C Parser (Front End)

The C parser (front end) enables the construction of C custom compilers, analysis tools, or source transformation tools. It is a member of SD's family of language front ends, based on first-class infrastructure (DMS) for implementing such custom tools. The C front end includes:

• Lexical analysis including ASCII and ISO 8859-1
  • Conversion of literal values (numbers, escaped strings) into native values to enable easy computation over literal values
  • String literals represented internally in Unicode to support 16-bit characters
• Explicit grammar directly implements defacto and real standards and extensions
  • Full C (ISO 9899:1990) parser
  • Option for C99 (ISO 9899:1999) dialect
  • Option for GNU C (GCC2 and GCC3) dialect
  • Option for Microsoft Visual6 C dialect
  • Easy extension for other dialects
• Preprocessor support
  • Controllable include directory paths
  • Option to fully expand preprocessor directives
  • Option to parse include files for definitions
  • Option to parse preserving preprocessor conditional directives, macros and include directives
• Automatic construction of complete abstract syntax tree
  • Capture of comments and formats (shape) of literal values
  • Capture of ambiguous parses during parsing
  • Ability to parse large systems of files into same workspace, enabling interprocedural and cross-file analysis/transformation
  • Ability to parse different languages into same workspace, enabling cross-language analysis/transformation
• Facilities to process syntax trees
  • Complete procedural API to visit/query/update/construct/print syntax trees
  • Source regeneration by prettyprinting and/or fidelity printing of syntax trees with comments and lexical formats
  • Automatically generated source-to-source transformation system
  • Ability to define custom attribute-grammar-based analyzers
• Name and Type resolution
  • Type representation system for all C types defined
  • All identifiers resolved to their C-defined type and stored in symbol tables
  • Automatic deletion of erroneous alternatives of ambiguous parses
  • Ability to condition transforms on identifier type
  • Abilility to visit/query/update symbol tables
• Control flow graph extraction for each compilation unit
  • Constructed for each function definition
  • Ties control flow nodes to ASTs
  • Exposes sequence points
  • Computes Post-dominators
  • Computes Control Dependences (Sample control flow graph)
• Application call graph extraction across all compilation units
  • Qualifies function pointers by "address taken" and argument types
  • Computes Transitive "Has-side-effect" information
• Data Flow Analysis support
  • Forward and Backward Iterative Flow analyzers
  • Reaching definitions for scalar values, struct members, array elements, structs and arrays (Sample reaching definitions graph)
  • Use-definition chains
  • Definition-use chains
  • Reachable-uses analysis
• Available as source code to enable complete customization
  • Means to manage multiple language dialects with highly shared common core
• Robustness due to careful testing and application across many customers

Many of these facilities come as a consistent consequence of the front end being built on top of DMS.

Here are some sample tools (many offered by SD as products) built using the C front end:

• Preprocessor conditional simplification given fixed assertions about #defined identifiers.
• Source Formatter
• Obfuscator
• Test Coverage
• Profiler
• Duplicate Code Detection and removal

Your organization may use DMS with the C front end to implement and deploy your own custom tools. The sample tools can be obtained in source form as part of the C front end for customization. Semantic Designs is also willing to build custom tools under contract.

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