524 lines
24 KiB
HTML
524 lines
24 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Clang Driver Manual</title>
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<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../menu.css">
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<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../content.css">
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<style type="text/css">
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td {
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vertical-align: top;
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}
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</style>
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</head>
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<body>
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<!--#include virtual="../menu.html.incl"-->
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<div id="content">
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<h1>Driver Design & Internals</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
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<li><a href="#features">Features and Goals</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#gcccompat">GCC Compatibility</a></li>
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<li><a href="#components">Flexible</a></li>
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<li><a href="#performance">Low Overhead</a></li>
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<li><a href="#simple">Simple</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#design">Design</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#int_intro">Internals Introduction</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_overview">Design Overview</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_notes">Additional Notes</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#int_compilation">The Compilation Object</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_unified_parsing">Unified Parsing & Pipelining</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_toolchain_translation">ToolChain Argument Translation</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_unused_warnings">Unused Argument Warnings</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#int_gcc_concepts">Relation to GCC Driver Concepts</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<!-- ======================================================================= -->
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<h2 id="intro">Introduction</h2>
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<!-- ======================================================================= -->
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<p>This document describes the Clang driver. The purpose of this
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document is to describe both the motivation and design goals
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for the driver, as well as details of the internal
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implementation.</p>
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<!-- ======================================================================= -->
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<h2 id="features">Features and Goals</h2>
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<!-- ======================================================================= -->
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<p>The Clang driver is intended to be a production quality
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compiler driver providing access to the Clang compiler and
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tools, with a command line interface which is compatible with
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the gcc driver.</p>
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<p>Although the driver is part of and driven by the Clang
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project, it is logically a separate tool which shares many of
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the same goals as Clang:</p>
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<p><b>Features</b>:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#gcccompat">GCC Compatibility</a></li>
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<li><a href="#components">Flexible</a></li>
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<li><a href="#performance">Low Overhead</a></li>
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<li><a href="#simple">Simple</a></li>
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</ul>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3 id="gcccompat">GCC Compatibility</h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>The number one goal of the driver is to ease the adoption of
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Clang by allowing users to drop Clang into a build system
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which was designed to call GCC. Although this makes the driver
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much more complicated than might otherwise be necessary, we
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decided that being very compatible with the gcc command line
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interface was worth it in order to allow users to quickly test
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clang on their projects.</p>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3 id="components">Flexible</h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>The driver was designed to be flexible and easily accommodate
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new uses as we grow the clang and LLVM infrastructure. As one
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example, the driver can easily support the introduction of
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tools which have an integrated assembler; something we hope to
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add to LLVM in the future.</p>
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<p>Similarly, most of the driver functionality is kept in a
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library which can be used to build other tools which want to
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implement or accept a gcc like interface. </p>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3 id="performance">Low Overhead</h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>The driver should have as little overhead as possible. In
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practice, we found that the gcc driver by itself incurred a
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small but meaningful overhead when compiling many small
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files. The driver doesn't do much work compared to a
