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| <!--*********************************************************************--> |
| <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="#docs">Developer Documentation</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#debugging">Debugging</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#testing">Testing</a></li> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#testingNonWindows">Testing on Unix-like Systems</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#testingWindows">Testing using Visual Studio on Windows</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <li><a href="#patches">Creating Patch Files</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#irgen">LLVM IR Generation</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> |
| |
| <!--=====================================================================--> |
| <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>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> |
| |
| <ul><tt>--- Running clang tests for i686-pc-linux-gnu ---</tt></ul> |
| |
| <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> |
| |
| <tt><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></tt> |
| |
| <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 cmake build tool is set up to create Visual Studio project files |
| for running the tests, "clang-test" being the root. |
| Unfortunately, the test runner scripts presently don't work on Windows. |
| This will be fixed during the test runner revision in progress.</p> |
| |
| <p>Note that the current and coming revised 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> |
| |
| <!--=====================================================================--> |
| <h2 id="patches">Creating Patch Files</h2> |
| <!--=====================================================================--> |
| |
| <p>To return changes to the Clang team, unless you have checkin |
| privileges, the prefered way is to send patch files to the |
| cfe-commits mailing list, with an explanation of what the patch is for. |
| Or, if you have questions, or want to have a wider discussion of what |
| you are doing, such as if you are new to Clang development, you can use |
| the cfe-dev mailing list also. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>To create these patch files, change directory |
| to the llvm/tools/clang root and run:</p> |
| |
| <ul><tt>svn diff (relative path) >(patch file name)</tt></ul> |
| |
| <p>For example, for getting the diffs of all of clang:</p> |
| |
| <ul><tt>svn diff . >~/mypatchfile.patch</tt></ul> |
| |
| <p>For example, for getting the diffs of a single file:</p> |
| |
| <ul><tt>svn diff lib/Parse/ParseDeclCXX.cpp >~/ParseDeclCXX.patch</tt></ul> |
| |
| <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> |
| |
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