Commit Graph

2 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Omar Sandoval
f49d68d8f9 libdrgn: split generic utility functions out of internal.h
internal.h includes both drgn-specific helpers and generic utility
functions. Split the latter into their own util.h header and use it
instead of internal.h in the generic data structure code. This makes it
easier to copy the data structures into other projects/test programs.
2020-05-07 16:03:43 -07:00
Omar Sandoval
75c3679147 Rewrite drgn core in C
The current mixed Python/C implementation works well, but it has a
couple of important limitations:

- It's too slow for some common use cases, like iterating over large
  data structures.
- It can't be reused in utilities written in other languages.

This replaces the internals with a new library written in C, libdrgn. It
includes Python bindings with mostly the same public interface as
before, with some important improvements:

- Types are now represented by a single Type class rather than the messy
  polymorphism in the Python implementation.
- Qualifiers are a bitmask instead of a set of strings.
- Bit fields are not considered a separate type.
- The lvalue/rvalue terminology is replaced with reference/value.
- Structure, union, and array values are better supported.
- Function objects are supported.
- Program distinguishes between lookups of variables, constants, and
  functions.

The C rewrite is about 6x as fast as the original Python when using the
Python bindings, and about 8x when using the C API directly.

Currently, the exposed API in C is fairly conservative. In the future,
the memory reader, type index, and object index APIs will probably be
exposed for more flexibility.
2019-04-02 14:12:07 -07:00