llvm dev - Feb 2016 - Implementation of DWARF expression parser

Hi,

This is my first post to this list, so I apologize in advance if I mess up on
any list etiquette. Jumping right in, I’m making use of the DebugInfo/DWARF APIs
to get debugging information out of binaries (what else!). One of the bits of
data I need is the location information stored in the location list section as
well as inline in DW_AT_location attributes and similar.

So far I’ve succeeded in making enough sense of the API to actually extract the
raw data, though I’ve found the API somewhat confusing - for example, as far as
I can tell there are two different code paths that the DWARFUnit implementation
takes to extract DIEs which both seem to do basically the same thing? I’m well
versed in the DWARF format, but not so much in LLVM itself as of yet; it
wouldn’t take much for me to be just plain wrong about what’s going on. (That
being said, I could lose myself in the LLVM code base for a long time if I let
myself; it’s already taught me more about compiler design and even the C++
language than my entire career up to now!)

To give some detail, the code paths I saw were DWARFCompileUnit::getNumDIEs(),
which parses all DIEs via the extractDIEsToVector() path, and
DWARFCompileUnit::extract(), which parses just one specified DIE via the
extractImpl() path. It’s not obvious to me why the extractImpl() code exists
alongside DWARFDebugInfoEntryMinimal::extractFast(). In general, the
"extract" paradigm is difficult to get a handle on, and I’ve yet to
find any documentation. Another example is the
DWARFContext::getCompileUnitForAddress() API, which is private; I’ve
couldn't find a way to invoke its logic (aside from iterating all the units
and using DWARFDebugInfoEntryMinimal::getInlinedChainForAddress() on each). I
have the sensation that I’m misunderstanding the intended usage pattern for
these objects entirely, or that at the very least I’m thinking at the wrong
abstraction layer.

Unfortunately, I’m stopped here. As far as I can tell, there is no
implementation of a DWARF expression parser, per §2.5 of the DWARF 4 standard,
which is necessary for making sense of DWARF location information. I don’t mind
building one myself, but before I do that I’d like to know if I’m duplicating
effort. If there is in fact an expression parser in the LLVM core, and not just
in places where it would be obviously needed (such as LLDB), I haven’t found it,
and I’d appreciate a pointer to what I missed. Or even if someone’s just working
on such a parser already, that would be great to know.

If there are other resources I could use besides the source code and the mailing
list to get answers for questions like this, I’d be grateful for pointers to
those too; I haven’t managed to find much useful information from simple Web
searches thus far. I’m also curious if this is the sort of thing for which
filing a feature request would be appropriate.

Thanks in advance for any help!

