On 08/03/2017 02:27 AM, Pierre-Marie de Rodat wrote: > On 08/02/2017 05:43 PM, Jeff Law wrote: >> I hate to throw in a wrench at this point, but has anyone looked at >> dwgrep from Petr Machata? He's not doing much with it anymore, but it >> might provide enough of a dwarf scanning framework to be useful for >> testing purposes. > > Sure, no problem: I first started talking publicly about this one week > ago, so it’s definitely not too late to mention alternatives. ;-) I > learned about dwgrep two years ago and forgot about it, so thank you for > the idea. I started to have a look at it, and for now I don’t think it’s > a good match in this context: > > 1. it’s an ELF only tool; > 2. it must be built, requiring external dependencies: cmake and > elfutils; > 3. in order to use it, one must learn a dedicated post-fix language > (Zwerg) > > For 1. I think this is a true problem, as it means for instance that we > could not test DWARF on Windows and Darwin setups. Unless we add PE and > Mach-O handling in dwgrep of course, but that does not sound easy and > will bring other external dependencies. > > For 3. I feel that, for someone who is comfortable with Python, it will > be easier to deal with a Python library (the dwarfutils in my patch) > than having to learn yet another DSL. I think that’s precisely why some > people would like to have a Python test framework rather than a TCL one. > Working with a “usual” imperative language looks easier than with > postfix expressions. Smaller cognitive load. > > Actually I see another problem: pattern will have to vary depending on > the target platform (for instance 32/64bit or depending on the DWARF > version). Of course we could duplicate whole patterns in testcases to > take this into account, but that’s like code duplication: I think we > should be able to include small “X if 32bit else Y” in patterns, and I > don’t think we can do that with Zwerg (no way to pass something like > environment variables). > > Of course, I have written a “competitor” tool: I guess my judgment is > biased. :-) So other opinions are welcome! Thanks. I just wanted to raise it as a possibility. It looks like it's not a good fit here, so let's not let it be a distraction.
jeff
