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14 <!--*********************************************************************-->
15 <h1>Hacking on Clang</h1>
16 <!--*********************************************************************-->
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000017
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000018 <p>This document provides some hints for how to get started hacking
19 on Clang for developers who are new to the Clang and/or LLVM
20 codebases.</p>
21 <ul>
Daniel Dunbar79bba502010-01-22 02:04:46 +000022 <li><a href="#style">Coding Standards</a></li>
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000023 <li><a href="#docs">Developer Documentation</a></li>
24 <li><a href="#debugging">Debugging</a></li>
25 <li><a href="#testing">Testing</a></li>
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +000026 <ul>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000027 <li><a href="#testingNonWindows">Testing on Unix-like Systems</a></li>
28 <li><a href="#testingWindows">Testing using Visual Studio on Windows</a></li>
29 <li><a href="#testingCommands">Testing on the Command Line</a></li>
30 </ul>
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +000031 <li><a href="#patches">Creating Patch Files</a></li>
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000032 <li><a href="#irgen">LLVM IR Generation</a></li>
33 </ul>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000034
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000035 <!--=====================================================================-->
Daniel Dunbar79bba502010-01-22 02:04:46 +000036 <h2 id="docs">Coding Standards</h2>
37 <!--=====================================================================-->
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000038
Daniel Dunbar79bba502010-01-22 02:04:46 +000039 <p>Clang follows the
40 LLVM <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CodingStandards.html">Coding
41 Standards</a>. When submitting patches, please take care to follow these standards
42 and to match the style of the code to that present in Clang (for example, in
43 terms of indentation, bracing, and statement spacing).</p>
44
45 <p>Clang has a few additional coding standards:</p>
46 <ul>
47 <li><i>cstdio is forbidden</i>: library code should not output diagnostics
48 or other information using <tt>cstdio</tt>; debugging routines should
49 use <tt>llvm::errs()</tt>. Other uses of <tt>cstdio</tt> impose behavior
50 upon clients and block integrating Clang as a library. Libraries should
51 support <tt>raw_ostream</tt> based interfaces for textual
52 output. See <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CodingStandards.html#ll_raw_ostream">Coding
53 Standards</a>.</li>
54 </ul>
55
56 <!--=====================================================================-->
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000057 <h2 id="docs">Developer Documentation</h2>
58 <!--=====================================================================-->
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000059
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000060 <p>Both Clang and LLVM use doxygen to provide API documentation. Their
61 respective web pages (generated nightly) are here:</p>
62 <ul>
63 <li><a href="http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen">Clang</a></li>
64 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen">LLVM</a></li>
65 </ul>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000066
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000067 <p>For work on the LLVM IR generation, the LLVM assembly language
68 <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html">reference manual</a> is
69 also useful.</p>
70
71 <!--=====================================================================-->
72 <h2 id="debugging">Debugging</h2>
73 <!--=====================================================================-->
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000074
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000075 <p>Inspecting data structures in a debugger:</p>
76 <ul>
77 <li>Many LLVM and Clang data structures provide
78 a <tt>dump()</tt> method which will print a description of the
79 data structure to <tt>stderr</tt>.</li>
80 <li>The <a href="docs/InternalsManual.html#QualType"><tt>QualType</tt></a>
81 structure is used pervasively. This is a simple value class for
82 wrapping types with qualifiers; you can use
83 the <tt>isConstQualified()</tt>, for example, to get one of the
84 qualifiers, and the <tt>getTypePtr()</tt> method to get the
85 wrapped <tt>Type*</tt> which you can then dump.</li>
86 </ul>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000087
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000088 <!--=====================================================================-->
89 <h2 id="testing">Testing</h2>
90 <!--=====================================================================-->
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000091
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +000092 <p><i>[Note: The test running mechanism is currently under revision, so the
93 following might change shortly.]</i></p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000094
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +000095 <!--=====================================================================-->
96 <h3 id="testingNonWindows">Testing on Unix-like Systems</h3>
97 <!--=====================================================================-->
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +000098
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +000099 <p>Clang includes a basic regression suite in the tree which can be
100 run with <tt>make test</tt> from the top-level clang directory, or
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000101 just <tt>make</tt> in the <em>test</em> sub-directory.
