aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/contrib/llvm-project/lldb/docs/design/sbapi.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'contrib/llvm-project/lldb/docs/design/sbapi.rst')
-rw-r--r--contrib/llvm-project/lldb/docs/design/sbapi.rst95
1 files changed, 95 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/contrib/llvm-project/lldb/docs/design/sbapi.rst b/contrib/llvm-project/lldb/docs/design/sbapi.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..676509bbd99e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/contrib/llvm-project/lldb/docs/design/sbapi.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+Scripting Bridge API
+====================
+
+The SB APIs constitute the stable C++ API that lldb presents to external
+clients, and which get processed by SWIG to produce the Python bindings to
+lldb. As such it is important that they not suffer from the binary
+incompatibilities that C++ is so susceptible to. We've established a few rules
+to ensure that this happens.
+
+The classes in the SB API's are all called SB<SomeName>, where SomeName is in
+CamelCase starting with an upper case letter. The method names are all
+CamelCase with initial capital letter as well.
+
+All the SB API classes are non-virtual, single inheritance classes. They should
+only include SBDefines.h or other SB headers as needed. There should be no
+inlined method implementations in the header files, they should all be in the
+implementation files. And there should be no direct ivar access.
+
+You also need to choose the ivars for the class with care, since you can't add
+or remove ivars without breaking binary compatibility. In some cases, the SB
+class is a thin wrapper around an internal lldb_private object. In that case,
+the class can have a single ivar, which is either a pointer, shared_ptr or
+unique_ptr to the object in the lldb_private API. All the lldb_private classes
+that get used this way are declared as opaque classes in lldb_forward.h, which
+is included in SBDefines.h. So if you need an SB class to wrap an lldb_private
+class that isn't in lldb_forward.h, add it there rather than making a direct
+opaque declaration in the SB classes .h file.
+
+If the SB Class needs some state of its own, as well as the backing object,
+don't include that as a direct ivar in the SB Class. Instead, make an Impl
+class in the SB's .cpp file, and then make the SB object hold a shared or
+unique pointer to the Impl object. The theory behind this is that if you need
+more state in the SB object, those needs are likely to change over time, and
+this way the Impl class can pick up members without changing the size of the
+object. An example of this is the SBValue class. Please note that you should
+not put this Impl class in the lldb namespace. Failure to do so leads to
+leakage of weak-linked symbols in the SBAPI.
+
+In order to fit into the Python API's, we need to be able to default construct
+all the SB objects. Since the ivars of the classes are all pointers of one sort
+or other, this can easily be done, but it means all the methods must be
+prepared to handle their opaque implementation pointer being empty, and doing
+something reasonable. We also always have an "IsValid" method on all the SB
+classes to report whether the object is empty or not.
+
+Another piece of the SB API infrastructure is the Python (or other script
+interpreter) customization. SWIG allows you to add property access, iterators
+and documentation to classes, but to do that you have to use a Swig interface
+file in place of the .h file. Those files have a different format than a
+straight C++ header file. These files are called SB<ClassName>.i, and live in
+"scripts/interface". They are constructed by starting with the associated .h
+file, and adding documentation and the Python decorations, etc. We do this in a
+decidedly low-tech way, by maintaining the two files in parallel. That
+simplifies the build process, but it does mean that if you add a method to the
+C++ API's for an SB class, you have to copy the interface to the .i file.
+
+API Instrumentation
+-------------------
+
+The reproducer infrastructure requires API methods to be instrumented so that
+they can be captured and replayed. Instrumentation consists of two macros,
+``LLDB_REGISTER`` and ``LLDB_RECORD``. Both can be automatically generated with
+the ``lldb-instr`` utility.
+
+To add instrumentation for a given file, pass it to the ``lldb-instr`` tool.
+Like other clang-based tools it requires a compilation database
+(``compile_commands.json``) to be present in the current working directory.
+
+::
+
+ ./bin/lldb-instr /path/to/lldb/source/API/SBDebugger.cpp
+
+
+The tool will automatically insert ``LLDB_RECORD`` macros inline, however you
+will need to run ``clang-format`` over the processed file, as the tool
+(intentionally) makes no attempt to get that right.
+
+The ``LLDB_REGISTER`` macros are printed to standard out between curly braces.
+You'll have to copy-paste those into the corresponding ``RegisterMethods``
+function in the implementation file. This function is fully specialized in the
+corresponding type.
+
+::
+
+ template <> void RegisterMethods<SBDebugger>(Registry &R) {
+ ...
+ }
+
+
+When adding a new class, you'll also have to add a call to ``RegisterMethods``
+in the ``SBRegistry`` constructor.
+
+The tool can be used incrementally. However, it will ignore existing macros
+even if their signature is wrong. It will only generate a ``LLDB_REGISTER`` if
+it emitted a corresponding ``LLDB_RECORD`` macro.