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compilation, but we have tried to keep it as efficient as
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possible by following a few simple principles:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Avoid memory allocation and string copying when
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possible.</li>
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<li>Don't parse arguments more than once.</li>
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<li>Provide a few simple interfaces for efficiently searching
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arguments.</li>
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</ul>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3 id="simple">Simple</h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>Finally, the driver was designed to be "as simple as
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possible", given the other goals. Notably, trying to be
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completely compatible with the gcc driver adds a significant
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amount of complexity. However, the design of the driver
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attempts to mitigate this complexity by dividing the process
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into a number of independent stages instead of a single
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monolithic task.</p>
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<!-- ======================================================================= -->
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<h2 id="design">Internal Design and Implementation</h2>
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<!-- ======================================================================= -->
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#int_intro">Internals Introduction</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_overview">Design Overview</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_notes">Additional Notes</a></li>
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<li><a href="#int_gcc_concepts">Relation to GCC Driver Concepts</a></li>
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</ul>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3><a name="int_intro">Internals Introduction</a></h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>In order to satisfy the stated goals, the driver was designed
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to completely subsume the functionality of the gcc executable;
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that is, the driver should not need to delegate to gcc to
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perform subtasks. On Darwin, this implies that the Clang
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driver also subsumes the gcc driver-driver, which is used to
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implement support for building universal images (binaries and
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object files). This also implies that the driver should be
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able to call the language specific compilers (e.g. cc1)
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directly, which means that it must have enough information to
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forward command line arguments to child processes
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correctly.</p>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3><a name="int_overview">Design Overview</a></h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>The diagram below shows the significant components of the
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driver architecture and how they relate to one another. The
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orange components represent concrete data structures built by
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the driver, the green components indicate conceptually
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distinct stages which manipulate these data structures, and
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the blue components are important helper classes. </p>
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<div style="text-align:center">
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<a href="DriverArchitecture.png">
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<img width=400 src="DriverArchitecture.png"
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alt="Driver Architecture Diagram">
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</a>
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</div>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<h3><a name="int_stages">Driver Stages</a></h3>
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<!--=======================================================================-->
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<p>The driver functionality is conceptually divided into five stages:</p>
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<ol>
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<li>
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<b>Parse: Option Parsing</b>
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<p>The command line argument strings are decomposed into
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arguments (<tt>Arg</tt> instances). The driver expects to
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understand all available options, although there is some
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facility for just passing certain classes of options
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through (like <tt>-Wl,</tt>).</p>
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<p>Each argument corresponds to exactly one
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abstract <tt>Option</tt> definition, which describes how
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the option is parsed along with some additional
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metadata. The Arg instances themselves are lightweight and
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merely contain enough information for clients to determine
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which option they correspond to and their values (if they
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have additional parameters).</p>
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<p>For example, a command line like "-Ifoo -I foo" would
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parse to two Arg instances (a JoinedArg and a SeparateArg
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instance), but each would refer to the same Option.</p>
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<p>Options are lazily created in order to avoid populating
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all Option classes when the driver is loaded. Most of the