102 <tt>make VERBOSE=1</tt> can be used to show more detail
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +0000103 about what is being run.</p>
104
Daniel Dunbardf293782010-06-10 17:01:45 +0000105 <p>If you built LLVM and Clang using CMake, the test suite can be run
106 with <tt>make clang-test</tt> from the top-level LLVM directory.</p>
107
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000108 <p>The tests primarily consist of a test runner script running the compiler
109 under test on individual test files grouped in the directories under the
110 test directory. The individual test files include comments at the
111 beginning indicating the Clang compile options to use, to be read
112 by the test runner. Embedded comments also can do things like telling
113 the test runner that an error is expected at the current line.
114 Any output files produced by the test will be placed under
115 a created Output directory.</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000116
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000117 <p>During the run of <tt>make test</tt>, the terminal output will
118 display a line similar to the following:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000119
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000120 <ul><tt>--- Running clang tests for i686-pc-linux-gnu ---</tt></ul>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000121
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000122 <p>followed by a line continually overwritten with the current test
123 file being compiled, and an overall completion percentage.</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000124
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000125 <p>After the <tt>make test</tt> run completes, the absence of any
126 <tt>Failing Tests (count):</tt> message indicates that no tests
127 failed unexpectedly. If any tests did fail, the
128 <tt>Failing Tests (count):</tt> message will be followed by a list
129 of the test source file paths that failed. For example:</p>
130
131 <tt><pre>
132 Failing Tests (3):
133 /home/john/llvm/tools/clang/test/SemaCXX/member-name-lookup.cpp
134 /home/john/llvm/tools/clang/test/SemaCXX/namespace-alias.cpp
135 /home/john/llvm/tools/clang/test/SemaCXX/using-directive.cpp
136 </pre></tt>
137
138 <p>If you used the <tt>make VERBOSE=1</tt> option, the terminal
139 output will reflect the error messages from the compiler and
140 test runner.</p>
141
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +0000142 <p>The regression suite can also be run with Valgrind by running
143 <tt>make test VG=1</tt> in the top-level clang directory.</p>
144
145 <p>For more intensive changes, running
146 the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/TestingGuide.html#testsuiterun">LLVM
147 Test Suite</a> with clang is recommended. Currently the best way to
Daniel Dunbar12e57bc2009-08-06 16:47:53 +0000148 override LLVMGCC, as in: <tt>make LLVMGCC="clang -std=gnu89"
149 TEST=nightly report</tt> (make sure <tt>clang</tt> is in your PATH or use the
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +0000150 full path).</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000151
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000152 <!--=====================================================================-->
153 <h3 id="testingWindows">Testing using Visual Studio on Windows</h3>
154 <!--=====================================================================-->
155
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000156 <p>The Clang test suite can be run from either Visual Studio or
157 the command line.</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000158
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000159 <p>Note that the test runner is based on
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000160 Python, which must be installed. Find Python at:
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000161 <a href="http://www.python.org/download/">http://www.python.org/download/</a>.
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000162 Download the latest stable version (2.6.2 at the time of this writing).</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000163
Chris Lattner357f7ce2009-08-20 06:17:11 +0000164 <p>The GnuWin32 tools are also necessary for running the tests.
165 (Note that the grep from MSYS or Cygwin doesn't work with the tests
166 because of embedded double-quotes in the search strings. The GNU
167 grep does work in this case.)
