Clang Plugins

Clang Plugins make it possible to run extra user defined actions during a compilation. This document will provide a basic walkthrough of how to write and run a Clang Plugin.

Introduction

Clang Plugins run FrontendActions over code. See the FrontendAction tutorial on how to write a FrontendAction using the RecursiveASTVisitor. In this tutorial, we’ll demonstrate how to write a simple clang plugin.

Writing a PluginASTAction

The main difference from writing normal FrontendActions is that you can handle plugin command line options. The PluginASTAction base class declares a ParseArgs method which you have to implement in your plugin.

bool ParseArgs(const CompilerInstance &CI,
               const std::vector<std::string>& args) {
  for (unsigned i = 0, e = args.size(); i != e; ++i) {
    if (args[i] == "-some-arg") {
      // Handle the command line argument.
    }
  }
  return true;
}

Registering a plugin

A plugin is loaded from a dynamic library at runtime by the compiler. To register a plugin in a library, use FrontendPluginRegistry::Add<>:

static FrontendPluginRegistry::Add<MyPlugin> X("my-plugin-name", "my plugin description");

Defining pragmas

Plugins can also define pragmas by declaring a PragmaHandler and registering it using PragmaHandlerRegistry::Add<>:

// Define a pragma handler for #pragma example_pragma
class ExamplePragmaHandler : public PragmaHandler {
public:
  ExamplePragmaHandler() : PragmaHandler("example_pragma") { }
  void HandlePragma(Preprocessor &PP, PragmaIntroducer Introducer,
                    Token &PragmaTok) {
    // Handle the pragma
  }
};

static PragmaHandlerRegistry::Add<ExamplePragmaHandler> Y("example_pragma","example pragma description");

Defining attributes

Plugins can define attributes by declaring a ParsedAttrInfo and registering it using ParsedAttrInfoRegister::Add<>:

class ExampleAttrInfo : public ParsedAttrInfo {
public:
  ExampleAttrInfo() {
    Spellings.push_back({ParsedAttr::AS_GNU,"example"});
  }
  AttrHandling handleDeclAttribute(Sema &S, Decl *D,
                                   const ParsedAttr &Attr) const override {
    // Handle the attribute
    return AttributeApplied;
  }
};

static ParsedAttrInfoRegistry::Add<ExampleAttrInfo> Z("example_attr","example attribute description");

The members of ParsedAttrInfo that a plugin attribute must define are:

  • Spellings, which must be populated with every Spelling of the attribute, each of which consists of an attribute syntax and how the attribute name is spelled for that syntax. If the syntax allows a scope then the spelling must be “scope::attr” if a scope is present or “::attr” if not.

  • handleDeclAttribute, which is the function that applies the attribute to a declaration. It is responsible for checking that the attribute’s arguments are valid, and typically applies the attribute by adding an Attr to the Decl. It returns either AttributeApplied, to indicate that the attribute was successfully applied, or AttributeNotApplied if it wasn’t.

The members of ParsedAttrInfo that may need to be defined, depending on the attribute, are:

  • NumArgs and OptArgs, which set the number of required and optional arguments to the attribute.

  • diagAppertainsToDecl, which checks if the attribute has been used on the right kind of declaration and issues a diagnostic if not.

  • diagLangOpts, which checks if the attribute is permitted for the current language mode and issues a diagnostic if not.

  • existsInTarget, which checks if the attribute is permitted for the given target.

To see a working example of an attribute plugin, see the Attribute.cpp example.

Putting it all together

Let’s look at an example plugin that prints top-level function names. This example is checked into the clang repository; please take a look at the latest version of PrintFunctionNames.cpp.

Running the plugin

Using the compiler driver

The Clang driver accepts the -fplugin option to load a plugin. Clang plugins can receive arguments from the compiler driver command line via the fplugin-arg-<plugin name>-<argument> option. Using this method, the plugin name cannot contain dashes itself, but the argument passed to the plugin can.

$ export BD=/path/to/build/directory
$ make -C $BD CallSuperAttr
$ clang++ -fplugin=$BD/lib/CallSuperAttr.so \
          -fplugin-arg-call_super_plugin-help \
          test.cpp

If your plugin name contains dashes, either rename the plugin or used the cc1 command line options listed below.

Using the cc1 command line

To run a plugin, the dynamic library containing the plugin registry must be loaded via the -load command line option. This will load all plugins that are registered, and you can select the plugins to run by specifying the -plugin option. Additional parameters for the plugins can be passed with -plugin-arg-<plugin-name>.

Note that those options must reach clang’s cc1 process. There are two ways to do so:

  • Directly call the parsing process by using the -cc1 option; this has the downside of not configuring the default header search paths, so you’ll need to specify the full system path configuration on the command line.

  • Use clang as usual, but prefix all arguments to the cc1 process with -Xclang.

For example, to run the print-function-names plugin over a source file in clang, first build the plugin, and then call clang with the plugin from the source tree:

$ export BD=/path/to/build/directory
$ (cd $BD && make PrintFunctionNames )
$ clang++ -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_DEBUG -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS \
          -D__STDC_FORMAT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -D_GNU_SOURCE \
          -I$BD/tools/clang/include -Itools/clang/include -I$BD/include -Iinclude \
          tools/clang/tools/clang-check/ClangCheck.cpp -fsyntax-only \
          -Xclang -load -Xclang $BD/lib/PrintFunctionNames.so -Xclang \
          -plugin -Xclang print-fns

Also see the print-function-name plugin example’s README

Using the clang command line

Using -fplugin=plugin on the clang command line passes the plugin through as an argument to -load on the cc1 command line. If the plugin class implements the getActionType method then the plugin is run automatically. For example, to run the plugin automatically after the main AST action (i.e. the same as using -add-plugin):

// Automatically run the plugin after the main AST action
PluginASTAction::ActionType getActionType() override {
  return AddAfterMainAction;
}