.h"
// Declares llvm::cl::extrahelp.
#include "llvm/Support/CommandLine.h"
using namespace clang::tooling;
using namespace llvm;
// CommonOptionsParser declares HelpMessage with a description of the common
// command-line options related to the compilation database and input files.
// It's nice to have this help message in all tools.
static cl::extrahelp CommonHelp(CommonOptionsParser::HelpMessage);
// A help message for this specific tool can be added afterwards.
static cl::extrahelp MoreHelp("\nMore help text...");
int main(int argc, const char **argv) {
CommonOptionsParser OptionsParser(argc, argv);
ClangTool Tool(OptionsParser.GetCompilations(),
OptionsParser.GetSourcePathList());
return Tool.run(newFrontendActionFactory&lt;clang::SyntaxOnlyAction&gt;());
}
</pre>
<p>And that's it! You can compile our new tool by running ninja from the
<tt>build</tt> directory.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
cd ~/clang-llvm/build
ninja
</pre>
<p>You should now be able to run the syntax checker, which is located in
<tt>~/clang-llvm/build/bin</tt>, on any source file. Try it!</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
cat "void main() {}" > test.cpp
bin/loop-convert test.cpp --
</pre>
<p>Note the two dashes after we specify the source file. The additional options
for the compiler are passed after the dashes rather than loading them from a
compilation database - there just aren't any options needed right now.</p>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2 id="learnastmatchers">Intermezzo: Learn AST matcher basics</h2>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<p>Clang recently introduced the <a href=LibASTMatchers.html>ASTMatcher
library</a> to provide a simple, powerful, and concise way to describe specific
patterns in the AST. Implemented as a DSL powered by macros and templates (see
<a href="../doxygen/ASTMatchers_8h_source.html">ASTMatchers.h</a> if you're
curious), matchers offer the feel of algebraic data types common to functional
programming languages.</p>
<p>For example, suppose you wanted to examine only binary operators. There is a
matcher to do exactly that, conveniently named <tt>binaryOperator</tt>. I'll
give you one guess what this matcher does:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
binaryOperator(hasOperatorName("+"), hasLHS(integerLiteral(equals(0))))
</pre>
<p>Shockingly, it will match against addition expressions whose left hand side
is exactly the literal 0. It will not match against other forms of 0, such as
<tt>'\0'</tt> or <tt>NULL</tt>, but it will match against macros that expand to
0. The matcher will also not match against calls to the overloaded operator
<tt>'+'</tt>, as there is a separate <tt>operatorCallExpr</tt> matcher to handle
overloaded operators.</p>
<p>There are AST matchers to match all the different nodes of the AST, narrowing
matchers to only match AST nodes fulfilling specific criteria, and traversal
matchers to get from one kind of AST node to another. For a complete list of AST
matchers, take a look at the <a href="LibASTMatchersReference.html">AST Matcher
References</a></p>
<p>All matcher that are nouns describe entities in the AST and can be bound,
so that they can be referred to whenever a match is found. To do so, simply call
the method <tt>bind</tt> on these matchers, e.g.:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
variable(hasType(isInteger())).bind("intvar")
</pre>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2 id="usingastmatchers">Step 2: Using AST matchers</h2>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<p>Okay, on to using matchers for real. Let's start by defining a matcher which
will capture all <tt>for</tt> statements that define a new variable
initialized to zero. Let's start with matching all <tt>for</tt> loops:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
forStmt()
</pre>
<p>Next, we want to specify that a single variable is declared in the first
portion of the loop, so we can extend the matcher to</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
forStmt(hasLoopInit(declStmt(hasSingleDecl(varDecl()))))
</pre>
<p>Finally, we can add the condition that the variable is initialized to
zero.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
forStmt(hasLoopInit(declStmt(hasSingleDecl(varDecl(
hasInitializer(integerLiteral(equals(0))))))))
</pre>
</p>It is fairly easy to read and understand the matcher definition ("match
loops whose init portion declares a single variable which is initialized to the
integer literal 0"), but deciding that every piece is necessary is more
