Visualizing ROSE Abstract Syntax Trees

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Visualizing ROSE Abstract Syntax Trees

• Sunjeev Sikand

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ROSE What Is It?

• A Preprocessor Generation Tool
• Leverages the semantics of object-oriented
  frameworks
• Makes it possible to drive optimizations via
  source code transformations

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ROSE Flow Chart
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Motivation

• Writing a preprocessor to implement a
  transformation is difficult
• Requires an understanding of the structure of the
  AST
• Need to examine inherited/synthesized attributes
  of an AST node
• Becomes further complicated when AST is extremely
  large

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One Approach DOT
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But

• Doesnt Scale Well
• If we wanted to print out info about each node
  other than its type the graph would grow very
  fast!
• We cant print out a selected portion of AST
  hiding information were not interested in
• Doesnt fit on a page

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A Better Approach Comes Along

• Tree of folders because it is easy to learn
• Find information easily and quickly.
• Efficient in the number of clicks involved.
• DHTML
• Cross-browser compatible

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Demonstration
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Lessons Learned

• People are going to be upset when they have to
  downgrade to an older version of a program just
  to run yours!
• ROSE is compatible only with gcc 2.96 (2 years
  old) and not a production version of gcc
• Schedules are hard to follow
• Its important to focus on whats needed rather
  than what would be nice

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Acknowledgments

• http//www.treemenu.net

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Questions???