Getting Coccinelle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-The semantic patches included in the kernel use the 'virtual rule'
-feature which was introduced in Coccinelle version 0.1.11.
+The semantic patches included in the kernel use features and options
+which are provided by Coccinelle version 1.0.0-rc11 and above.
+Using earlier versions will fail as the option names used by
+the Coccinelle files and coccicheck have been updated.
-Coccinelle (>=0.2.0) is available through the package manager
+Coccinelle is available through the package manager
of many distributions, e.g. :
- - Debian (>=squeeze)
- - Fedora (>=13)
- - Ubuntu (>=10.04 Lucid Lynx)
+ - Debian
+ - Fedora
+ - Ubuntu
- OpenSUSE
- Arch Linux
- NetBSD
sudo make install
-The semantic patches in the kernel will work best with Coccinelle version
-0.2.4 or later. Using earlier versions may incur some parse errors in the
-semantic patch code, but any results that are obtained should still be
-correct.
-
Using Coccinelle on the Linux kernel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Makefile. This target is named 'coccicheck' and calls the 'coccicheck'
front-end in the 'scripts' directory.
-Four modes are defined: patch, report, context, and org. The mode to
+Four basic modes are defined: patch, report, context, and org. The mode to
use is specified by setting the MODE variable with 'MODE=<mode>'.
'patch' proposes a fix, when possible.
'org' generates a report in the Org mode format of Emacs.
Note that not all semantic patches implement all modes. For easy use
-of Coccinelle, the default mode is "chain" which tries the previous
-modes in the order above until one succeeds.
+of Coccinelle, the default mode is "report".
+
+Two other modes provide some common combinations of these modes.
+
+'chain' tries the previous modes in the order above until one succeeds.
-To make a report for every semantic patch, run the following command:
+'rep+ctxt' runs successively the report mode and the context mode.
+ It should be used with the C option (described later)
+ which checks the code on a file basis.
- make coccicheck MODE=report
+Examples:
+ To make a report for every semantic patch, run the following command:
-NB: The 'report' mode is the default one.
+ make coccicheck MODE=report
-To produce patches, run:
+ To produce patches, run:
- make coccicheck MODE=patch
+ make coccicheck MODE=patch
The coccicheck target applies every semantic patch available in the
make coccicheck MODE=report V=1
+By default, coccicheck tries to run as parallel as possible. To change
+the parallelism, set the J= variable. For example, to run across 4 CPUs:
+
+ make coccicheck MODE=report J=4
+
Using Coccinelle with a single semantic patch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For example, to check drivers/net/wireless/ one may write:
make coccicheck M=drivers/net/wireless/
-
+
To apply Coccinelle on a file basis, instead of a directory basis, the
following command may be used:
make C=2 CHECK="scripts/coccicheck"
+In these modes, which works on a file basis, there is no information
+about semantic patches displayed, and no commit message proposed.
+
This runs every semantic patch in scripts/coccinelle by default. The
COCCI variable may additionally be used to only apply a single
semantic patch as shown in the previous section.
-The "chain" mode is the default. You can select another one with the
+The "report" mode is the default. You can select another one with the
MODE variable explained above.
-In this mode, there is no information about semantic patches
-displayed, and no commit message proposed.
+ Additional flags
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Additional flags can be passed to spatch through the SPFLAGS
+variable.
+
+ make SPFLAGS=--use-glimpse coccicheck
+ make SPFLAGS=--use-idutils coccicheck
+
+See spatch --help to learn more about spatch options.
+Note that the '--use-glimpse' and '--use-idutils' options
+require external tools for indexing the code. None of them is
+thus active by default. However, by indexing the code with
+one of these tools, and according to the cocci file used,
+spatch could proceed the entire code base more quickly.
Proposing new semantic patches
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~