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driver code only needs to deal with options by their
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unique ID (e.g., <tt>options::OPT_I</tt>),</p>
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<p>Arg instances themselves do not generally store the
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values of parameters. In many cases, this would
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simply result in creating unnecessary string
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copies. Instead, Arg instances are always embedded inside
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an ArgList structure, which contains the original vector
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of argument strings. Each Arg itself only needs to contain
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an index into this vector instead of storing its values
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directly.</p>
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<p>The clang driver can dump the results of this
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stage using the <tt>-ccc-print-options</tt> flag (which
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must precede any actual command line arguments). For
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example:</p>
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<pre>
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$ <b>clang -ccc-print-options -Xarch_i386 -fomit-frame-pointer -Wa,-fast -Ifoo -I foo t.c</b>
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Option 0 - Name: "-Xarch_", Values: {"i386", "-fomit-frame-pointer"}
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Option 1 - Name: "-Wa,", Values: {"-fast"}
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Option 2 - Name: "-I", Values: {"foo"}
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Option 3 - Name: "-I", Values: {"foo"}
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Option 4 - Name: "<input>", Values: {"t.c"}
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</pre>
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<p>After this stage is complete the command line should be
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broken down into well defined option objects with their
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appropriate parameters. Subsequent stages should rarely,
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if ever, need to do any string processing.</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Pipeline: Compilation Job Construction</b>
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<p>Once the arguments are parsed, the tree of subprocess
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jobs needed for the desired compilation sequence are
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constructed. This involves determining the input files and
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their types, what work is to be done on them (preprocess,
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compile, assemble, link, etc.), and constructing a list of
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Action instances for each task. The result is a list of
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one or more top-level actions, each of which generally
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corresponds to a single output (for example, an object or
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linked executable).</p>
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<p>The majority of Actions correspond to actual tasks,
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however there are two special Actions. The first is
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InputAction, which simply serves to adapt an input
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argument for use as an input to other Actions. The second
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is BindArchAction, which conceptually alters the
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architecture to be used for all of its input Actions.</p>
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<p>The clang driver can dump the results of this
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stage using the <tt>-ccc-print-phases</tt> flag. For
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example:</p>
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<pre>
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$ <b>clang -ccc-print-phases -x c t.c -x assembler t.s</b>
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0: input, "t.c", c
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1: preprocessor, {0}, cpp-output
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2: compiler, {1}, assembler
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3: assembler, {2}, object
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4: input, "t.s", assembler
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5: assembler, {4}, object
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6: linker, {3, 5}, image
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</pre>
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<p>Here the driver is constructing seven distinct actions,
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four to compile the "t.c" input into an object file, two to
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assemble the "t.s" input, and one to link them together.</p>
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<p>A rather different compilation pipeline is shown here; in
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this example there are two top level actions to compile
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the input files into two separate object files, where each
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object file is built using <tt>lipo</tt> to merge results
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built for two separate architectures.</p>
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<pre>
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$ <b>clang -ccc-print-phases -c -arch i386 -arch x86_64 t0.c t1.c</b>
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0: input, "t0.c", c
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1: preprocessor, {0}, cpp-output
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2: compiler, {1}, assembler
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3: assembler, {2}, object
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4: bind-arch, "i386", {3}, object
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5: bind-arch, "x86_64", {3}, object
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6: lipo, {4, 5}, object
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7: input, "t1.c", c
