[cfe-dev] Exporting Clang AST

[Manuel Klimek via cfe-dev]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 3:37 PM Bhargava Shastry <
bshastry at sec.t-labs.tu-berlin.de> wrote:

> > It is always *a* parent, yes :)
>
> Hmm... okay. That's something I hadn't imagined in my head about an AST.
> That a node can have multiple parents :/
>
> Just to be clear, getParents(childNode) returns an array of parents
> only, right i.e., one indentation level up in -ast-dump output? E.g., an
> entry stmt in functiondecl scope has functiondecl as its parent and
> *not* translationunitdecl?
>

Yes.


>
> > Our idea for IDE integration is to export everything that makes sense
> > through libclang (for example, we want to export clang-tidy through
> > libclang, and once we have refactorings, it might make sense to offer
> > them through libclang, too).
>
> Okay. I did try using libclang python bindings but the AST it exposes
> currently is inferior to what one could get with a libtooling based tool.
>
> Is AST provided by libclang *proper* (C binding) better than its python
> counterpart? I suppose I mean: Is this a rough ordering from rich to
> poor AST detail?
>
> Stand-alone tool > libclang > py libclang
>

The question is what you want to do; if we're talking IDE support, we don't
want every IDE to go and fiddle with the clang AST - it's complex and hard
to get right.
Instead, we want to build tools in clang/clang-tools-extra, and export
those via libclang (or something similar). That way, all IDEs will have a
common set of well-tested tools.
If you want to build your own one-of code transformation, I'd recommend to
write it in C++ against the clang AST directly.


>
> Thanks,
> Bhargava
>
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