1# News 2 3[](https://travis-ci.org/KhronosGroup/glslang) 4[](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Khronoswebmaster/glslang/branch/master) 5 6## Planned Deprecations/Removals 7 81. **SPIRV Folder, 1-May, 2020.** Glslang, when installed through CMake, 9will install a `SPIRV` folder into `${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR}`. 10This `SPIRV` folder is being moved to `glslang/SPIRV`. 11During the transition the `SPIRV` folder will be installed into both locations. 12The old install of `SPIRV/` will be removed as a CMake install target no sooner than May 1, 2020. 13See issue #1964. 14 152. **Visual Studio 2013, 20-July, 2020.** Keeping code compiling for MS Visual Studio 2013 will no longer be 16a goal as of July 20, 2020, the fifth anniversary of the release of Visual Studio 2015. 17 18# Glslang Components and Status 19 20There are several components: 21 22### Reference Validator and GLSL/ESSL -> AST Front End 23 24An OpenGL GLSL and OpenGL|ES GLSL (ESSL) front-end for reference validation and translation of GLSL/ESSL into an internal abstract syntax tree (AST). 25 26**Status**: Virtually complete, with results carrying similar weight as the specifications. 27 28### HLSL -> AST Front End 29 30An HLSL front-end for translation of an approximation of HLSL to glslang's AST form. 31 32**Status**: Partially complete. Semantics are not reference quality and input is not validated. 33This is in contrast to the [DXC project](https://github.com/Microsoft/DirectXShaderCompiler), which receives a much larger investment and attempts to have definitive/reference-level semantics. 34 35See [issue 362](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/issues/362) and [issue 701](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/issues/701) for current status. 36 37### AST -> SPIR-V Back End 38 39Translates glslang's AST to the Khronos-specified SPIR-V intermediate language. 40 41**Status**: Virtually complete. 42 43### Reflector 44 45An API for getting reflection information from the AST, reflection types/variables/etc. from the HLL source (not the SPIR-V). 46 47**Status**: There is a large amount of functionality present, but no specification/goal to measure completeness against. It is accurate for the input HLL and AST, but only approximate for what would later be emitted for SPIR-V. 48 49### Standalone Wrapper 50 51`glslangValidator` is command-line tool for accessing the functionality above. 52 53Status: Complete. 54 55Tasks waiting to be done are documented as GitHub issues. 56 57## Other References 58 59Also see the Khronos landing page for glslang as a reference front end: 60 61https://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/tools/Reference-Compiler/ 62 63The above page, while not kept up to date, includes additional information regarding glslang as a reference validator. 64 65# How to Use Glslang 66 67## Execution of Standalone Wrapper 68 69To use the standalone binary form, execute `glslangValidator`, and it will print 70a usage statement. Basic operation is to give it a file containing a shader, 71and it will print out warnings/errors and optionally an AST. 72 73The applied stage-specific rules are based on the file extension: 74* `.vert` for a vertex shader 75* `.tesc` for a tessellation control shader 76* `.tese` for a tessellation evaluation shader 77* `.geom` for a geometry shader 78* `.frag` for a fragment shader 79* `.comp` for a compute shader 80 81There is also a non-shader extension 82* `.conf` for a configuration file of limits, see usage statement for example 83 84## Building 85 86Instead of building manually, you can also download the binaries for your 87platform directly from the [master-tot release][master-tot-release] on GitHub. 88Those binaries are automatically uploaded by the buildbots after successful 89testing and they always reflect the current top of the tree of the master 90branch. 91 92### Dependencies 93 94* A C++11 compiler. 95 (For MSVS: 2015 is recommended, 2013 is fully supported/tested, and 2010 support is attempted, but not tested.) 96* [CMake][cmake]: for generating compilation targets. 97* make: _Linux_, ninja is an alternative, if configured. 98* [Python 3.x][python]: for executing SPIRV-Tools scripts. (Optional if not using SPIRV-Tools and the 'External' subdirectory does not exist.) 99* [bison][bison]: _optional_, but needed when changing the grammar (glslang.y). 100* [googletest][googletest]: _optional_, but should use if making any changes to glslang. 101 102### Build steps 103 104The following steps assume a Bash shell. On Windows, that could be the Git Bash 105shell or some other shell of your choosing. 