[cfe-dev] Is Clang what I need?

[David Blaikie]

On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 2:44 AM, Pedro Delgado Perez
<pedro.delgadoperez at mail.uca.es> wrote:
> Hello,
> I've just known Clang looking for a soution to the task i need to perform.
> Well, what I need is to parser a C++ program in order to get some
> information about the code and, after that, to change the code regarding
> that information collected.For instance, I would need to know if a certain
> program contains some arithmetic operators., obtaining a record with the
> line where the operator is located and which operator is. I've been reading
> about Clang and now I know you can go through the AST, but i'm not totally
> sure if it's what I'm looking for because apart from the example I've
> commented above, I would need a lot of kinds of information:- What are the
> global and the local variables.- If there is an overriden member when a
> class inherits from another.- If a method of a class is overloaded.-...I
> need that information because I have to change the original program once I
> have the record with the information. For instance, if in the code there is
> a reference to an overriden member, I have to turn that reference into the
> hidden member.
>
>
>
> The other question I have is: is it worth the effort and the time to learn
> how to use clang? I need an opinion to know how easy or tough is to learn
> how to use it.
>
> I hope you could lend me a hand. Thanks in advance.

It depends a little on what alternatives you're considering. Clang
isn't necessarily going to be easy to get started with, especially
making source modifications, avoiding conflicts, etc, but it's
probably the easiest thing available to do this job well.

The tooling infrastructure ( http://clang.llvm.org/docs/Tooling.html )
and AST Matchers ( http://clang.llvm.org/docs/LibASTMatchers.html )
are designed to make this sort of task as easy & painless as possible.

- David