155 lines
5.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
155 lines
5.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
========
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Overview
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========
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Clang Tools are standalone command line (and potentially GUI) tools
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designed for use by C++ developers who are already using and enjoying
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Clang as their compiler. These tools provide developer-oriented
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functionality such as fast syntax checking, automatic formatting,
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refactoring, etc.
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Only a couple of the most basic and fundamental tools are kept in the
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primary Clang tree. The rest of the tools are kept in a separate
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directory tree, `clang-tools-extra
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<https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/master/clang-tools-extra>`_.
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This document describes a high-level overview of the organization of
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Clang Tools within the project as well as giving an introduction to some
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of the more important tools. However, it should be noted that this
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document is currently focused on Clang and Clang Tool developers, not on
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end users of these tools.
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Clang Tools Organization
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========================
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Clang Tools are CLI or GUI programs that are intended to be directly
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used by C++ developers. That is they are *not* primarily for use by
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Clang developers, although they are hopefully useful to C++ developers
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who happen to work on Clang, and we try to actively dogfood their
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functionality. They are developed in three components: the underlying
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infrastructure for building a standalone tool based on Clang, core
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shared logic used by many different tools in the form of refactoring and
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rewriting libraries, and the tools themselves.
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The underlying infrastructure for Clang Tools is the
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:doc:`LibTooling <LibTooling>` platform. See its documentation for much
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more detailed information about how this infrastructure works. The
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common refactoring and rewriting toolkit-style library is also part of
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LibTooling organizationally.
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A few Clang Tools are developed along side the core Clang libraries as
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examples and test cases of fundamental functionality. However, most of
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the tools are developed in a side repository to provide easy separation
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from the core libraries. We intentionally do not support public
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libraries in the side repository, as we want to carefully review and
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find good APIs for libraries as they are lifted out of a few tools and
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into the core Clang library set.
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Regardless of which repository Clang Tools' code resides in, the
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development process and practices for all Clang Tools are exactly those
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of Clang itself. They are entirely within the Clang *project*,
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regardless of the version control scheme.
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Core Clang Tools
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================
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The core set of Clang tools that are within the main repository are
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tools that very specifically complement, and allow use and testing of
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*Clang* specific functionality.
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``clang-check``
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---------------
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:doc:`ClangCheck` combines the LibTooling framework for running a
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Clang tool with the basic Clang diagnostics by syntax checking specific files
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in a fast, command line interface. It can also accept flags to re-display the
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diagnostics in different formats with different flags, suitable for use driving
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an IDE or editor. Furthermore, it can be used in fixit-mode to directly apply
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fixit-hints offered by clang. See :doc:`HowToSetupToolingForLLVM` for
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instructions on how to setup and used `clang-check`.
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``clang-format``
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----------------
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Clang-format is both a :doc:`library <LibFormat>` and a :doc:`stand-alone tool
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<ClangFormat>` with the goal of automatically reformatting C++ sources files
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according to configurable style guides. To do so, clang-format uses Clang's
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``Lexer`` to transform an input file into a token stream and then changes all
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the whitespace around those tokens. The goal is for clang-format to serve both
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as a user tool (ideally with powerful IDE integrations) and as part of other
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refactoring tools, e.g. to do a reformatting of all the lines changed during a
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renaming.
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Extra Clang Tools
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=================
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As various categories of Clang Tools are added to the extra repository,
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they'll be tracked here. The focus of this documentation is on the scope
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and features of the tools for other tool developers; each tool should
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provide its own user-focused documentation.
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``clang-tidy``
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--------------
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`clang-tidy <https://clang.llvm.org/extra/clang-tidy/>`_ is a clang-based C++
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linter tool. It provides an extensible framework for building compiler-based
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static analyses detecting and fixing bug-prone patterns, performance,
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portability and maintainability issues.
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Ideas for new Tools
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===================
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* C++ cast conversion tool. Will convert C-style casts (``(type) value``) to
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appropriate C++ cast (``static_cast``, ``const_cast`` or
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``reinterpret_cast``).
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* Non-member ``begin()`` and ``end()`` conversion tool. Will convert
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``foo.begin()`` into ``begin(foo)`` and similarly for ``end()``, where
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``foo`` is a standard container. We could also detect similar patterns for
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arrays.
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* ``tr1`` removal tool. Will migrate source code from using TR1 library
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features to C++11 library. For example:
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.. code-block:: c++
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#include <tr1/unordered_map>
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int main()
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{
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std::tr1::unordered_map <int, int> ma;
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std::cout << ma.size () << std::endl;
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return 0;
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}
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should be rewritten to:
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.. code-block:: c++
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#include <unordered_map>
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int main()
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{
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std::unordered_map <int, int> ma;
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std::cout << ma.size () << std::endl;
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return 0;
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}
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* A tool to remove ``auto``. Will convert ``auto`` to an explicit type or add
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comments with deduced types. The motivation is that there are developers
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that don't want to use ``auto`` because they are afraid that they might lose
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control over their code.
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* C++14: less verbose operator function objects (`N3421
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<http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2012/n3421.htm>`_).
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For example:
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.. code-block:: c++
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sort(v.begin(), v.end(), greater<ValueType>());
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should be rewritten to:
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.. code-block:: c++
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sort(v.begin(), v.end(), greater<>());
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