106 107#### 1) Check-Out this project 108 109```bash 110cd <parent of where you want glslang to be> 111git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang.git 112``` 113 114#### 2) Check-Out External Projects 115 116```bash 117cd <the directory glslang was cloned to, "External" will be a subdirectory> 118git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git External/googletest 119``` 120 121If you want to use googletest with Visual Studio 2013, you also need to check out an older version: 122 123```bash 124# to use googletest with Visual Studio 2013 125cd External/googletest 126git checkout 440527a61e1c91188195f7de212c63c77e8f0a45 127cd ../.. 128``` 129 130If you wish to assure that SPIR-V generated from HLSL is legal for Vulkan, 131wish to invoke -Os to reduce SPIR-V size from HLSL or GLSL, or wish to run the 132integrated test suite, install spirv-tools with this: 133 134```bash 135./update_glslang_sources.py 136``` 137 138#### 3) Configure 139 140Assume the source directory is `$SOURCE_DIR` and the build directory is 141`$BUILD_DIR`. First ensure the build directory exists, then navigate to it: 142 143```bash 144mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR 145cd $BUILD_DIR 146``` 147 148For building on Linux: 149 150```bash 151cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$(pwd)/install" $SOURCE_DIR 152# "Release" (for CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE) could also be "Debug" or "RelWithDebInfo" 153``` 154 155For building on Android: 156```bash 157cmake $SOURCE_DIR -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$(pwd)/install" -DANDROID_ABI=arm64-v8a -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DANDROID_STL=c++_static -DANDROID_PLATFORM=android-24 -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=Android -DANDROID_TOOLCHAIN=clang -DANDROID_ARM_MODE=arm -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=$ANDROID_NDK_ROOT/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin/make -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$ANDROID_NDK_ROOT/build/cmake/android.toolchain.cmake 158# If on Windows will be -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=%ANDROID_NDK_ROOT%\prebuilt\windows-x86_64\bin\make.exe 159# -G is needed for building on Windows 160# -DANDROID_ABI can also be armeabi-v7a for 32 bit 161``` 162 163For building on Windows: 164 165```bash 166cmake $SOURCE_DIR -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$(pwd)/install" 167# The CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX part is for testing (explained later). 168``` 169 170The CMake GUI also works for Windows (version 3.4.1 tested). 171 172Also, consider using `git config --global core.fileMode false` (or with `--local`) on Windows 173to prevent the addition of execution permission on files. 174 175#### 4) Build and Install 176 177```bash 178# for Linux: 179make -j4 install 180 181# for Windows: 182cmake --build . --config Release --target install 183# "Release" (for --config) could also be "Debug", "MinSizeRel", or "RelWithDebInfo" 184``` 185 186If using MSVC, after running CMake to configure, use the 187Configuration Manager to check the `INSTALL` project. 188 189### If you need to change the GLSL grammar 190 191The grammar in `glslang/MachineIndependent/glslang.y` has to be recompiled with 192bison if it changes, the output files are committed to the repo to avoid every 193developer needing to have bison configured to compile the project when grammar 194changes are quite infrequent. For windows you can get binaries from 195[GnuWin32][bison-gnu-win32]. 196 197The command to rebuild is: 198 199```bash 200m4 -P MachineIndependent/glslang.m4 > MachineIndependent/glslang.y 201bison --defines=MachineIndependent/glslang_tab.cpp.h 202 -t MachineIndependent/glslang.y 203 -o MachineIndependent/glslang_tab.cpp 204``` 205 206The above commands are also available in the bash script in `updateGrammar`, 207when executed from the glslang subdirectory of the glslang repository. 208With no arguments it builds the full grammar, and with a "web" argument, 209the web grammar subset (see more about the web subset in the next section). 210 211### Building to WASM for the Web and Node 212### Building a standalone JS/WASM library for the Web and Node 213 214Use the steps in [Build Steps](#build-steps), with the following notes/exceptions: 215* `emsdk` needs to be present in your executable search path, *PATH* for 216 Bash-like environments: 217 + [Instructions located here](https://emscripten.org/docs/getting_started/downloads.html#sdk-download-and-install) 218* Wrap cmake call: `emcmake cmake` 219* Set `-DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DENABLE_OPT=OFF -DINSTALL_GTEST=OFF`. 220* Set `-DENABLE_HLSL=OFF` if HLSL is not needed. 221* For a standalone JS/WASM library, turn on `-DENABLE_GLSLANG_JS=ON`. 