difficult. Note that this matcher will not match loops whose variables are
initialized to <tt>'\0'</tt>, <tt>0.0</tt>, <tt>NULL</tt>, or any form of zero
besides the integer 0.</p>
<p>The last step is giving the matcher a name and binding the <tt>ForStmt</tt>
as we will want to do something with it:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
StatementMatcher LoopMatcher =
forStmt(hasLoopInit(declStmt(hasSingleDecl(varDecl(
hasInitializer(integerLiteral(equals(0)))))))).bind("forLoop");
</pre>
<p>Once you have defined your matchers, you will need to add a little more
scaffolding in order to run them. Matchers are paired with a
<tt>MatchCallback</tt> and registered with a <tt>MatchFinder</tt> object, then
run from a <tt>ClangTool</tt>. More code!</p>
Add the following to <tt>LoopConvert.cpp</tt>:
<pre class="doc_code">
StatementMatcher LoopMatcher =
forStmt(hasLoopInit(declStmt(hasSingleDecl(varDecl(
hasInitializer(integerLiteral(equals(0)))))))).bind("forLoop");
class LoopPrinter : public MatchFinder::MatchCallback {
public :
virtual void run(const MatchFinder::MatchResult &Result) {
if (const ForStmt *FS = Result.Nodes.getNodeAs&lt;clang::ForStmt>("forLoop"))
FS->dump();
};
</pre>
And change <tt>main()</tt> to:
<pre class="doc_code">
int main(int argc, const char **argv) {
CommonOptionsParser OptionsParser(argc, argv);
ClangTool Tool(OptionsParser.GetCompilations(),
OptionsParser.GetSourcePathList());
LoopPrinter Printer;
MatchFinder Finder;
Finder.addMatcher(LoopMatcher, &Printer);
return Tool.run(newFrontendActionFactory(&Finder));
}
</pre>
<p>Now, you should be able to recompile and run the code to discover for loops.
Create a new file with a few examples, and test out our new handiwork:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
cd ~/clang-llvm/llvm/llvm_build/
ninja loop-convert
vim ~/test-files/simple-loops.cc
bin/loop-convert ~/test-files/simple-loops.cc
</pre>
<!-- FIXME: add example step-2a -->
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2 id="morematchers">Step 3.5: More Complicated Matchers</h2>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<p>Our simple matcher is capable of discovering for loops, but we would still
need to filter out many more ourselves. We can do a good portion of the
remaining work with some cleverly chosen matchers, but first we need to decide
exactly which properties we want to allow.</p>
<p>How can we characterize for loops over arrays which would be eligible for
translation to range-based syntax? Range based loops over arrays of size
<tt>N</tt> that:</p>
<ul>
<li>start at index <tt>0</tt></li>
<li>iterate consecutively</li>
<li>end at index <tt>N-1</tt></li>
</ul>
<p>We already check for (1), so all we need to add is a check to the loop's
condition to ensure that the loop's index variable is compared against
<tt>N</tt> and another check to ensure that the increment step just increments
this same variable. The matcher for (2) is straightforward: require a pre- or
post-increment of the same variable declared in the init portion.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, such a matcher is impossible to write. Matchers contain no
logic for comparing two arbitrary AST nodes and determining whether or not they
are equal, so the best we can do is matching more than we would like to allow,
and punting extra comparisons to the callback.</p>
<p>In any case, we can start building this sub-matcher. We can require that the
increment step be a unary increment like this:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasIncrement(unaryOperator(hasOperatorName("++")))
</pre>
<p>Specifying what is incremented introduces another quirk of Clang's AST:
Usages of variables are represented as <tt>DeclRefExpr</tt>'s ("declaration
reference expressions") because they are expressions which refer to variable
declarations. To find a <tt>unaryOperator</tt> that refers to a specific
declaration, we can simply add a second condition to it:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasIncrement(unaryOperator(
hasOperatorName("++"),
hasUnaryOperand(declRefExpr())))
</pre>
<p>Furthermore, we can restrict our matcher to only match if the incremented
variable is an integer:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasIncrement(unaryOperator(
hasOperatorName("++"),
hasUnaryOperand(declRefExpr(to(varDecl(hasType(isInteger())))))))
</pre>
</p>And the last step will be to attach an identifier to this variable, so that
we can retrieve it in the callback:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasIncrement(unaryOperator(