— Gwynne Raskind

Hi,
> On Feb 20, 2016, at 10:50 PM, Gwynne Raskind via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> This is my first post to this list, so I apologize in advance if I mess up
on any list etiquette. Jumping right in, I’m making use of the DebugInfo/DWARF
APIs to get debugging information out of binaries (what else!). One of the bits
of data I need is the location information stored in the location list section
as well as inline in DW_AT_location attributes and similar.
> 
> So far I’ve succeeded in making enough sense of the API to actually extract
the raw data, though I’ve found the API somewhat confusing - for example, as far
as I can tell there are two different code paths that the DWARFUnit
implementation takes to extract DIEs which both seem to do basically the same
thing? I’m well versed in the DWARF format, but not so much in LLVM itself as of
yet; it wouldn’t take much for me to be just plain wrong about what’s going on.
(That being said, I could lose myself in the LLVM code base for a long time if I
let myself; it’s already taught me more about compiler design and even the C++
language than my entire career up to now!)
> 
> To give some detail, the code paths I saw were
DWARFCompileUnit::getNumDIEs(), which parses all DIEs via the
extractDIEsToVector() path, and DWARFCompileUnit::extract(), which parses just
one specified DIE via the extractImpl() path. It’s not obvious to me why the
extractImpl() code exists alongside DWARFDebugInfoEntryMinimal::extractFast().
In general, the "extract" paradigm is difficult to get a handle on,
and I’ve yet to find any documentation.
The DIE extraction is handled only by extractFast. DWARFUnit::extract[Impl]() is
only about the Unit header parsing AFAICS. The DIEs are read lazily by the first
method that requests them (see extractDIEsifNeeded()).
> Another example is the DWARFContext::getCompileUnitForAddress() API, which
is private; I’ve couldn't find a way to invoke its logic (aside from
iterating all the units and using
DWARFDebugInfoEntryMinimal::getInlinedChainForAddress() on each).
getCompileUnitForAddress() is only used as a helper for the high-level
line-tables abstraction. It’s not exposed as a public API.
> I have the sensation that I’m misunderstanding the intended usage pattern
for these objects entirely, or that at the very least I’m thinking at the wrong
abstraction layer.
I believe there are 2 things here:
 - The DWARFContext methods are meant to be the implementation of a generic
DebugInfo abstraction (see DIContext). This abstraction is used by
llvm-symbolizer and other tools to access the DWARF (mostly (only?) line tables)
data through a generic interface, but it might make the interface look a bit
strange if you look at it from a pure DWARF point-of-view.
 - Apart from that libDebugInfo has been used nearly exclusively to power
llvm-dwarfdump. Functionality
 might be absent/hidden because nobody has come up with a use-case for it.
> Unfortunately, I’m stopped here. As far as I can tell, there is no
implementation of a DWARF expression parser, per §2.5 of the DWARF 4 standard,
which is necessary for making sense of DWARF location information. I don’t mind
building one myself, but before I do that I’d like to know if I’m duplicating
effort. If there is in fact an expression parser in the LLVM core, and not just
in places where it would be obviously needed (such as LLDB), I haven’t found it,
and I’d appreciate a pointer to what I missed. Or even if someone’s just working
on such a parser already, that would be great to know.
I had implemented one here: http://reviews.llvm.org/D6771
<http://reviews.llvm.org/D6771>
Unfortunately, I lost track of this work. If you want to revive it and
contribute it, it would be great!
> If there are other resources I could use besides the source code and the
mailing list to get answers for questions like this, I’d be grateful for
pointers to those too; I haven’t managed to find much useful information from
simple Web searches thus far. I’m also curious if this is the sort of thing for
which filing a feature request would be appropriate.
Filling a feature request is fine, but the only way to be sure it gets there is
to actually contribute it :-)

Fred
> Thanks in advance for any help!
> 
> — Gwynne Raskind
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
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Hi Frédéric and LLVM,

I managed to finally come back to this after quite a while. Frédéric, thank you
very much for the pointer to your work; it’s saving me a lot of time!

Unfortunately, I am running into one issue that my knowledge isn’t complete
enough to solve on my own yet. The description of D6771 reads, "It requires
a few preliminary patches like landing D6243 and adding a MCRegisterInfo in the
DWARFContext". The latter, adding an MCRegisterInfo, seems to be a bit
beyond me.

Specifically, while I can get a target architecture from a given ObjectFile
using getArch(), I’m not sure how to turn this into an MCRegisterInfo (or really
anything, such as Target, that could lead to one). My most recent attempt, using
TargetRegistry::lookupTarget() to get a Target and then use createMCRegInfo(),
fails with a complaint that no targets are registered, and I’m still too new to
LLVM’s depths to know what I’m missing. I’m not even entirely convinced this is
the right approach. I haven’t found anything from Googling either; almost
everything out there is focused on compiling and emitting _to_ a target, working
with an existing output file is an oddly sparse area.

So, in the end, my question boils down to: Given an ObjectFile, how can I most
effectively look up an MCRegisterInfo appropriate to that file (if any such is
known to LLVM in the first place)?

Thanks in advance!

