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From: Keith Seitz <keiths@redhat.com>
To: archer@sourceware.org
Subject: Expression Parser Plug-In Available
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:46:00 -0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4D79389C.7050500@redhat.com> (raw)

Hi, all,

In October, we discussed writing a compiler plug-in to play/experiment 
with the possibility of re-using the compiler's parsers for gdb.

Well, at long last, I have checked-in an initial version of the plug-in 
to do this.  I'm sure someone more familiar with the compiler will find 
a bunch of problems and/or refinements to be made, but this should be a 
start.

You can grab the sources from gcc's git repository.  The plug-in is on 
the archer-expr-plugin branch.  The README (archer-expr-plugin/README) 
explains how to build and play with this thing.

Right now, the plug-in is attempting to suppress errors and warnings. 
I've attempted to install a minimal diagnostic pretty-printer which does 
nothing, but I haven't quite got it right yet; it will/might crash if 
the expression produces a fatal error.  Not nice, but good enough for 
now.  I'll try to fix this as time permits and demand dictates.

The plug-in uses debug_tree to output the result of the parse.  I'm sure 
this is too verbose to be useful, or at least optimal, but again, 
probably good enough for playing around.

I should mention: the plug-in could probably be optimized a bit.  I had 
to resort to some expensive location expansion and strcmp'ing filename 
basenames... In the little playing around that I've done, this hasn't 
really been as big an issue as I would have thought, though, but I 
thought it worth mentioning.

Here are the two tests I've been using.  One is parsing an expression 
(just a local variable) in a function near the end of breakpoint.c. 
The other is something similar in a firefox source file:

Parse "command" at breakpoint.c:11990:

$ sh ~/compile-breakpoint.o
  <var_decl 0x7fbb4d008aa0 command
     type <pointer_type 0x7fbb4da115e8
         type <record_type 0x7fbb4da0d690 cmd_list_element VOID
             align 8 symtab 0 alias set -1 canonical type 0x7fbb4da0d690
             pointer_to_this <pointer_type 0x7fbb4da115e8> chain 
<type_decl 0x7fbb4da057e8 D.10095>>
         unsigned DI
         size <integer_cst 0x7fbb4dfb67a8 constant 64>
         unit size <integer_cst 0x7fbb4dfb67d0 constant 8>
         align 64 symtab 0 alias set -1 canonical type 0x7fbb4da115e8
         pointer_to_this <pointer_type 0x7fbb4d824348>>
     used unsigned DI file ../../src/gdb/breakpoint.c line 11987 col 28 
size <integer_cst 0x7fbb4dfb67a8 64> unit size <integer_cst 
0x7fbb4dfb67d0 8>
     align 64 context <function_decl 0x7fbb4d294c00 add_catch_command>>
time in evaluating in-line expression: 0.308954 (99%)

real	0m0.329s
user	0m0.306s
sys	0m0.019s

The phrase "in-line expression" means that the expression was parsed at 
the location given by the input.  [If parsing fails here, the plug-in 
will continue until the end of the file and try again.  In that case, it 
says "at exit".]


Parse "catMan" in mozilla/content/base/src/nsContentUtils.cpp:6437:

$ sh ~/compile-firefox
  <var_decl 0x7fddb1dd3280 catMan
     type <record_type 0x7fddb3084150 nsCOMPtr addressable asm_written 
needs-constructing type_1 type_4 type_5 type_6 BLK
         size <integer_cst 0x7fddbb7827a8 constant 64>
         unit size <integer_cst 0x7fddbb7827d0 constant 8>
         align 64 symtab -1310826496 alias set -1 canonical type 
0x7fddb3084150
         fields <field_decl 0x7fddb1dd2720 mRawPtr type <pointer_type 
0x7fddb4525e70>
             private unsigned nonlocal decl_3 DI file 
../../../dist/include/nsCOMPtr.h line 522 col 10 size <integer_cst 
0x7fddbb7827a8 64> unit size <integer_cst 0x7fddbb7827d0 8>
             align 64 offset_align 128
             offset <integer_cst 0x7fddbb782410 constant 0>
             bit offset <integer_cst 0x7fddbb782f28 constant 0> context 
<record_type 0x7fddb3084150 nsCOMPtr> chain <type_decl 0x7fddb1dcba10 
nsCOMPtr>> context <translation_unit_decl 0x7fddbb78e958 D.1>
         full-name "class nsCOMPtr<nsICategoryManager>"
         needs-constructor needs-destructor X() has-type-conversion 
X(constX&) this=(X&) n_parents=0 use_template=1 interface-unknown
         pointer_to_this <pointer_type 0x7fddb30842a0> reference_to_this 
<reference_type 0x7fddb3088d20> chain <type_decl 0x7fddb1dcb958 nsCOMPtr>>
     addressable used tree_1 tree_3 decl_5 BLK file 
../../../../mozilla-central/content/base/src/nsContentUtils.cpp line 
6433 col 32 size <integer_cst 0x7fddbb7827a8 64> unit size <integer_cst 
0x7fddbb7827d0 8>
     align 64 context <function_decl 0x7fddb6981200 
FindInternalContentViewer>>
time in evaluating in-line expression: 5.395179 (100%)

real	0m12.356s
user	0m5.123s
sys	0m0.297s

As you can see, there is a substantial difference between the shell and 
the plug-in times in this test case.  I haven't investigated this a 
whole lot, but by using -ftime-report, the majority of this time is 
spent in "parsing", "garbage collection", and "name lookup".

The plug-in measures time from the end of plug-in initialization to the 
outputting of the parse tree.  I'll investigate further.

Comments/advice/suggestions -- please send them along!

Keith

             reply	other threads:[~2011-03-10 20:46 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-03-10 20:46 Keith Seitz [this message]
2011-03-10 22:51 ` Keith Seitz
2011-03-14 18:29 ` Tom Tromey

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