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authorZancanaro; Carlo <czan8762@plang3.cs.usyd.edu.au>2012-09-24 09:58:17 +1000
committerZancanaro; Carlo <czan8762@plang3.cs.usyd.edu.au>2012-09-24 09:58:17 +1000
commit222e2a7620e6520ffaf4fc4e69d79c18da31542e (patch)
tree7bfbc05bfa3b41c8f9d2e56d53a0bc3e310df239 /clang/www/hacking.html
parent3d206f03985b50beacae843d880bccdc91a9f424 (diff)
Add the clang library to the repo (with some of my changes, too).
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
+<!-- Material used from: HTML 4.01 specs: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/ -->
+<html>
+<head>
+ <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+ <title>Hacking on clang</title>
+ <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="menu.css">
+ <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="content.css">
+ <style type="text/css">
+ pre { margin-left: 1.5em; }
+ </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<!--#include virtual="menu.html.incl"-->
+<div id="content">
+ <!--*********************************************************************-->
+ <h1>Hacking on Clang</h1>
+ <!--*********************************************************************-->
+
+ <p>This document provides some hints for how to get started hacking
+ on Clang for developers who are new to the Clang and/or LLVM
+ codebases.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#style">Coding Standards</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#docs">Developer Documentation</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#debugging">Debugging</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#testing">Testing</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#testingNonWindows">Testing on Unix-like Systems</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#testingWindows">Testing using Visual Studio on Windows</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#testingCommands">Testing on the Command Line</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ <li><a href="#patches">Creating Patch Files</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#irgen">LLVM IR Generation</a></li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h2 id="style">Coding Standards</h2>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>Clang follows the
+ LLVM <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CodingStandards.html">Coding
+ Standards</a>. When submitting patches, please take care to follow these standards
+ and to match the style of the code to that present in Clang (for example, in
+ terms of indentation, bracing, and statement spacing).</p>
+
+ <p>Clang has a few additional coding standards:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li><i>cstdio is forbidden</i>: library code should not output diagnostics
+ or other information using <tt>cstdio</tt>; debugging routines should
+ use <tt>llvm::errs()</tt>. Other uses of <tt>cstdio</tt> impose behavior
+ upon clients and block integrating Clang as a library. Libraries should
+ support <tt>raw_ostream</tt> based interfaces for textual
+ output. See <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CodingStandards.html#ll_raw_ostream">Coding
+ Standards</a>.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h2 id="docs">Developer Documentation</h2>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>Both Clang and LLVM use doxygen to provide API documentation. Their
+ respective web pages (generated nightly) are here:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen">Clang</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen">LLVM</a></li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>For work on the LLVM IR generation, the LLVM assembly language
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html">reference manual</a> is
+ also useful.</p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h2 id="debugging">Debugging</h2>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>Inspecting data structures in a debugger:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Many LLVM and Clang data structures provide
+ a <tt>dump()</tt> method which will print a description of the
+ data structure to <tt>stderr</tt>.</li>
+ <li>The <a href="docs/InternalsManual.html#QualType"><tt>QualType</tt></a>
+ structure is used pervasively. This is a simple value class for
+ wrapping types with qualifiers; you can use
+ the <tt>isConstQualified()</tt>, for example, to get one of the
+ qualifiers, and the <tt>getTypePtr()</tt> method to get the
+ wrapped <tt>Type*</tt> which you can then dump.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h3 id="debuggingVisualStudio">Debugging using Visual Studio</h3>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>The file <tt>utils/clangVisualizers.txt</tt> provides debugger visualizers that make debugging
+ of more complex data types much easier.</p>
+ <p>There are two ways to install them:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>Put the path to <tt>clangVisualizers.txt</tt> in the environment variable called
+ <tt>_vcee_autoexp</tt>. This method should work for Visual Studio 2008 and above.
+ </li>
+ <li>Edit your local <tt>autoexp.dat</tt> (make sure you make a backup first!),
+ located in <tt>Visual Studio Directory\Common7\Packages\Debugger</tt> and append
+ the contents of <tt>clangVisuailzers.txt</tt> to it. This method should work for
+ Visual Studio 2008 and above.
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p><i>[Note: To disable the visualizer for any specific variable, type
+ <tt>variable_name,!</tt> inside the watch window.]</i></p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h2 id="testing">Testing</h2>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p><i>[Note: The test running mechanism is currently under revision, so the
+ following might change shortly.]</i></p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h3 id="testingNonWindows">Testing on Unix-like Systems</h3>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>Clang includes a basic regression suite in the tree which can be
+ run with <tt>make test</tt> from the top-level clang directory, or
+ just <tt>make</tt> in the <em>test</em> sub-directory.
