[cfe-dev] Should we build semantically invalid nodes?

[steve naroff]

Hey Argiris,

Since clang supports multiple "Action" modules, why not have an  
ASTBuilder class?

My intuition says simply passing in a flag to Sema won't be rich  
enough. Over time, you would probably need several flags to get Sema  
to do what you actually want. It just doesn't feel right to me.

On the other hand, AST's produced by an ASTBuilder class could be  
segregated and managed differently. It gives you much more flexibility  
to meet the needs of a more "fuzzy" environment (like an IDE),  
including replacing some of the AST nodes (if the one's were using in  
Sema aren't ideal). For example, the ASTBuilder class might choose to  
have "real" (i.e. non-unique types) types (something we've discussed  
before). Having the ability to get the actual source location for type  
specifiers seems like a "must have" feature for non-compiler clients.

I believe my suggestion is fairly easy to implement for Stmts/Exprs.  
It is more difficult to implement for Decls/Types (since  
Sema::ActOnDeclarator() does some "heavy lifting" to transform a  
Declarator into a Decl/Type). If this were the only obstacle, we could  
refactor the code into a Declarator library that both Action modules  
could share. Since Declarators in C/C++ are very complex, adding a  
layer might actually improve the maintenance of the code.

I think your desire for more fuzzy AST's is spot on. My only concern  
is identifying clients for them and choosing an implementation  
strategy that doesn't disrupt our most central/complex Action module  
(i.e. Sema). We knew this day would come, which is why the Action  
interface doesn't force you to use a particular data structure (or any  
at all).

Thoughts?

snaroff

On Oct 25, 2008, at 4:21 AM, Argiris Kirtzidis wrote:

> Here's an alternative idea:
> How about we pass a flag at Sema to indicate that Sema should just  
> build
> the AST without semantic checks ?
>
> The meaning of this flag is not that it guarantees that *absolutely  
> no*
> semantic checks are done, just that the focus is less on semantics and
> more on getting a complete AST.
> The Action methods could be modified gradually to check this flag, eg.
> on Sebastian's patch, if this flag is on, Sema::ActOnCXXCasts will  
> skip
> the CheckXXXCast call and go to creating the CXXCastExpr directly.
>
> This addresses Doug's concerns about allowing invalid nodes while also
> enabling clients that only care about a full AST.
>
> Any thoughts ?
>
> -Argiris
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