Re: [GSoC] Proposal for "Parse Makefile.am using an AST"

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Hello Matthias,

Matthias Paulmier <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm a french CS student at the University of Bordeaux. I'm currently 
> following a
> masters degree course specialized in network communications and 
> administration.
> I've been interested in free software for a couple of years now and have been
> willing to help a project for some time, but never found one I could help 
> with a
> significant contribution before that.
>
> I have decided to candidate for the project "Parse Makefile.am using an 
> Abstract
> Syntax Tree".

Your proposal is very welcome.  Google Summer of Code is a good
opportunity to start contributing to Free Software.

> The reason I'm choosing this subject over the other one is that I already have
> good knowledge about ASTs. I have worked on a small programming language as an
> assignment (project here :
> <https://services.emi.u-bordeaux.fr/projet/viewvc/compilfinal/> but it is very
> poorly written). It is a very basic interpreter for a trimmed Pascal 
> programming
> language written in C with Flex and Bison. On this project I've worked on the
> syntax and semantic analysis as well the lexer (which is not a big deal with
> Flex).
>
> I've already met with Mathieu Lirzin to talk about the project so I have a
> general idea of what is expected of this GSoC. From my understanding, both
> proposed subjects' goal is to go towards Automake's eventual modularization. 
> The
> benefits of generating this AST from a Makefile.am file would be to separate 
> the
> different code generation phases, improve the test suite by testing each phase
> separately and probably others that it can't think about now.
>
> My knowledge in Perl may be my weak point for this project as I only know a 
> bit
> of the syntax. But I am familiar with other programming languages, 
> principally C
> and Python.

The background you have of this compilation course would be helpful for
this project.  IMO The lack of knowledge of Perl is not a big deal,
however it means you will have to acquire a basic knowledge of Perl
during the "Community Bonding" period.

> If you have any suggestions on documents I can read or software I can check to
> prepare for this project I'll be glad to check them. I know texinfo is written
> in Perl and generates an AST so I'll check that.

Yes looking at Texinfo will be interesting for that.

I think you should start thinking on a roadmap with the milestones and
deadlines for your formal application.  The deliverables that are
expected for this project are on one hand a Perl library capable of
parsing 'Makefile.am' files, of injecting rudimentary predefined
compilation rules based on the semantic analysis, and of dumping the
resulting 'Makefile.in'.  A example script using that library should be
developped to easily be able to check the progress of the parsing and
code generation work.

Thanks.

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin
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