Extensions

Most of the functionality in Clade is implemented as extensions. These extensions can be separated into the following groups:

Extensions that parse a particular type of build commands

• C compilation commands: CC and CL extensions.
• C++ compilation commands: CXX extension.
• ar commands, which are used to create, modify, and extract from archives: AR extension.
• Assembler commands: AS extension
• Link commands: LN extension.
• Move commands: MV extension.
• Object copy commands: Objcopy extension.
• Copy commands (Windows-specific): Copy extension.

Each of these extensions has a corresponding configuration option, which precisely describes which commands it parse. These options can be found on the presets.json file.

These extensions output a list of json files with parsed commands. Each parsed command consists of a list of input files, a list of output files, and a list of options. Some extensions may add additional data, for example, CC extension also adds a list of dependencies (header files that were used by the intercepted compile command).

Extensions that generate information by using a list of all intercepted commands

• PidGraph extension, which produces parent-child graph between intercepted commands.

More about it you can read in the usage docs.

Extensions that generate information using data from other extensions

Extensions may interact with each other, and thus refine and produce data from several sources. Extensions in this group are:

• CmdGraph extension, which uses parsed commands from other extensions, and connects them by their input and output files, creating dependency graph between these commands.
• SrcGraph extension, which shows for each source file (C or C++ only) a list of commands in which it was compiled, and a list of commands in which it was indirectly used.
• Alternatives extension, which parses build commands that create identical file copies (ln, cp, install, etc.) and allows to determine that different paths are in fact related to the same file.
• CDB extension, which is used to create compilation databases.

Helper extensions

These are extensions that implement functionality useful for other extensions.

• Path extension: provides functions to normalize file paths.
• Storage extension: adds ability to save files to the Clade working directory, and to retrieve them later. This allows the following scenario: Clade intercepts build process on one computer, and then parses the ouput on another, using cmds.txt file and file copies stored in the Storage.

Extensions that use information about the source code (C only)

• Info is the main extension here: it uses CIF to parse source code and extract various info about it. All extensions in this group are using data from the Info extension.
• Functions extension parses information about function definitions and declarations.
• Callgraph extension creates a function callgraph.
• Macros extension pares information about macros definitions and expansions.
• Typedefs extension parses information about typedefs.
• UsedIn extension parses information about functional pointers
• CallsByPtr extension parses information about function calls by pointers.
• Variables extension parses information about global variable initializations.

Parent extensions

These extensions are not meant to be used as is, they are parent classes for other extensions. They usually implement some common functionality.

• Abstract extension (parent of all other extensions).
• Common extension (for extensions that parse intercepted commands into input, output files, and a list of options.
• Link extension (parent of compiler extensions that also parse linker commands)
• CommonInfo extension, implements common functionality for extensions that parse output of Info extension.