The concept of semantic patching

The concept of semantic patching

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Hi Ada novelist,

I recently learned about Coccinelle (after a French word meaning  
ladybird/ladybug… the authors are French)
http://coccinelle.lip6.fr

The quick introduction on the home page, first made me think about a new  
refactoring tool for C, then later to a semantic analysis provider like  
the one we get with ASIS. However, looking a bit further, it seems to go  
beyond what ASIS do. Mapped to the Ada world, this could be an ASIS  
application, not ASIS on its own.
http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/Intro_gen.pdf

Just out of curiosity, does any one ever heard about something similar in  
the Ada word ? (proprietary or not, this does not matter, I just want to  
know)


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.”  [Epigrams on  
Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [Idem]
Java: Write once, Never revisit

Re: The concept of semantic patching

[Ludovic Brenta]

Yannick Duchêne writes on comp.lang.ada:
> Hi Ada novelist,
>
> I recently learned about Coccinelle (after a French word meaning
> ladybird/ladybug… the authors are French)
> http://coccinelle.lip6.fr
>
> The quick introduction on the home page, first made me think about a
> new refactoring tool for C, then later to a semantic analysis provider
> like  the one we get with ASIS. However, looking a bit further, it
> seems to go  beyond what ASIS do. Mapped to the Ada world, this could
> be an ASIS  application, not ASIS on its own.
> http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/Intro_gen.pdf
>
> Just out of curiosity, does any one ever heard about something similar
> in the Ada word ? (proprietary or not, this does not matter, I just
> want to  know)

adasubst and adadep from Adalog and Jean-Pierre Rosen.

http://www.adalog.fr/compo1.htm#adadep

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.
The steering committee delivers, while high level intricacies prioritize
an intelligent dotted line.

Re: The concept of semantic patching

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:20:08 +0200, Ludovic Brenta  
<ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> a écrit:
Hi Ludovic,

> adasubst and adadep from Adalog and Jean-Pierre Rosen.
>
> http://www.adalog.fr/compo1.htm#adadep
>
AdaDep don't play in the same area. AdaSubst is more close, but don't do  
the same. Some part of what Coccinelle do, as far I understand it, could  
be done with AdaControl, some other part with AdaSubst. But look at how  
the patch works, as exposed in
http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/Intro_gen.pdf
Seems to be able to insert instructions at relevant place too (that's why  
I feel this is more than classical refactoring, although this is still  
kind of refactoring). Unless I am wrong about AdaSubst can do, I believe  
it does not come this ability.


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.”  [Epigrams on  
Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [Idem]
Java: Write once, Never revisit

Re: The concept of semantic patching

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 09/08/2011 17:50, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) a écrit :
> Le Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:20:08 +0200, Ludovic Brenta
> <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> a écrit:
> Hi Ludovic,
> 
>> adasubst and adadep from Adalog and Jean-Pierre Rosen.
>>
>> http://www.adalog.fr/compo1.htm#adadep
>>
> AdaDep don't play in the same area. AdaSubst is more close, but don't do
> the same. Some part of what Coccinelle do, as far I understand it, could
> be done with AdaControl, some other part with AdaSubst. But look at how
> the patch works, as exposed in
> http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/Intro_gen.pdf
> Seems to be able to insert instructions at relevant place too (that's
> why I feel this is more than classical refactoring, although this is
> still kind of refactoring). Unless I am wrong about AdaSubst can do, I
> believe it does not come this ability.
> 
AdaSubst does only (semantic) identifiers substitution. But it comes
with a package ("Producer") which makes it easy to perform any
transformation on source code.

I didn't investigate what Coccinelle really does, but if anybody is
tempted to do it... Since Coccinelle  means Ladybug, it could be called
Ladabug :-)

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Adalog a déménagé / Adalog has moved:
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00

Re: The concept of semantic patching

[onox]

On Aug 9, 6:38 pm, "J-P. Rosen" <ro...@adalog.fr> wrote:
> Le 09/08/2011 17:50, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) a écrit :
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Le Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:20:08 +0200, Ludovic Brenta
> > <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> a écrit:
> > Hi Ludovic,
>
> >> adasubst and adadep from Adalog and Jean-Pierre Rosen.
>
> >>http://www.adalog.fr/compo1.htm#adadep
>
> > AdaDep don't play in the same area. AdaSubst is more close, but don't do
> > the same. Some part of what Coccinelle do, as far I understand it, could
> > be done with AdaControl, some other part with AdaSubst. But look at how
> > the patch works, as exposed in
> >http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/Intro_gen.pdf
> > Seems to be able to insert instructions at relevant place too (that's
> > why I feel this is more than classical refactoring, although this is
> > still kind of refactoring). Unless I am wrong about AdaSubst can do, I
> > believe it does not come this ability.
>
> AdaSubst does only (semantic) identifiers substitution. But it comes
> with a package ("Producer") which makes it easy to perform any
> transformation on source code.
>
> I didn't investigate what Coccinelle really does, but if anybody is
> tempted to do it... Since Coccinelle  means Ladybug, it could be called
> Ladabug :-)
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>            J-P. Rosen (ro...@adalog.fr)
> Adalog a déménagé / Adalog has moved:
> 2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
> Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00

lwn.net says: "Coccinelle is useful for finding a lot of types of bugs
through advanced code analysis and pattern matching. It can finger
many types of memory leaks, locking problems, bad API usage, null
pointer dereferences, and so on. Arnd Bergmann noted that it can be
very useful for refactoring as well; he found it to be helpful in his
big kernel lock removal work."

http://lwn.net/Articles/412750/