hasOperatorName("++"),
hasUnaryOperand(declRefExpr(to(
varDecl(hasType(isInteger())).bind("incrementVariable"))))))
</pre>
<p>We can add this code to the definition of <tt>LoopMatcher</tt> and make sure
that our program, outfitted with the new matcher, only prints out loops that
declare a single variable initialized to zero and have an increment step
consisting of a unary increment of some variable.</p>
<!-- FIXME: add example step-2b -->
<p>Now, we just need to add a matcher to check if the condition part of the
<tt>for</tt> loop compares a variable against the size of the array. There is
only one problem - we don't know which array we're iterating over without
looking at the body of the loop! We are again restricted to approximating the
result we want with matchers, filling in the details in the callback. So we
start with:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasCondition(binaryOperator(hasOperatorName("&lt;"))
</pre>
<p>It makes sense to ensure that the left-hand side is a reference to a
variable, and that the right-hand side has integer type.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasCondition(binaryOperator(
hasOperatorName("&lt;"),
hasRHS(expr(hasType(isInteger()))),
hasLHS(declRefExpr(to(varDecl(hasType(isInteger())))))))
</pre>
<!-- FIXME: add example step-2c -->
<p>Why? Because it doesn't work. Of the three loops provided in
<tt>test-files/simple.cpp</tt>, zero of them have a matching condition. A quick
look at the AST dump of the first for loop, produced by the previous iteration
of loop-convert, shows us the answer:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
(ForStmt 0x173b240
(DeclStmt 0x173afc8
0x173af50 "int i =
(IntegerLiteral 0x173afa8 'int' 0)")
<<<NULL>>>
(BinaryOperator 0x173b060 '_Bool' '<'
(ImplicitCastExpr 0x173b030 'int' <LValueToRValue>
(DeclRefExpr 0x173afe0 'int' lvalue Var 0x173af50 'i' 'int'))
(ImplicitCastExpr 0x173b048 'int' <LValueToRValue>
(DeclRefExpr 0x173b008 'const int' lvalue Var 0x170fa80 'N' 'const int')))
(UnaryOperator 0x173b0b0 'int' lvalue prefix '++'
(DeclRefExpr 0x173b088 'int' lvalue Var 0x173af50 'i' 'int'))
(CompoundStatement …
</pre>
<p>We already know that the declaration and increments both match, or this loop
wouldn't have been dumped. The culprit lies in the implicit cast applied to the
first operand (i.e. the LHS) of the less-than operator, an L-value to R-value
conversion applied to the expression referencing <tt>i</tt>. Thankfully, the
matcher library offers a solution to this problem in the form of
<tt>ignoringParenImpCasts</tt>, which instructs the matcher to ignore implicit
casts and parentheses before continuing to match. Adjusting the condition
operator will restore the desired match.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
hasCondition(binaryOperator(
hasOperatorName("&lt;"),
hasLHS(expr(hasType(isInteger()))),
hasRHS(ignoringParenImpCasts(declRefExpr(
to(varDecl(hasType(isInteger()))))))))
</pre>
<p>After adding binds to the expressions we wished to capture and extracting the
identifier strings into variables, we have array-step-2 completed.</p>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2 id="usingastmatchers">Step 4: Retrieving Matched Nodes</h2>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<p>So far, the matcher callback isn't very interesting: it just dumps the loop's
AST. At some point, we will need to make changes to the input source code. Next,
we'll work on using the nodes we bound in the previous step.</p>
<p>The <tt>MatchFinder::run()</tt> callback takes a
<tt>MatchFinder::MatchResult&</tt> as its parameter. We're most interested in
its <tt>Context</tt> and <tt>Nodes</tt> members. Clang uses the
<tt>ASTContext</tt> class to represent contextual information about the AST, as
the name implies, though the most functionally important detail is that several
operations require an <tt>ASTContext*</tt> parameter. More immediately useful is
the set of matched nodes, and how we retrieve them.</p>
<!-- FIXME: Where is this binding described? -->
<p>Since we bind three variables (identified by ConditionVarName,
InitVarName, and IncrementVarName), we can obtain the matched nodes by using the
<tt>getNodeAs()</tt> member function.</p>
<p>In <tt>LoopActions.cpp</tt>:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
#include "clang/AST/ASTContext.h"
void LoopPrinter::run(const MatchFinder::MatchResult &Result) {
ASTContext *Context = Result.Context;
const ForStmt *FS = Result.Nodes.getStmtAs&lt;ForStmt&gt;(LoopName);
// We do not want to convert header files!
