[cfe-dev] Clang -ast-dump-xml question

[Manuel Klimek]

On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 7:14 AM, Douglas Gregor <dgregor at apple.com> wrote:

>
> On Mar 5, 2013, at 2:41 AM, Matthias Grimmer <grimmer at ssw.jku.at> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> we are using clang and its -ast-dump-xml feature. Our goal is to convert
> the serialized clang-AST to a different code representation.
> We think that the output, that -ast-dump-xml produces, is not well suited
> for parsing. Statements are represented as ASCII styled trees and also
> contain parts that
> confuse XML parsers (e.g. <line:18:2, col:18>).
>
>
> The pseudo-XML dump is a debugging aid. It's not a stable, useful format
> on which to build tools. Tools should be built on top of the Clang AST,
> either through libclang (for a stable but not-very-rich AST representation)
> or the C++ AST.
>

Wasn't there a plan to get rid of the XMLish dump?

Cheers,
/Manuel


>
> Is there a better way to get a serialized version of the clang AST (XML,
> or any other format that is easier to parse)?
>
>
> No, there isn't.
>
> We would like to avoid writing a clang AST visitor for this purpose.
>
>
> Writing a Clang AST visitor or libclang client is really the best way to
> do this. There is no way to get sufficient information out of the debugging
> dumps to build a tool, unless your goal is to build a simple toy example
> that handles only a small part of C(++).
>
> - Doug
>
>
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