[cfe-dev] RFC: Easier AST Matching by Default

[Gábor Horváth via cfe-dev]

Hi!

I like the idea of making writing tools/prototypes easier. But if the goal
is to get rid of invisible nodes when matching I wonder if this would
somewhat overlap with syntax trees [1]. Adding Dmitri and Ilya in case they
have an opinion on that.

Cheers,
Gabor

[1]:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/161XftOcF-ut1pGQr5ci9kXd_y0jRQl3y9sVyvuEkLDc/edit#heading=h.cwnlr9q7jmlp

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 1:06 PM Aaron Ballman via cfe-dev <
cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 4:01 PM Stephen Kelly via cfe-dev
> <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > (Apologies if you receive this twice. GMail classified the first one as
> > spam)
> >
> > Aaron Ballman and I met by chance in Belfast and we discussed a way
> > forward towards making AST Matchers easier to use, particularly for C++
> > developers who are not familiar with the details of the Clang AST.
> >
> > For those unaware, I expanded on this in the EuroLLVM conference this
> > year, and then expanded on it at ACCU:
> >
> >   https://steveire.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/the-future-of-ast-matching
> >
> > One step in the process of getting there is changing the default
> > behavior of AST Matchers to ignore invisible nodes while matching using
> > the C++ API, and while matching and dumping AST nodes in clang-query.
> >
> > I think this is the most important change in the entire proposal as it
> > sets out the intention of making the AST Matchers easier to use for C++
> > developers who are not already familiar with Clang APIs.
> >
> > To that end, I've written an AST to motivate the change:
> >
> >
> >
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Z6gAwwc3HoRXvsy0OdwU0X5MFQEuiGeSu3i6ICOB90
> >
> > We're looking for feedback before pressing forward with the change. I
> > already have some patches written to port clang-tidy and unit tests to
> > account for the change of default.
>
> I'm generally in favor of this path forward. I think this is the
> correct default and allows a more gentle introduction to AST matchers
> for people new to the project (which helps with introducing new
> clang-tidy checks) while still allowing people who need to get into
> the nitty gritty details of the AST to do so as needed. Thank you for
> the efforts!
>
> CCing Manual, Alex, and Sam because they do a lot of work on the
> matcher interfaces as well.
>
> ~Aaron
>
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Stephen.
> > _______________________________________________
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> > cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org
> > https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cfe-dev
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