if (!FS || !Context->getSourceManager().isFromMainFile(FS->getForLoc()))
return;
const VarDecl *IncVar = Result.Nodes.getNodeAs&lt;VarDecl&gt;(IncrementVarName);
const VarDecl *CondVar = Result.Nodes.getNodeAs&lt;VarDecl&gt;(ConditionVarName);
const VarDecl *InitVar = Result.Nodes.getNodeAs&lt;VarDecl&gt;(InitVarName);
</pre>
<p>Now that we have the three variables, represented by their respective
declarations, let's make sure that they're all the same, using a helper function
I call <tt>areSameVariable()</tt>.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
if (!areSameVariable(IncVar, CondVar) || !areSameVariable(IncVar, InitVar))
return;
llvm::outs() << "Potential array-based loop discovered.\n";
}
</pre>
<p>If execution reaches the end of <tt>LoopPrinter::run()</tt>, we know that the
loop shell that looks like</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
for (int i= 0; i < expr(); ++i) { ... }
</pre>
<p>For now, we will just print a message explaining that we found a loop. The
next section will deal with recursively traversing the AST to discover all
changes needed.</p>
<p>As a side note, here is the implementation of <tt>areSameVariable</tt>. Clang
associates a <tt>VarDecl</tt> with each variable to represent the variable's
declaration. Since the "canonical" form of each declaration is unique by
address, all we need to do is make sure neither <tt>ValueDecl</tt> (base class
of <tt>VarDecl</tt>) is <tt>NULL</tt> and compare the canonical Decls.</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
static bool areSameVariable(const ValueDecl *First, const ValueDecl *Second) {
return First && Second &&
First->getCanonicalDecl() == Second->getCanonicalDecl();
}
</pre>
<p>It's not as trivial to test if two expressions are the same, though Clang has
already done the hard work for us by providing a way to canonicalize
expressions:</p>
<pre class="doc_code">
static bool areSameExpr(ASTContext* Context, const Expr *First,
const Expr *Second) {
if (!First || !Second)
return false;
llvm::FoldingSetNodeID FirstID, SecondID;
First->Profile(FirstID, *Context, true);
Second->Profile(SecondID, *Context, true);
return FirstID == SecondID;
}
</pre>
<!-- FIXME: Add code example. -->
<p>This code relies on the comparison between two
<tt>llvm::FoldingSetNodeIDs</tt>. As the documentation for
<tt>Stmt::Profile()</tt> indicates, the <tt>Profile()</tt> member function
builds a description of a node in the AST, based on its properties, along with
those of its children. <tt>FoldingSetNodeID</tt> then serves as a hash we can
use to compare expressions. We will need <tt>areSameExpr</tt> later. Before you
run the new code on the additional loops added to test-files/simple.cpp, try to
figure out which ones will be considered potentially convertible.</p>
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