[llvm-dev] Dependency Info from AST

Tue Sep 19 10:38:30 PDT 2017

It really depends on what you are actually trying to achieve, but `nm` will
give you a list of function & variable names that are declared or external
to a particular file.
If I do `nm` on a simple test-file here, I get:

                 U fflush
0000000000000000 T main
0000000000000000 D max_source
                 U printf
                 U puts
                 U stdout

This tells me that this file declares a function called `main` (T = Text =
Code = Function) and a variable (D = Data = Variable) called `max_source`.
It also uses `fflush`, `printf`, `puts` and `stdout` from somewhere else
(in this case, I happen to know these are all in the C library).

Let's say my file also had a call to `func_1` with U in front, it would
mean that a (non-standard library function, since `func_1` is not the name
of any standard library function) is in a different file. You may then have
to do `nm func.o` to find that this function is declared in `func.c`
(assuming that's what produced `func.o` of course).

To get C++ names into human readable form, you probably want to run the
output from `nm` into `c++filt` (it demangles the C++ mangled name into
something like `func_1(int)` instead of `_Z6func_1i` or some whatever the
mangled form of func_1 would be.

Putting this together to show which source produces which functions and
variables, you'd want a bit of Python code, using a dictionary (or write it
in C++ and use std::map if you prefer - my Python skills are low, so I may
well have opted for that method).

The point about this is that you can put this together with about 15-20
lines of code, rather than a rather complex ASTVisitor that does about the
same thing (of course, if you want to build a proper cross referencing
tool, that lists that `func_1` is declared on line 4231 in `func.c`, and
that it references the global variable `x` 13 times, 5 of which are writes,
8 of which are reads), then you can't do that using `nm`)

--
Mats

On 19 September 2017 at 18:09, Siddharth Shankar Swain via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Hi Chris,
> Thanks for the suggestion i was trying to use the patch
> https://reviews.llvm.org/D30691 and ASTimporter concept for cross file
> analysis. Can u explain in details the approach u suggested ? What is `nm`
> on the object files ? Can u suggest some approach to start on this cross
> file analysis tool.
> Thanks,
> Siddharth
>
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 9:42 PM, Chris Bieneman <beanz at apple.com> wrote:
>
>> (Apologies for the re-send Siddharth, I failed to cc the list)
>>
>> There is no existing tool that I'm aware of which performs this analysis
>> on the AST. It is possible to do on an AST. You would just need to write an
>> AST Visitor that finds declarations, definitions, and uses of functions.
>>
>> Is there a reason you need to do this at the AST level? With C code this
>> analysis can be trivially performed with `nm` on the object files, so if
>> you don't have a strong reason for needing to do this on the AST I'd just
>> write a script to wrap `nm` rather than writing an AST Visitor.
>>
>> -Chris
>>
>> > On Sep 14, 2017, at 6:57 AM, Siddharth Shankar Swain via llvm-dev <
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> > Can anyone help if for example we have multiple c files and we want to
>> analyze their ASTs to find out any dependency between them ( like a
>> function defined in one c file is used in other, any external variable etc
>> ). How can we do it at the AST level? I mean is there any automated tool or
>> flag for it in LLVM. If anyone has any idea please tell.
>> > sincerely,
>> > Siddharth
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > LLVM Developers mailing list
>> > llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> > http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
>
>
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>
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