Xevolver XML Framework — XevXml

XevXml is a framework for user-defined code transformations based on XML. XevXml provides interconversion between an abstract syntax tree (AST) of a C/Fortran code and an XML document. The XML document is exposed to users. Hence, the users can use any XML tools for user-defined AST transformations, and then generate a transformed version of the C/Fortran code.

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Description

Xevolver XML (XevXml) is one of software products developed by the Xevolver project supported by JST “Post-Peta” CREST. The purpose of this project is to help migration of legacy HPC applications to new-generation systems by improving their performance portabilities across system generations. Since the top priority is usually given to performance, an HPC application is often optimized and specialized for a particular HPC system. As a result, the performance is not portable to other systems. To make matters worse, such system-aware, system-specific code optimizations are likely to be scattered over the application code. This is one main reason why HPC application migration is so painful. It is not affordable to reoptimize the whole code whenever a new system becomes available.

XevXml is developed for XML-based AST transformations as an easy way to provide user-defined code transformations. The current implementation of XevXml is built on top of the ROSE compiler framework. XevXml converts a ROSE’s AST to an XML document, and exposes it to programmers. So the programmers can use any XML-related technologies and tools to transform the AST. Then, the transformed AST is given back to the ROSE compiler framework so that the AST is unparsed to generate a transformed application code. Instead of directly modifying an application code, programmers can define their own code transformations to optimize the code for each system. System-specific optimizations are represented as XML translation rules, which can be defined separately from an application code. This leads to separation between application requirements and system requirements, expecting a lower migration cost of HPC applications to new systems.

Requirements

  • ROSE compiler infrastructure — http://rosecompiler.org/
  • Apache Xerces C++ 3.1.1 — http://xerces.apache.org/
  • Apache Xalan C++ 1.0 — http://xml.apache.org/xalan-c/
  • PicoJSON — https://github.com/kazuho/picojson

Usage

XevXml provides two basic commands, src2xml and xml2src. The former converts a C/Fortran code into an XML document, which is output to the standard output. The latter reads an XML document from the standard input and unparses it to generate a C/Fortran code. For example, equivalent transformation of sample.c to sample-equiv.c is as follows.


% src2xml sample.c | xml2src sample-equiv.c

Here, src2xml generates an XML document that contains necessary information for rebuilding the AST. Each XML element corresponds one AST node of Sage III AST classes that are used in the ROSE compiler framework. An XML element may have some attributes. For example, an AST node of a function declaration, SgFunctionDefinition, needs the function name at rebuilding.

If a translation rule is written in an XSLT file, test.xsl, the rule is applied to an AST by


% src2xml sample.c | xsltexec test.xsl| xml2src sample-equiv.c

To append additional information to XML documents, a developer can customize two internal C++ classes, XevSageVisitor and XevXmlVisitor. The former class traverses an AST of Sage III classes used in ROSE, and translates it to an XML AST. The latter traverses an XML AST to rebuild ROSE’s AST.

Whenever XevSageVisitor visits an AST node, it writes an XML element whose name is the same as the class name of an AST node, e.g. SgVarRefExp. When writing XML attributes of each XML element,attribSgXXXX method is invoked. Similarily, when writing the child nodes of each XML element, inodeSgXXXX method is invoked.Therefore, by overloading those methods, a developer can customize XML documents generated by the XevSageVisitor class.

Whenever XevXmlVisitor visits an XML element, visigSgXXXX method is invoked. Therefore, by overloading such a method, a developer can customize the rebuliding process of an AST.

License

This project is released under the BSD 2-clause license

Copyright (C) 2010-2015 Hiroyuki TAKIZAWA. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  • Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

  • Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.