Tag Archives: clang

Notes about Using IWYU on macOS

I have recently found IWYU, a very useful tool to identify whether you have included header files correctly. It can be cleanly installed in Ubuntu by apt, though some configuration is needed to make it identify problems more correctly, i.e., let it know that a header file is private and we should use a public header file that includes it, or a symbol should be defined in a certain header file and we should not care where it is really defined in the implementation.

I did encounter some problems in macOS. I installed it, but it had problems with Xcode header files, causing something like “fatal error: ‘stdarg.h’ file not found” when used. A quick search showed that it was a known problem, and people mentioned that it seemed a problem that deteriorated with more recent versions of LLVM, which IWYU used internally.

I happened to have LLVM 7.0 installed from Homebrew, so I had a try. Here are the simple steps:

  1. Make sure you have llvm@7. If not, ‘brew install llvm@7’ would do.
  2. Check out IWYU to a directory.
  3. Execute ‘git checkout clang_7.0’ inside the IWYU directory to choose the Clang 7 branch.
  4. Execute ‘mkdir build && cd build’ to use a build directory.
  5. Execute ‘CC=/usr/local/opt/llvm@7/bin/clang CXX=/usr/local/opt/llvm@7/bin/clang++ cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/opt/llvm@7 ..’ to configure IWYU to use the Homebrew LLVM 7.0.
  6. Execute ‘make’ to build IWYU.
  7. Execute ‘mkdir -k lib/clang/7.1.0 && ln -s /usr/local/opt/llvm@7/lib/clang/7.1.0/include lib/clang/7.1.0/’ to symlink the Clang 7 include directory inside IWYU. This step is critical to solve the “file not found” problem, but regretfully it does not work with a more recent LLVM version like LLVM 11.
  8. Symlink executables to your bin directory for quick access. Something like:
cd ~/bin
ln -s ~/code/include-what-you-use/build/bin/include-what-you-use .
ln -s ~/code/include-what-you-use/iwyu_tool.py iwyu_tool
ln -s include-what-you-use iwyu

Now IWYU is ready to use.

Please be aware that IWYU does not often work out of the box, and some configuration is needed. The key document to read is IWYU Mappings, and the bundled mapping files (.imp) can be good examples. You probably want to use libcxx.imp as a start. Some mappings are already included by default, and you can find them in the file iwyu_include_picker.cc.

While it is not perfect, it did help me identify many inclusion issues. This commit is a result of using IWYU.

Happy hacking!

Installing Clang 3.5 for Windows

I had used LLVM 3.4 on Windows for quite some time. It had worked well, and had all the features I needed—mostly the beautiful C++11/C++14 compiler and the easy-to-use Clang-Format. However, the C++ compiler only works when some specific GCC versions are installed together, and the GCC version 4.6.3 I installed for Clang has a conflict with the GCC 4.9 I use. The major issue is the C++ run-time library libstdc++-6.dll, which actually has many variants due to the combination of different thread models and different exception handling methods. The result is that GCC 4.9 generated executables will crash when the libstdc++-6.dll from GCC 4.6.3 appears earlier in path, and Clang generated executables will crash when the libstdc++-6.dll from GCC 4.9 appears earlier in path. I do not like this situation. So recently I tried new combinations when I installed LLVM 3.5, and made sure everything work together. I would like to share the result.

Let me first list the binary files one needs to download:

I install Clang to the default location, C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM. For the rest of this article, I assume GCC 4.9.2 is extracted to C:\ (so all files are under C:\mingw32), and GCC 4.8.2 is extracted to C:\Temp (all files are under C:\Temp\mingw32).

Although I need GCC 4.9 for the best and latest C++ features, Clang does not work with it. One can tell from the error output of Clang that it should work with the MinGW-w64 GCC 4.8.2:

ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.0"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.0/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.0/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.1"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.1/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.1/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.1/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.2"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.2/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.2/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.2/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.3"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.3/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.3/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.7.3/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.0"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.0/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.0/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.1"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.1/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.1/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.1/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.2"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.2/x86_64-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.2/i686-w64-mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0/../../../include/c++/4.8.2/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.0/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.0/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.0/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.1/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.1/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.1/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.2/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.2/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.2/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.3/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.3/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.7.3/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.0/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.0/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.0/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.1/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.1/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.1/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.2/include/c++"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.2/include/c++/mingw32"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.2/include/c++/backward"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/include/c++/4.4"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/local/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM\bin\..\lib\clang\3.5.0\../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/mingw/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/mingw/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/include"

(As one may expect from the error messages, the official MinGW GCC, currently at version 4.8.1, also works with Clang. I personally prefer MinGW-w64, as its GCC is more usable—e.g., the MinGW version supports only Win32 threads, and therefore does not support std::thread. MinGW does not provide GCC 4.9 yet, and you can’t put C:\MinGW\bin in the path, if you want to use MinGW-w64 GCC 4.9 simultaneously. You do need to put either C:\MinGW\bin or C:\mingw32\bin—for MinGW-w64 GCC 4.9—in the path, as Clang cannot find a working GCC for linking otherwise. If you use only MinGW GCC 4.8.1, or only MinGW-w64 GCC 4.9, this configuration works.)

Now back to MinGW-w64 GCC 4.8.2. Depending on the size of your hard disk, you may want to tailor it. In my case, I removed all traces of Fortran, Ada, and Objective-C, as well as build-info.txt, etc, license, opt, and shared from C:\Temp\mingw32. After that, you need to do the following to make GCC 4.8.2 work for Clang:

  • Make directory c++ under C:\Temp\mingw32\include.
  • Make directory 4.8.2 under C:\Temp\mingw32\include\c++.
  • Copy all contents under C:\Temp\mingw32\i686-w64-mingw32\include\c++ to C:\Temp\mingw32\include\c++\4.8.2.
  • Move all contents under C:\Temp\mingw32 to C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM, merging with existing directories there.
  • Remove the empty C:\Temp\mingw32.

You can now add both C:\mingw32\bin and C:\Program Files (x86)\LLVM to the path: both Clang and GCC are at your hand and won’t conflict with each other.