+ <tt>make VERBOSE=1</tt> can be used to show more detail
+ about what is being run.</p>
+
+ <p>If you built LLVM and Clang using CMake, the test suite can be run
+ with <tt>make clang-test</tt> from the top-level LLVM directory.</p>
+
+ <p>The tests primarily consist of a test runner script running the compiler
+ under test on individual test files grouped in the directories under the
+ test directory. The individual test files include comments at the
+ beginning indicating the Clang compile options to use, to be read
+ by the test runner. Embedded comments also can do things like telling
+ the test runner that an error is expected at the current line.
+ Any output files produced by the test will be placed under
+ a created Output directory.</p>
+
+ <p>During the run of <tt>make test</tt>, the terminal output will
+ display a line similar to the following:</p>
+
+ <pre>--- Running clang tests for i686-pc-linux-gnu ---</pre>
+
+ <p>followed by a line continually overwritten with the current test
+ file being compiled, and an overall completion percentage.</p>
+
+ <p>After the <tt>make test</tt> run completes, the absence of any
+ <tt>Failing Tests (count):</tt> message indicates that no tests
+ failed unexpectedly. If any tests did fail, the
+ <tt>Failing Tests (count):</tt> message will be followed by a list
+ of the test source file paths that failed. For example:</p>
+
+ <pre>
+ Failing Tests (3):
+ /home/john/llvm/tools/clang/test/SemaCXX/member-name-lookup.cpp
+ /home/john/llvm/tools/clang/test/SemaCXX/namespace-alias.cpp
+ /home/john/llvm/tools/clang/test/SemaCXX/using-directive.cpp
+</pre>
+
+ <p>If you used the <tt>make VERBOSE=1</tt> option, the terminal
+ output will reflect the error messages from the compiler and
+ test runner.</p>
+
+ <p>The regression suite can also be run with Valgrind by running
+ <tt>make test VG=1</tt> in the top-level clang directory.</p>
+
+ <p>For more intensive changes, running
+ the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/TestingGuide.html#testsuiterun">LLVM
+ Test Suite</a> with clang is recommended. Currently the best way to
+ override LLVMGCC, as in: <tt>make LLVMGCC="clang -std=gnu89"
+ TEST=nightly report</tt> (make sure <tt>clang</tt> is in your PATH or use the
+ full path).</p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h3 id="testingWindows">Testing using Visual Studio on Windows</h3>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>The Clang test suite can be run from either Visual Studio or
+ the command line.</p>
+
+ <p>Note that the test runner is based on
+ Python, which must be installed. Find Python at:
+ <a href="http://www.python.org/download/">http://www.python.org/download/</a>.
+ Download the latest stable version (2.6.2 at the time of this writing).</p>
+
+ <p>The GnuWin32 tools are also necessary for running the tests.
+ Get them from <a href="http://getgnuwin32.sourceforge.net/">
+ http://getgnuwin32.sourceforge.net/</a>.
+ If the environment variable <tt>%PATH%</tt> does not have GnuWin32,
+ or if other grep(s) supercedes GnuWin32 on <tt>%PATH%,</tt>
+ you should specify <tt>LLVM_LIT_TOOLS_DIR</tt>
+ to CMake explicitly.</p>
+
+ <p>The cmake build tool is set up to create Visual Studio project files
+ for running the tests, "clang-test" being the root. Therefore, to
+ run the test from Visual Studio, right-click the clang-test project
+ and select "Build".</p>
+
+ <p>
+ Please see also
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/GettingStartedVS.html">Getting Started
+ with the LLVM System using Microsoft Visual Studio</a> and
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CMake.html">Building LLVM with CMake</a>.