-- Gwynne Raskind

> On Feb 21, 2016, at 23:25, Frédéric Riss <friss at apple.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
>> On Feb 20, 2016, at 10:50 PM, Gwynne Raskind via llvm-dev <llvm-dev
at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> This is my first post to this list, so I apologize in advance if I mess
up on any list etiquette. Jumping right in, I’m making use of the
DebugInfo/DWARF APIs to get debugging information out of binaries (what else!).
One of the bits of data I need is the location information stored in the
location list section as well as inline in DW_AT_location attributes and
similar.
>> 
>> So far I’ve succeeded in making enough sense of the API to actually
extract the raw data, though I’ve found the API somewhat confusing - for
example, as far as I can tell there are two different code paths that the
DWARFUnit implementation takes to extract DIEs which both seem to do basically
the same thing? I’m well versed in the DWARF format, but not so much in LLVM
itself as of yet; it wouldn’t take much for me to be just plain wrong about
what’s going on. (That being said, I could lose myself in the LLVM code base for
a long time if I let myself; it’s already taught me more about compiler design
and even the C++ language than my entire career up to now!)
>> 
>> To give some detail, the code paths I saw were
DWARFCompileUnit::getNumDIEs(), which parses all DIEs via the
extractDIEsToVector() path, and DWARFCompileUnit::extract(), which parses just
one specified DIE via the extractImpl() path. It’s not obvious to me why the
extractImpl() code exists alongside DWARFDebugInfoEntryMinimal::extractFast().
In general, the "extract" paradigm is difficult to get a handle on,
and I’ve yet to find any documentation.
> 
> The DIE extraction is handled only by extractFast.
DWARFUnit::extract[Impl]() is only about the Unit header parsing AFAICS. The
DIEs are read lazily by the first method that requests them (see
extractDIEsifNeeded()).
> 
>> Another example is the DWARFContext::getCompileUnitForAddress() API,
which is private; I’ve couldn't find a way to invoke its logic (aside from
iterating all the units and using
DWARFDebugInfoEntryMinimal::getInlinedChainForAddress() on each).
> 
> getCompileUnitForAddress() is only used as a helper for the high-level
line-tables abstraction. It’s not exposed as a public API.
> 
>> I have the sensation that I’m misunderstanding the intended usage
pattern for these objects entirely, or that at the very least I’m thinking at
the wrong abstraction layer.
> 
> I believe there are 2 things here:
>  - The DWARFContext methods are meant to be the implementation of a generic
DebugInfo abstraction (see DIContext). This abstraction is used by
llvm-symbolizer and other tools to access the DWARF (mostly (only?) line tables)
data through a generic interface, but it might make the interface look a bit
strange if you look at it from a pure DWARF point-of-view.
>  - Apart from that libDebugInfo has been used nearly exclusively to power
llvm-dwarfdump. Functionality
>  might be absent/hidden because nobody has come up with a use-case for it.
> 
>> Unfortunately, I’m stopped here. As far as I can tell, there is no
implementation of a DWARF expression parser, per §2.5 of the DWARF 4 standard,
which is necessary for making sense of DWARF location information. I don’t mind
building one myself, but before I do that I’d like to know if I’m duplicating
effort. If there is in fact an expression parser in the LLVM core, and not just
in places where it would be obviously needed (such as LLDB), I haven’t found it,
and I’d appreciate a pointer to what I missed. Or even if someone’s just working
on such a parser already, that would be great to know.
> 
> I had implemented one here: http://reviews.llvm.org/D6771
<http://reviews.llvm.org/D6771>
> Unfortunately, I lost track of this work. If you want to revive it and
contribute it, it would be great!
> 
>> If there are other resources I could use besides the source code and
the mailing list to get answers for questions like this, I’d be grateful for
pointers to those too; I haven’t managed to find much useful information from
simple Web searches thus far. I’m also curious if this is the sort of thing for
which filing a feature request would be appropriate.
> 
> Filling a feature request is fine, but the only way to be sure it gets
there is to actually contribute it :-)
> 
> Fred
> 
>> Thanks in advance for any help!
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