222* For building a minimum-size web subset of core glslang: 223 + turn on `-DENABLE_GLSLANG_WEBMIN=ON` (disables HLSL) 224 + execute `updateGrammar web` from the glslang subdirectory 225 (or if using your own scripts, `m4` needs a `-DGLSLANG_WEB` argument) 226 + optionally, for GLSL compilation error messages, turn on 227 `-DENABLE_GLSLANG_WEBMIN_DEVEL=ON` 228* To get a fully minimized build, make sure to use `brotli` to compress the .js 229 and .wasm files 230 231Example: 232 233```sh 234emcmake cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_GLSLANG_JS=ON \ 235 -DENABLE_HLSL=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DENABLE_OPT=OFF -DINSTALL_GTEST=OFF .. 236``` 237 238## Building glslang - Using vcpkg 239 240You can download and install glslang using the [vcpkg](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) dependency manager: 241 242 git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git 243 cd vcpkg 244 ./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh 245 ./vcpkg integrate install 246 ./vcpkg install glslang 247 248The glslang port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please [create an issue or pull request](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) on the vcpkg repository. 249 250## Testing 251 252Right now, there are two test harnesses existing in glslang: one is [Google 253Test](gtests/), one is the [`runtests` script](Test/runtests). The former 254runs unit tests and single-shader single-threaded integration tests, while 255the latter runs multiple-shader linking tests and multi-threaded tests. 256 257### Running tests 258 259The [`runtests` script](Test/runtests) requires compiled binaries to be 260installed into `$BUILD_DIR/install`. Please make sure you have supplied the 261correct configuration to CMake (using `-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX`) when building; 262otherwise, you may want to modify the path in the `runtests` script. 263 264Running Google Test-backed tests: 265 266```bash 267cd $BUILD_DIR 268 269# for Linux: 270ctest 271 272# for Windows: 273ctest -C {Debug|Release|RelWithDebInfo|MinSizeRel} 274 275# or, run the test binary directly 276# (which gives more fine-grained control like filtering): 277<dir-to-glslangtests-in-build-dir>/glslangtests 278``` 279 280Running `runtests` script-backed tests: 281 282```bash 283cd $SOURCE_DIR/Test && ./runtests 284``` 285 286If some tests fail with validation errors, there may be a mismatch between the 287version of `spirv-val` on the system and the version of glslang. In this 288case, it is necessary to run `update_glslang_sources.py`. See "Check-Out 289External Projects" above for more details. 290 291### Contributing tests 292 293Test results should always be included with a pull request that modifies 294functionality. 295 296If you are writing unit tests, please use the Google Test framework and 297place the tests under the `gtests/` directory. 298 299Integration tests are placed in the `Test/` directory. It contains test input 300and a subdirectory `baseResults/` that contains the expected results of the 301tests. Both the tests and `baseResults/` are under source-code control. 302 303Google Test runs those integration tests by reading the test input, compiling 304them, and then compare against the expected results in `baseResults/`. The 305integration tests to run via Google Test is registered in various 306`gtests/*.FromFile.cpp` source files. `glslangtests` provides a command-line 307option `--update-mode`, which, if supplied, will overwrite the golden files 308under the `baseResults/` directory with real output from that invocation. 309For more information, please check `gtests/` directory's 310[README](gtests/README.md). 311 312For the `runtests` script, it will generate current results in the 313`localResults/` directory and `diff` them against the `baseResults/`. 314When you want to update the tracked test results, they need to be 315copied from `localResults/` to `baseResults/`. This can be done by 316the `bump` shell script. 317 318You can add your own private list of tests, not tracked publicly, by using 319`localtestlist` to list non-tracked tests. This is automatically read 320by `runtests` and included in the `diff` and `bump` process. 321 322## Programmatic Interfaces 323 324Another piece of software can programmatically translate shaders to an AST 325using one of two different interfaces: 326* A new C++ class-oriented interface, or 327* The original C functional interface 328 329The `main()` in `StandAlone/StandAlone.cpp` shows examples using both styles. 