+ </p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h3 id="testingCommands">Testing on the Command Line</h3>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>If you want more control over how the tests are run, it may
+ be convenient to run the test harness on the command-line directly. Before
+ running tests from the command line, you will need to ensure that
+ <tt>lit.site.cfg</tt> files have been created for your build. You can do
+ this by running the tests as described in the previous sections. Once the
+ tests have started running, you can stop them with control+C, as the
+ files are generated before running any tests.</p>
+
+ <p>Once that is done, to run all the tests from the command line,
+ execute a command like the following:</p>
+
+ <pre>
+ python (path to llvm)\llvm\utils\lit\lit.py -sv
+ --param=build_mode=Win32 --param=build_config=Debug
+ --param=clang_site_config=(build dir)\tools\clang\test\lit.site.cfg
+ (path to llvm)\llvm\tools\clang\test
+</pre>
+
+ <p>For CMake builds e.g. on Windows with Visual Studio, you will need
+ to specify your build configuration (Debug, Release, etc.) via
+ <tt>--param=build_config=(build config)</tt>. You may also need to specify
+ the build mode (Win32, etc) via <tt>--param=build_mode=(build mode)</tt>.</p>
+
+ <p>Additionally, you will need to specify the lit site configuration which
+ lives in (build dir)\tools\clang\test, via
+ <tt>--param=clang_site_config=(build dir)\tools\clang\test\lit.site.cfg</tt>.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>To run a single test:</p>
+
+ <pre>
+ python (path to llvm)\llvm\utils\lit\lit.py -sv
+ --param=build_mode=Win32 --param=build_config=Debug
+ --param=clang_site_config=(build dir)\tools\clang\test\lit.site.cfg
+ (path to llvm)\llvm\tools\clang\test\(dir)\(test)
+</pre>
+
+ <p>For example:</p>
+
+ <pre>
+ python C:\Tool\llvm\utils\lit\lit.py -sv
+ --param=build_mode=Win32 --param=build_config=Debug
+ --param=clang_site_config=c:\Tools\build\tools\clang\test\lit.site.cfg
+ C:\Tools\llvm\tools\clang\test\Sema\wchar.c
+</pre>
+
+ <p>The -sv option above tells the runner to show the test output if
+ any tests failed, to help you determine the cause of failure.</p>
+
+ <p>You can also pass in the --no-progress-bar option if you wish to disable
+ progress indications while the tests are running.</p>
+
+ <p>Your output might look something like this:</p>
+
+ <pre>lit.py: lit.cfg:152: note: using clang: 'C:\Tools\llvm\bin\Release\clang.EXE'
+-- Testing: Testing: 2534 tests, 4 threads --
+Testing: 0 .. 10.. 20.. 30.. 40.. 50.. 60.. 70.. 80.. 90..
+Testing Time: 81.52s
+ Expected Passes : 2503
+ Expected Failures : 28
+ Unsupported Tests : 3
+</pre>
+
+ <p>The statistic, "Unexpected Failures" (not shown if all tests pass), is the important one.</p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h2 id="patches">Creating Patch Files</h2>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>To return changes to the Clang team, unless you have checkin
+ privileges, the preferred way is to send patch files to the
+ cfe-commits mailing list, with an explanation of what the patch is
+ for. If your patch requires a wider discussion (for example,
+ because it is an architectural change), you can use the cfe-dev
+ mailing list. </p>
+
+ <p>To create these patch files, change directory
+ to the llvm/tools/clang root and run:</p>
+
+ <pre>svn diff (relative path) >(patch file name)</pre>
+
+ <p>For example, for getting the diffs of all of clang:</p>
+
+ <pre>svn diff . >~/mypatchfile.patch</pre>
+
+ <p>For example, for getting the diffs of a single file:</p>
+
+ <pre>svn diff lib/Parse/ParseDeclCXX.cpp >~/ParseDeclCXX.patch</pre>
+
+ <p>Note that the paths embedded in the patch depend on where you run it,
+ so changing directory to the llvm/tools/clang directory is recommended.</p>
+
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+ <h2 id="irgen">LLVM IR Generation</h2>
+ <!--=====================================================================-->
+
+ <p>The LLVM IR generation part of clang handles conversion of the
+ AST nodes output by the Sema module to the LLVM Intermediate
+ Representation (IR). Historically, this was referred to as
+ "codegen", and the Clang code for this lives
+ in <tt>lib/CodeGen</tt>.</p>
+
+ <p>The output is most easily inspected using the <tt>-emit-llvm</tt>
+ option to clang (possibly in conjunction with <tt>-o -</tt>). You
+ can also use <tt>-emit-llvm-bc</tt> to write an LLVM bitcode file
+ which can be processed by the suite of LLVM tools
+ like <tt>llvm-dis</tt>, <tt>llvm-nm</tt>, etc. See the LLVM
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/">Command Guide</a>
+ for more information.</p>
+
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>