[cfe-dev] Proposal: libclang code generation

[David Chisnall]

I don't think I understand why this needs so much new API.  With libclang, you create a translation unit by providing a file (on disk or unsaved) and a set of compiler flags.  At this point, the API already has everything that it needs to be able to compile the input file.  I would expect this to be accomplished with just a clang_compileTranslationUnit() function (which, if the translation unit has not changed, just needs to do the codegen - it can skip reparsing), possibly with the option of changing the output from the location specified with the original compile options.

David

On 13 Dec 2011, at 06:41, Gregory Szorc wrote:

> I started a conversation in #llvm a few days ago regarding adding code
> generation support to libclang (I'm indygreg on IRC). People seemed
> receptive to the idea, so, I performed some preliminary work around a
> proposal for the API. I've produced a couple of new header files [1][2]
> with the proposed API. Higher-level comments and questions are in a
> README [3].
> 
> I'm requesting review of the proposal from the larger community. I'd
> like to get "sign off" of the C API/.h files before I start working on
> the implementation so I'm confident I'm producing the right thing.
> 
> There likely also needs to be a larger discussion around the structure
> of libclang. The gory details are in the README [3]. The tl;dr is that
> the existing API pigeonholes generic functionality as specific to the
> Index module and feature expansion of libclang will likely require a)
> API breakage due to required refactoring, and/or b) an ill-conceived
> code layout and naming convention.
> 
> This is my first time hacking on LLVM or Clang. I fully expect that
> there are many deficiencies in my proposal due to ignorance. I have
> thick skin, so let me hear it!
> 
> [1]
> https://github.com/indygreg/clang/blob/libclang_compiler/include/clang-c/CodeGen.h
> [2]
> https://github.com/indygreg/clang/blob/libclang_compiler/include/clang-c/Compiler.h
> [3]
> https://github.com/indygreg/clang/blob/libclang_compiler/README.libclang_changes
> 
> Gregory Szorc
> gregory.szorc at gmail.com
> 
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