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8: preprocessor, {7}, cpp-output
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9: compiler, {8}, assembler
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10: assembler, {9}, object
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11: bind-arch, "i386", {10}, object
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12: bind-arch, "x86_64", {10}, object
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13: lipo, {11, 12}, object
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</pre>
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<p>After this stage is complete the compilation process is
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divided into a simple set of actions which need to be
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performed to produce intermediate or final outputs (in
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some cases, like <tt>-fsyntax-only</tt>, there is no
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"real" final output). Phases are well known compilation
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steps, such as "preprocess", "compile", "assemble",
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"link", etc.</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Bind: Tool & Filename Selection</b>
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<p>This stage (in conjunction with the Translate stage)
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turns the tree of Actions into a list of actual subprocess
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to run. Conceptually, the driver performs a top down
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matching to assign Action(s) to Tools. The ToolChain is
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responsible for selecting the tool to perform a particular
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action; once selected the driver interacts with the tool
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to see if it can match additional actions (for example, by
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having an integrated preprocessor).
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<p>Once Tools have been selected for all actions, the driver
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determines how the tools should be connected (for example,
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using an inprocess module, pipes, temporary files, or user
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provided filenames). If an output file is required, the
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driver also computes the appropriate file name (the suffix
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and file location depend on the input types and options
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such as <tt>-save-temps</tt>).
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<p>The driver interacts with a ToolChain to perform the Tool
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bindings. Each ToolChain contains information about all
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the tools needed for compilation for a particular
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architecture, platform, and operating system. A single
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driver invocation may query multiple ToolChains during one
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compilation in order to interact with tools for separate
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architectures.</p>
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<p>The results of this stage are not computed directly, but
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the driver can print the results via
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the <tt>-ccc-print-bindings</tt> option. For example:</p>
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<pre>
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$ <b>clang -ccc-print-bindings -arch i386 -arch ppc t0.c</b>
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# "i386-apple-darwin9" - "clang", inputs: ["t0.c"], output: "/tmp/cc-Sn4RKF.s"
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# "i386-apple-darwin9" - "darwin::Assemble", inputs: ["/tmp/cc-Sn4RKF.s"], output: "/tmp/cc-gvSnbS.o"
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# "i386-apple-darwin9" - "darwin::Link", inputs: ["/tmp/cc-gvSnbS.o"], output: "/tmp/cc-jgHQxi.out"
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# "ppc-apple-darwin9" - "gcc::Compile", inputs: ["t0.c"], output: "/tmp/cc-Q0bTox.s"
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# "ppc-apple-darwin9" - "gcc::Assemble", inputs: ["/tmp/cc-Q0bTox.s"], output: "/tmp/cc-WCdicw.o"
|
||
|
|
# "ppc-apple-darwin9" - "gcc::Link", inputs: ["/tmp/cc-WCdicw.o"], output: "/tmp/cc-HHBEBh.out"
|
||
|
|
# "i386-apple-darwin9" - "darwin::Lipo", inputs: ["/tmp/cc-jgHQxi.out", "/tmp/cc-HHBEBh.out"], output: "a.out"
|
||
|
|
</pre>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>This shows the tool chain, tool, inputs and outputs which
|
||
|
|
have been bound for this compilation sequence. Here clang
|
||
|
|
is being used to compile t0.c on the i386 architecture and
|
||
|
|
darwin specific versions of the tools are being used to
|
||
|
|
assemble and link the result, but generic gcc versions of
|
||
|
|
the tools are being used on PowerPC.</p>
|
||
|
|
</li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li>
|
||
|
|
<b>Translate: Tool Specific Argument Translation</b>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>Once a Tool has been selected to perform a particular
|
||
|
|
Action, the Tool must construct concrete Jobs which will be
|
||
|
|
executed during compilation. The main work is in translating
|
||
|
|
from the gcc style command line options to whatever options
|
||
|
|
the subprocess expects.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>Some tools, such as the assembler, only interact with a
|
||
|
|
handful of arguments and just determine the path of the
|
||
|
|
executable to call and pass on their input and output
|
||
|
|
arguments. Others, like the compiler or the linker, may
|
||
|
|
translate a large number of arguments in addition.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The ArgList class provides a number of simple helper
|
||
|
|
methods to assist with translating arguments; for example,
|
||
|
|
to pass on only the last of arguments corresponding to some
|
||
|
|
option, or all arguments for an option.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The result of this stage is a list of Jobs (executable
|
||
|
|
paths and argument strings) to execute.</p>
|
||
|
|
</li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li>
|
||
|
|
<b>Execute</b>
|
||
|
|
<p>Finally, the compilation pipeline is executed. This is
|
||
|
|
mostly straightforward, although there is some interaction
|
||
|
|
with options
|
||
|
|
like <tt>-pipe</tt>, <tt>-pass-exit-codes</tt>