330 331### C++ Class Interface (new, preferred) 332 333This interface is in roughly the last 1/3 of `ShaderLang.h`. It is in the 334glslang namespace and contains the following, here with suggested calls 335for generating SPIR-V: 336 337```cxx 338const char* GetEsslVersionString(); 339const char* GetGlslVersionString(); 340bool InitializeProcess(); 341void FinalizeProcess(); 342 343class TShader 344 setStrings(...); 345 setEnvInput(EShSourceHlsl or EShSourceGlsl, stage, EShClientVulkan or EShClientOpenGL, 100); 346 setEnvClient(EShClientVulkan or EShClientOpenGL, EShTargetVulkan_1_0 or EShTargetVulkan_1_1 or EShTargetOpenGL_450); 347 setEnvTarget(EShTargetSpv, EShTargetSpv_1_0 or EShTargetSpv_1_3); 348 bool parse(...); 349 const char* getInfoLog(); 350 351class TProgram 352 void addShader(...); 353 bool link(...); 354 const char* getInfoLog(); 355 Reflection queries 356``` 357 358For just validating (not generating code), substitute these calls: 359 360```cxx 361 setEnvInput(EShSourceHlsl or EShSourceGlsl, stage, EShClientNone, 0); 362 setEnvClient(EShClientNone, 0); 363 setEnvTarget(EShTargetNone, 0); 364``` 365 366See `ShaderLang.h` and the usage of it in `StandAlone/StandAlone.cpp` for more 367details. There is a block comment giving more detail above the calls for 368`setEnvInput, setEnvClient, and setEnvTarget`. 369 370### C Functional Interface (original) 371 372This interface is in roughly the first 2/3 of `ShaderLang.h`, and referred to 373as the `Sh*()` interface, as all the entry points start `Sh`. 374 375The `Sh*()` interface takes a "compiler" call-back object, which it calls after 376building call back that is passed the AST and can then execute a back end on it. 377 378The following is a simplified resulting run-time call stack: 379 380```c 381ShCompile(shader, compiler) -> compiler(AST) -> <back end> 382``` 383 384In practice, `ShCompile()` takes shader strings, default version, and 385warning/error and other options for controlling compilation. 386 387## Basic Internal Operation 388 389* Initial lexical analysis is done by the preprocessor in 390 `MachineIndependent/Preprocessor`, and then refined by a GLSL scanner 391 in `MachineIndependent/Scan.cpp`. There is currently no use of flex. 392 393* Code is parsed using bison on `MachineIndependent/glslang.y` with the 394 aid of a symbol table and an AST. The symbol table is not passed on to 395 the back-end; the intermediate representation stands on its own. 396 The tree is built by the grammar productions, many of which are 397 offloaded into `ParseHelper.cpp`, and by `Intermediate.cpp`. 398 399* The intermediate representation is very high-level, and represented 400 as an in-memory tree. This serves to lose no information from the 401 original program, and to have efficient transfer of the result from 402 parsing to the back-end. In the AST, constants are propagated and 403 folded, and a very small amount of dead code is eliminated. 404 405 To aid linking and reflection, the last top-level branch in the AST 406 lists all global symbols. 407 408* The primary algorithm of the back-end compiler is to traverse the 409 tree (high-level intermediate representation), and create an internal 410 object code representation. There is an example of how to do this 411 in `MachineIndependent/intermOut.cpp`. 412 413* Reduction of the tree to a linear byte-code style low-level intermediate 414 representation is likely a good way to generate fully optimized code. 415 416* There is currently some dead old-style linker-type code still lying around. 417 418* Memory pool: parsing uses types derived from C++ `std` types, using a 419 custom allocator that puts them in a memory pool. This makes allocation 420 of individual container/contents just few cycles and deallocation free. 421 This pool is popped after the AST is made and processed. 422 423 The use is simple: if you are going to call `new`, there are three cases: 424 425 - the object comes from the pool (its base class has the macro 426 `POOL_ALLOCATOR_NEW_DELETE` in it) and you do not have to call `delete` 427 428 - it is a `TString`, in which case call `NewPoolTString()`, which gets 429 it from the pool, and there is no corresponding `delete` 430 431 - the object does not come from the pool, and you have to do normal 432 C++ memory management of what you `new` 433 434* Features can be protected by version/extension/stage/profile: 435 See the comment in `glslang/MachineIndependent/Versions.cpp`. 436 437[cmake]: https://cmake.org/ 438[python]: https://www.python.org/ 439[bison]: https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/ 440[googletest]: https://github.com/google/googletest 441[bison-gnu-win32]: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/bison.htm 442[master-tot-release]: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/releases/tag/master-tot 443