176 lines
		
	
	
		
			6.4 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Markdown
		
	
	
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			176 lines
		
	
	
		
			6.4 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Markdown
		
	
	
	
	
	
| Also see the Khronos landing page for glslang as a reference front end:
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| 
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| https://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/tools/Reference-Compiler/
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| 
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| The above page includes where to get binaries, and is kept up to date
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| regarding the feature level of glslang.
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| 
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| glslang
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| =======
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| 
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| An OpenGL and OpenGL ES shader front end and validator.
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| 
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| There are two components:
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| 
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| 1. A front-end library for programmatic parsing of GLSL/ESSL into an AST.
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| 
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| 2. A standalone wrapper, `glslangValidator`, that can be used as a shader
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|    validation tool.
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| 
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| How to add a feature protected by a version/extension/stage/profile:  See the
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| comment in `glslang/MachineIndependent/Versions.cpp`.
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| 
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| Things left to do:  See `Todo.txt`
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| 
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| Execution of Standalone Wrapper
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| -------------------------------
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| 
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| To use the standalone binary form, execute `glslangValidator`, and it will print
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| a usage statement.  Basic operation is to give it a file containing a shader,
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| and it will print out warnings/errors and optionally an AST.
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| 
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| The applied stage-specific rules are based on the file extension:
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| * `.vert` for a vertex shader
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| * `.tesc` for a tessellation control shader
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| * `.tese` for a tessellation evaluation shader
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| * `.geom` for a geometry shader
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| * `.frag` for a fragment shader
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| * `.comp` for a compute shader
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| 
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| There is also a non-shader extension
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| * `.conf` for a configuration file of limits, see usage statement for example
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| 
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| Building
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| --------
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| 
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| CMake: The currently maintained and preferred way of building is through CMake.
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| In MSVC, after running CMake, you may need to use the Configuration Manager to
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| check the INSTALL project.
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| 
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| Note there are some legacy build methods still intermingled within the directory
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| structure (make, MSVC), but these are no longer maintained, having been
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| replaced with CMake.
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| 
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| Programmatic Interfaces
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| -----------------------
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| 
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| Another piece of software can programmatically translate shaders to an AST
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| using one of two different interfaces:
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| * A new C++ class-oriented interface, or
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| * The original C functional interface
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| 
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| The `main()` in `StandAlone/StandAlone.cpp` shows examples using both styles.
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| 
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| ### C++ Class Interface (new, preferred)
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| 
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| This interface is in roughly the last 1/3 of `ShaderLang.h`.  It is in the
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| glslang namespace and contains the following.
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| 
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| ```cxx
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| const char* GetEsslVersionString();
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| const char* GetGlslVersionString();
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| bool InitializeProcess();
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| void FinalizeProcess();
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| 
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| class TShader
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|     bool parse(...);
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|     void setStrings(...);
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|     const char* getInfoLog();
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| 
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| class TProgram
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|     void addShader(...);
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|     bool link(...);
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|     const char* getInfoLog();
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|     Reflection queries
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| ```
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| 
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| See `ShaderLang.h` and the usage of it in `StandAlone/StandAlone.cpp` for more
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| details.
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| 
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| ### C Functional Interface (orginal)
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| 
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| This interface is in roughly the first 2/3 of `ShaderLang.h`, and referred to
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| as the `Sh*()` interface, as all the entry points start `Sh`.
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| 
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| The `Sh*()` interface takes a "compiler" call-back object, which it calls after
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| building call back that is passed the AST and can then execute a backend on it.
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| 
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| The following is a simplified resulting run-time call stack:
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| 
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| ```c
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| ShCompile(shader, compiler) -> compiler(AST) -> <back end>
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| ```
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| 
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| In practice, `ShCompile()` takes shader strings, default version, and
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| warning/error and other options for controling compilation.
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| 
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| Testing
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| -------
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| 
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| Test results should always be included with a pull request that modifies
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| functionality. There is a simple process for doing this, described here:
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| 
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| `Test` is an active test directory that contains test input and a
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| subdirectory `baseResults` that contains the expected results of the
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| tests.  Both the tests and `baseResults` are under source-code control.
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| Executing the script `./runtests` will generate current results in
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| the `localResults` directory and `diff` them against the `baseResults`.
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| 
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| When you want to update the tracked test results, they need to be
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| copied from `localResults` to `baseResults`.  This can be done by
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| the `bump` shell script.
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| 
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| The list of files tested comes from `testlist`, and lists input shaders
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| in this directory, which must all be public for this to work.  However,
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| you can add your own private list of tests, not tracked here, by using
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| `localtestlist` to list non-tracked tests.  This is automatically read
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| by `runtests` and included in the `diff` and `bump` process.
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| 
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| Basic Internal Operation
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| ------------------------
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| 
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| * Initial lexical analysis is done by the preprocessor in
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|   `MachineIndependent/Preprocessor`, and then refined by a GLSL scanner
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|   in `MachineIndependent/Scan.cpp`.  There is currently no use of flex.
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| 
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| * Code is parsed using bison on `MachineIndependent/glslang.y` with the
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|   aid of a symbol table and an AST.  The symbol table is not passed on to
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|   the back-end; the intermediate representation stands on its own.
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|   The tree is built by the grammar productions, many of which are
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|   offloaded into `ParseHelper.cpp`, and by `Intermediate.cpp`.
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| 
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| * The intermediate representation is very high-level, and represented
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|   as an in-memory tree.   This serves to lose no information from the
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|   original program, and to have efficient transfer of the result from
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|   parsing to the back-end.  In the AST, constants are propogated and
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|   folded, and a very small amount of dead code is eliminated.
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| 
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|   To aid linking and reflection, the last top-level branch in the AST
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|   lists all global symbols.
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| 
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| * The primary algorithm of the back-end compiler is to traverse the
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|   tree (high-level intermediate representation), and create an internal
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|   object code representation.  There is an example of how to do this
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|   in `MachineIndependent/intermOut.cpp`.
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| 
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| * Reduction of the tree to a linear byte-code style low-level intermediate
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|   representation is likely a good way to generate fully optimized code.
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| 
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| * There is currently some dead old-style linker-type code still lying around.
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| 
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| * Memory pool: parsing uses types derived from C++ `std` types, using a
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|   custom allocator that puts them in a memory pool.  This makes allocation
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|   of individual container/contents just few cycles and deallocation free.
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|   This pool is popped after the AST is made and processed.
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| 
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|   The use is simple: if you are going to call `new`, there are three cases:
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| 
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|   - the object comes from the pool (its base class has the macro
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|     `POOL_ALLOCATOR_NEW_DELETE` in it) and you do not have to call `delete`
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| 
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|   - it is a `TString`, in which case call `NewPoolTString()`, which gets
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|     it from the pool, and there is no corresponding `delete`
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| 
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|   - the object does not come from the pool, and you have to do normal
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|     C++ memory management of what you `new`
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