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Diffstat (limited to 'contrib/coccinelle/README')
-rw-r--r-- | contrib/coccinelle/README | 87 |
1 files changed, 84 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/contrib/coccinelle/README b/contrib/coccinelle/README index f0e80bd..055ad0e 100644 --- a/contrib/coccinelle/README +++ b/contrib/coccinelle/README @@ -1,7 +1,9 @@ -This directory provides examples of Coccinelle (http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/) -semantic patches that might be useful to developers. += coccinelle -There are two types of semantic patches: +This directory provides Coccinelle (http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/) semantic patches +that might be useful to developers. + +== Types of semantic patches * Using the semantic transformation to check for bad patterns in the code; The target 'make coccicheck' is designed to check for these patterns and @@ -41,3 +43,82 @@ There are two types of semantic patches: This allows to expose plans of pending large scale refactorings without impacting the bad pattern checks. + +== Git-specific tips & things to know about how we run "spatch": + + * The "make coccicheck" will piggy-back on + "COMPUTE_HEADER_DEPENDENCIES". If you've built a given object file + the "coccicheck" target will consider its depednency to decide if + it needs to re-run on the corresponding source file. + + This means that a "make coccicheck" will re-compile object files + before running. This might be unexpected, but speeds up the run in + the common case, as e.g. a change to "column.h" won't require all + coccinelle rules to be re-run against "grep.c" (or another file + that happens not to use "column.h"). + + To disable this behavior use the "SPATCH_USE_O_DEPENDENCIES=NoThanks" + flag. + + * To speed up our rules the "make coccicheck" target will by default + concatenate all of the *.cocci files here into an "ALL.cocci", and + apply it to each source file. + + This makes the run faster, as we don't need to run each rule + against each source file. See the Makefile for further discussion, + this behavior can be disabled with "SPATCH_CONCAT_COCCI=". + + But since they're concatenated any <id> in the <rulname> (e.g. "@ + my_name", v.s. anonymous "@@") needs to be unique across all our + *.cocci files. You should only need to name rules if other rules + depend on them (currently only one rule is named). + + * To speed up incremental runs even more use the "spatchcache" tool + in this directory as your "SPATCH". It aimns to be a "ccache" for + coccinelle, and piggy-backs on "COMPUTE_HEADER_DEPENDENCIES". + + It caches in Redis by default, see it source for a how-to. + + In one setup with a primed cache "make coccicheck" followed by a + "make clean && make" takes around 10s to run, but 2m30s with the + default of "SPATCH_CONCAT_COCCI=Y". + + With "SPATCH_CONCAT_COCCI=" the total runtime is around ~6m, sped + up to ~1m with "spatchcache". + + Most of the 10s (or ~1m) being spent on re-running "spatch" on + files we couldn't cache, as we didn't compile them (in contrib/* + and compat/* mostly). + + The absolute times will differ for you, but the relative speedup + from caching should be on that order. + +== Authoring and reviewing coccinelle changes + +* When a .cocci is made, both the Git changes and .cocci file should be + reviewed. When reviewing such a change, do your best to understand the .cocci + changes (e.g. by asking the author to explain the change) and be explicit + about your understanding of the changes. This helps us decide whether input + from coccinelle experts is needed or not. If you aren't sure of the cocci + changes, indicate what changes you actively endorse and leave an Acked-by + (instead of Reviewed-by). + +* Authors should consider that reviewers may not be coccinelle experts, thus the + the .cocci changes may not be self-evident. A plain text description of the + changes is strongly encouraged, especially when using more esoteric features + of the language. + +* .cocci rules should target only the problem it is trying to solve; "collateral + damage" is not allowed. Reviewers should look out and flag overly-broad rules. + +* Consider the cost-benefit ratio of .cocci changes. In particular, consider the + effect on the runtime of "make coccicheck", and how often your .cocci check + will catch something valuable. As a rule of thumb, rules that can bail early + if a file doesn't have a particular token will have a small impact on runtime, + and vice-versa. + +* .cocci files used for refactoring should be temporarily kept in-tree to aid + the refactoring of out-of-tree code (e.g. in-flight topics). Periodically + evaluate the cost-benefit ratio to determine when the file should be removed. + For example, consider how many out-of-tree users are left and how much this + slows down "make coccicheck". |