[llvm-dev] [RFC][binutils] Machine-readable output from Binutils - possible GSOC project?

[Eric Christopher via llvm-dev]

FWIW I think a --statistics functionality could be useful for object
reading. I think we'd want to see it factored out into a library as part of
the project so that all of the various readers could use it.

-eric

On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:08 AM Greg Bedwell via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Disclaimer:  I'm sat a few desks away from James in a related team,
> although I don't think that we've actually ever discussed this topic at all.
>
> > Are people still interested in this? If so, what is the typical use case
> you’d use the result of this project for?
>
> Yes.  We have a test framework that extracts a load of metrics from
> various large codebases (generally games) built with different toolchain
> revisions and stores them in a database for analysis and visualization.
> For example, we get section sizes from llvm-readelf output via regular
> expression parsing into json format for database submission.
>
> > Why would this be better than the existing llvm-readobj output (if
> applicable)?
>
> Because it makes me sad to see things like this in my test framework:
>
> ^\[\s*(?P<id>\d+)\]\s(?P<section>.+?)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(?P<size_hex>\w+)\s.+$
> It's far from resilient.
>
> As a comparison we also get metrics from running "llvm-dwarfdump
> --statistics" which outputs json so no need for any custom parsing and is
> quite lovely.
>
> > Is there a priority for a specific format (e.g. ELF, DWARF, COFF)?
>
> In my case ELF and DWARF are the focus.
>
> > Would anybody be interested in co-mentoring such a project?
>
> I'm very happy to provide input as a potential consumer of the data.
> Whether that extends as far as co-mentoring I don't mind either way.
>
> -Greg
>
>
>
> On Fri, 10 Jan 2020 at 11:56, James Henderson via llvm-dev <
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> I was giving some thought as to possible project ideas I could propose
>> for this year’s Google Summer of Code, with regards to the LLVM Binutils.
>> One idea that I had was something discussed at last year’s Euro LLVM
>> developer meeting, namely machine-readable output from the LLVM Binutils.
>> Before I actually start advertising this as an open project, I wanted to
>> ask a few questions:
>>
>>
>>
>>    1. Are people still interested in this? If so, what is the typical
>>    use case you’d use the result of this project for? Why would this be better
>>    than the existing llvm-readobj output (if applicable)?
>>    2. Which tool(s) and feature(s) would you most want this for? I
>>    personally think this should just be another output style for llvm-readobj.
>>    Does anybody have any different opinion there?
>>    3. Is there any additional tooling in relation to this project that
>>    you think would be important to be a part of this project, e.g. a lit
>>    function to query the output?
>>    4. How might this interact with obj2yaml? Could the new output
>>    ultimately be used to replace it?
>>    5. Is there a priority for a specific format (e.g. ELF, DWARF, COFF)?
>>    6. Would anybody be interested in co-mentoring such a project?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance for the comments!
>>
>>
>>
>> James
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20200112/5241877f/attachment.html>