|
||
|
|
and <tt>-time</tt>.</p>
|
||
|
|
</li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</ol>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!--=======================================================================-->
|
||
|
|
<h3><a name="int_notes">Additional Notes</a></h3>
|
||
|
|
<!--=======================================================================-->
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<h4 id="int_compilation">The Compilation Object</h4>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The driver constructs a Compilation object for each set of
|
||
|
|
command line arguments. The Driver itself is intended to be
|
||
|
|
invariant during construction of a Compilation; an IDE should be
|
||
|
|
able to construct a single long lived driver instance to use
|
||
|
|
for an entire build, for example.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The Compilation object holds information that is particular
|
||
|
|
to each compilation sequence. For example, the list of used
|
||
|
|
temporary files (which must be removed once compilation is
|
||
|
|
finished) and result files (which should be removed if
|
||
|
|
compilation fails).</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<h4 id="int_unified_parsing">Unified Parsing & Pipelining</h4>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>Parsing and pipelining both occur without reference to a
|
||
|
|
Compilation instance. This is by design; the driver expects that
|
||
|
|
both of these phases are platform neutral, with a few very well
|
||
|
|
defined exceptions such as whether the platform uses a driver
|
||
|
|
driver.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<h4 id="int_toolchain_translation">ToolChain Argument Translation</h4>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>In order to match gcc very closely, the clang driver
|
||
|
|
currently allows tool chains to perform their own translation of
|
||
|
|
the argument list (into a new ArgList data structure). Although
|
||
|
|
this allows the clang driver to match gcc easily, it also makes
|
||
|
|
the driver operation much harder to understand (since the Tools
|
||
|
|
stop seeing some arguments the user provided, and see new ones
|
||
|
|
instead).</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>For example, on Darwin <tt>-gfull</tt> gets translated into two
|
||
|
|
separate arguments, <tt>-g</tt>
|
||
|
|
and <tt>-fno-eliminate-unused-debug-symbols</tt>. Trying to write Tool
|
||
|
|
logic to do something with <tt>-gfull</tt> will not work, because Tool
|
||
|
|
argument translation is done after the arguments have been
|
||
|
|
translated.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>A long term goal is to remove this tool chain specific
|
||
|
|
translation, and instead force each tool to change its own logic
|
||
|
|
to do the right thing on the untranslated original arguments.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<h4 id="int_unused_warnings">Unused Argument Warnings</h4>
|
||
|
|
<p>The driver operates by parsing all arguments but giving Tools
|
||
|
|
the opportunity to choose which arguments to pass on. One
|
||
|
|
downside of this infrastructure is that if the user misspells
|
||
|
|
some option, or is confused about which options to use, some
|
||
|
|
command line arguments the user really cared about may go
|
||
|
|
unused. This problem is particularly important when using
|
||
|
|
clang as a compiler, since the clang compiler does not support
|
||
|
|
anywhere near all the options that gcc does, and we want to make
|
||
|
|
sure users know which ones are being used.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>To support this, the driver maintains a bit associated with
|
||
|
|
each argument of whether it has been used (at all) during the
|
||
|
|
compilation. This bit usually doesn't need to be set by hand,
|
||
|
|
as the key ArgList accessors will set it automatically.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>When a compilation is successful (there are no errors), the
|
||
|
|
driver checks the bit and emits an "unused argument" warning for
|
||
|
|
any arguments which were never accessed. This is conservative
|
||
|
|
(the argument may not have been used to do what the user wanted)
|
||
|
|
but still catches the most obvious cases.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!--=======================================================================-->
|
||
|
|
<h3><a name="int_gcc_concepts">Relation to GCC Driver Concepts</a></h3>
|
||
|
|
<!--=======================================================================-->
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>For those familiar with the gcc driver, this section provides
|
||
|
|
a brief overview of how things from the gcc driver map to the
|
||
|
|
clang driver.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<ul>
|
||
|
|
<li>
|
||
|
|
<b>Driver Driver</b>
|
||
|
|
<p>The driver driver is fully integrated into the clang
|
||
|
|
driver. The driver simply constructs additional Actions to
|
||
|
|
bind the architecture during the <i>Pipeline</i>
|
||
|
|
phase. The tool chain specific argument translation is
|
||
|
|
responsible for handling <tt>-Xarch_</tt>.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The one caveat is that this approach
|
||
|
|
requires <tt>-Xarch_</tt> not be used to alter the
|
||
|
|
compilation itself (for example, one cannot
|
||
|
|
provide <tt>-S</tt> as an <tt>-Xarch_</tt> argument). The
|
||
|
|
driver attempts to reject such invocations, and overall
|
||
|
|
there isn't a good reason to abuse <tt>-Xarch_</tt> to
|
||
|
|
that end in practice.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The upside is that the clang driver is more efficient and
|
||
|
|
does little extra work to support universal builds. It also
|
||
|
|
provides better error reporting and UI consistency.</p>
|
||
|
|
</li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li>
|
||
|
|
<b>Specs</b>
|
||
|
|
<p>The clang driver has no direct correspondent for
|
||
|
|
"specs". The majority of the functionality that is
|
||
|
|
embedded in specs is in the Tool specific argument
|
||
|
|
translation routines. The parts of specs which control the
|
||
|
|
compilation pipeline are generally part of
|
||
|
|
the <i>Pipeline</i> stage.</p>
|
||
|
|
</li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li>
|
||
|
|
<b>Toolchains</b>
|
||
|
|
<p>The gcc driver has no direct understanding of tool
|
||
|
|
chains. Each gcc binary roughly corresponds to the
|
||
|
|
information which is embedded inside a single
|
||
|
|
ToolChain.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The clang driver is intended to be portable and support
|
||
|
|
complex compilation environments. All platform and tool
|
||
|
|
chain specific code should be protected behind either
|
||
|
|
abstract or well defined interfaces (such as whether the
|
||
|
|
platform supports use as a driver driver).</p>
|
||
|
|
</li>
|
||
|
|
</ul>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
</body>
|
||
|
|
</html>
|