Re: Using of parse tree externally

[Marat Boshernitsan <maratb at CS dot Berkeley dot EDU>]

Joe Buck <jbuck@racerx.synopsys.com> writes:

> > >     Denis> I work on static analisys tool. And would like to use parse
> > >     Denis> tree produced by C++ gcc frontend. The question is did
> > >     Denis> someone did some movements to store parse tree in a file
> > >     Denis> and read it back in a program which is outside gcc tree?
> 
> > Isn't this the same discussion which has gotten repeatedly squashed for
> > making it too easy to leverage GCC with a non-GPL'd project via a
> > defined interface?
> 
> Yes, that is a concern: proprietary compilers that use the GCC front ends.
> This is a especially serious risk for languages that are hard to parse and
> analyze, like C++.  There are commercial license-able front ends
> available, like the EDG front end, so any proprietary developers sniffing
> around would do better to go in that direction, though it will cost.
> 
> That doesn't mean that it would necessarily be ruled out, but we'd need
> good arguments for how free software can benefit from the capability.

The re-engineering research community would benefit greatly from having
something like this available to them.  The availability of a good C++
front end with an appropriate API is a recurring theme in many
discussions (see http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~simsuz/wosef/ for some
pointers and what their requirements are).

Marat Boshernitsan, UC Berkeley.