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diff --git a/internals.md b/internals.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ebf0ab --- /dev/null +++ b/internals.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +## Overview + +`cbindgen` works in four phases: + +1. *Parsing* - Crate information is gathered from `cargo`, and `rust` source files are read using `syn` +1. *Loading* - `syn` AST nodes are converted into an IR of `Item`s that loosely correspond to the C types that will be output +1. *Transformation* - Several passes are run that transform the IR. Some examples: + - Generic `type` aliases are used to specialize the type they refer to + - Annotations are transferred from `type` aliases to the item they refer to + - `Option<&T>` is converted to `*const T` + - `Option<&mut T>` is converted to `*mut T` + - Generic paths in struct fields, union variants, and static globals are collected and used to generate monomorphs of the structs or unions they refer to + - The items are sorted by dependencies and type and unused items are filtered out +1. *Writing* - The IR is pretty printed to a file or `stdout` + +## Process Flow + +The main interface for `cbindgen` is `bindgen::Builder` which accepts configuration options and either a crate directory to parse or a list of source files. + +If a list of source files is given, then `bindgen::Builder` will parse them using `parser::parse_src` which will use `syn` to parse a specific file. No `extern crate` items will be followed for dependencies, but `mod` items will be attempted to be followed. + +If a crate directory is given, then `bindgen::Builder` will use `cargo::Cargo` to load a dependency graph from `Cargo.toml`, `Cargo.lock`, and `cargo metadata`. Then `parser::parse_lib` will parse each crate, following `extern crate` items when `ParseConfig::parse_deps` is enabled and the crate is not in the whitelist or blacklist of crates. In addition `bindgen::Parser` may use `cargo expand` on a crate to expand macro definitions. + +Once the `syn` nodes are collected by either method, they are given to `bindgen::Parse` which will perform *Loading* by creating a `ir::Item` for each `syn` node as appropriate. + +`bindgen::Builder` will then convert the resulting `bindgen::Parse`'s into a `bindgen::Library` which is the driver of all of the *Transformation* passes. + +// TODO - Talk more about passes + +Then finally the `bindgen::Library` will create a `bindgen::Bindings` which contains the `ir::Item`'s that are ready to be written. The `bindgen::Bindings` can then be written to `stdout` or a specific file. |