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000168 Get them from <a href="http://getgnuwin32.sourceforge.net/">
169 http://getgnuwin32.sourceforge.net/</a>.</p>
170
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000171 <p>The cmake build tool is set up to create Visual Studio project files
172 for running the tests, "clang-test" being the root. Therefore, to
173 run the test from Visual Studio, right-click the clang-test project
174 and select "Build".</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000175
Dawn Perchik217a3452010-09-03 17:01:13 +0000176 <!--=====================================================================-->
177 <h3 id="testingCommands">Testing on the Command Line</h3>
178 <!--=====================================================================-->
179
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000180 <p>To run all the tests from the command line, execute a command like
181 the following:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000182
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000183 <tt>
184 python (path to llvm)/llvm/utils/lit/lit.py -sv --no-progress-bar
185 (path to llvm)/llvm/tools/clang/test
186 </tt>
187
Douglas Gregora71ef5d2011-01-24 18:04:58 +0000188 <p>For CMake builds e.g. on Windows with Visual Studio, you will need
189 to specify your build configuration (Debug, Release, etc.) via
190 <tt>--param=build_config=(build config)</tt>.</p>
191
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000192 <p>To run a single test:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000193
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000194 <tt>
195 python (path to llvm)/llvm/utils/lit/lit.py -sv --no-progress-bar
196 (path to llvm)/llvm/tools/clang/test/(dir)/(test)
197 </tt>
198
199 <p>For example:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000200
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000201 <tt>
202 python C:/Tools/llvm/utils/lit/lit.py -sv --no-progress-bar
203 C:/Tools/llvm/tools/clang/test/Sema/wchar.c
204 </tt>
205
206 <p>The -sv option above tells the runner to show the test output if
207 any tests failed, to help you determine the cause of failure.</p>
208
Francois Pichetb2043d72010-09-11 21:16:11 +0000209 <p>Your output might look something like this:</p>
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000210
Francois Pichetb2043d72010-09-11 21:16:11 +0000211<tt><pre>lit.py: lit.cfg:152: note: using clang: 'C:/Tools/llvm/bin/Release\\clang.EXE'
212-- Testing: Testing: 2534 tests, 4 threads --
213Testing: 0 .. 10.. 20.. 30.. 40.. 50.. 60.. 70.. 80.. 90..
214Testing Time: 81.52s
215 Expected Passes : 2503
216 Expected Failures : 28
217 Unsupported Tests : 3
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000218</pre></tt>
John Thompson99ff8da2009-11-06 00:06:29 +0000219
Francois Pichetb2043d72010-09-11 21:16:11 +0000220 <p>The statistic, "Unexpected Failures" (not shown if all tests pass), is the important one.</p>
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000221
222 <!--=====================================================================-->
223 <h2 id="patches">Creating Patch Files</h2>
224 <!--=====================================================================-->
225
226 <p>To return changes to the Clang team, unless you have checkin
227 privileges, the prefered way is to send patch files to the
228 cfe-commits mailing list, with an explanation of what the patch is for.
229 Or, if you have questions, or want to have a wider discussion of what
230 you are doing, such as if you are new to Clang development, you can use
231 the cfe-dev mailing list also.
232 </p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000233
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000234 <p>To create these patch files, change directory
235 to the llvm/tools/clang root and run:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000236
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000237 <ul><tt>svn diff (relative path) >(patch file name)</tt></ul>
238
239 <p>For example, for getting the diffs of all of clang:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000240
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000241 <ul><tt>svn diff . >~/mypatchfile.patch</tt></ul>
242
243 <p>For example, for getting the diffs of a single file:</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000244
Eli Friedmand1e1ef32009-08-03 19:42:28 +0000245 <ul><tt>svn diff lib/Parse/ParseDeclCXX.cpp >~/ParseDeclCXX.patch</tt></ul>
246
247 <p>Note that the paths embedded in the patch depend on where you run it,
248 so changing directory to the llvm/tools/clang directory is recommended.</p>
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +0000249
250 <!--=====================================================================-->
251 <h2 id="irgen">LLVM IR Generation</h2>
252 <!--=====================================================================-->
253
254 <p>The LLVM IR generation part of clang handles conversion of the
255 AST nodes output by the Sema module to the LLVM Intermediate
256 Representation (IR). Historically, this was referred to as
257 "codegen", and the Clang code for this lives
258 in <tt>lib/CodeGen</tt>.</p>
NAKAMURA Takumi6975d072011-03-18 03:21:38 +0000259
Cedric Venet3d658642009-02-14 20:20:19 +0000260 <p>The output is most easily inspected using the <tt>-emit-llvm</tt>
261 option to clang (possibly in conjunction with <tt>-o -</tt>). You
262 can also use <tt>-emit-llvm-bc</tt> to write an LLVM bitcode file
263 which can be processed by the suite of LLVM tools
264 like <tt>llvm-dis</tt>, <tt>llvm-nm</tt>, etc. See the LLVM
265 <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/">Command Guide</a>
266 for more information.</p>
267
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