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1# News
2
31. Visual Studio 2013 is no longer supported
4
5   [As scheduled](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/blob/9eef54b2513ca6b40b47b07d24f453848b65c0df/README.md#planned-deprecationsremovals),
6Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 is no longer officially supported. \
7   Please upgrade to at least Visual Studio 2015.
8
92. The versioning scheme is being improved, and you might notice some differences.  This is currently WIP, but will be coming soon.  See, for example, PR #2277.
10
113. If you get a new **compilation error due to a missing header**, it might be caused by this planned removal:
12
13**SPIRV Folder, 1-May, 2020.** Glslang, when installed through CMake,
14will install a `SPIRV` folder into `${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR}`.
15This `SPIRV` folder is being moved to `glslang/SPIRV`.
16During the transition the `SPIRV` folder will be installed into both locations.
17The old install of `SPIRV/` will be removed as a CMake install target no sooner than May 1, 2020.
18See issue #1964.
19
20If people are only using this location to get spirv.hpp, I recommend they get that from [SPIRV-Headers](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/SPIRV-Headers) instead.
21
22[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/KhronosGroup/glslang.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/KhronosGroup/glslang)
23[![Build status](https://ci.appveyor.com/api/projects/status/q6fi9cb0qnhkla68/branch/master?svg=true)](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Khronoswebmaster/glslang/branch/master)
24
25# Glslang Components and Status
26
27There are several components:
28
29### Reference Validator and GLSL/ESSL -> AST Front End
30
31An OpenGL GLSL and OpenGL|ES GLSL (ESSL) front-end for reference validation and translation of GLSL/ESSL into an internal abstract syntax tree (AST).
32
33**Status**: Virtually complete, with results carrying similar weight as the specifications.
34
35### HLSL -> AST Front End
36
37An HLSL front-end for translation of an approximation of HLSL to glslang's AST form.
38
39**Status**: Partially complete. Semantics are not reference quality and input is not validated.
40This 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.
41
42See [issue 362](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/issues/362) and [issue 701](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/issues/701) for current status.
43
44### AST -> SPIR-V Back End
45
46Translates glslang's AST to the Khronos-specified SPIR-V intermediate language.
47
48**Status**: Virtually complete.
49
50### Reflector
51
52An API for getting reflection information from the AST, reflection types/variables/etc. from the HLL source (not the SPIR-V).
53
54**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.
55
56### Standalone Wrapper
57
58`glslangValidator` is command-line tool for accessing the functionality above.
59
60Status: Complete.
61
62Tasks waiting to be done are documented as GitHub issues.
63
64## Other References
65
66Also see the Khronos landing page for glslang as a reference front end:
67
68https://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/tools/Reference-Compiler/
69
70The above page, while not kept up to date, includes additional information regarding glslang as a reference validator.
71
72# How to Use Glslang
73
74## Execution of Standalone Wrapper
75
76To use the standalone binary form, execute `glslangValidator`, and it will print
77a usage statement.  Basic operation is to give it a file containing a shader,
78and it will print out warnings/errors and optionally an AST.
79
80The applied stage-specific rules are based on the file extension:
81* `.vert` for a vertex shader
82* `.tesc` for a tessellation control shader
83* `.tese` for a tessellation evaluation shader
84* `.geom` for a geometry shader
85* `.frag` for a fragment shader
86* `.comp` for a compute shader
87
88There is also a non-shader extension
89* `.conf` for a configuration file of limits, see usage statement for example
90
91## Building (CMake)
92
93Instead of building manually, you can also download the binaries for your
94platform directly from the [master-tot release][master-tot-release] on GitHub.
95Those binaries are automatically uploaded by the buildbots after successful
96testing and they always reflect the current top of the tree of the master
97branch.
98
99### Dependencies
100
101* A C++11 compiler.
102  (For MSVS: use 2015 or later.)
103* [CMake][cmake]: for generating compilation targets.
104* make: _Linux_, ninja is an alternative, if configured.
105* [Python 3.x][python]: for executing SPIRV-Tools scripts. (Optional if not using SPIRV-Tools and the 'External' subdirectory does not exist.)
106* [bison][bison]: _optional_, but needed when changing the grammar (glslang.y).
107* [googletest][googletest]: _optional_, but should use if making any changes to glslang.
108
109### Build steps
110
111The following steps assume a Bash shell. On Windows, that could be the Git Bash
112shell or some other shell of your choosing.
113
114#### 1) Check-Out this project
115
116```bash
117cd <parent of where you want glslang to be>
118git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang.git
119```
120
121#### 2) Check-Out External Projects
122
123```bash
124cd <the directory glslang was cloned to, "External" will be a subdirectory>
125git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git External/googletest
126```
127
128TEMPORARY NOTICE: additionally perform the following to avoid a current
129breakage in googletest:
130
131```bash
132cd External/googletest
133git checkout 0c400f67fcf305869c5fb113dd296eca266c9725
134cd ../..
135```
136
137If you wish to assure that SPIR-V generated from HLSL is legal for Vulkan,
138wish to invoke -Os to reduce SPIR-V size from HLSL or GLSL, or wish to run the
139integrated test suite, install spirv-tools with this:
140
141```bash
142./update_glslang_sources.py
143```
144
145#### 3) Configure
146
147Assume the source directory is `$SOURCE_DIR` and the build directory is
148`$BUILD_DIR`. First ensure the build directory exists, then navigate to it:
149
150```bash
151mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR
152cd $BUILD_DIR
153```
154
155For building on Linux:
156
157```bash
158cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$(pwd)/install" $SOURCE_DIR
159# "Release" (for CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE) could also be "Debug" or "RelWithDebInfo"
160```
161
162For building on Android:
163```bash
164cmake $SOURCE_DIR -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$(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
165# If on Windows will be -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=%ANDROID_NDK_ROOT%\prebuilt\windows-x86_64\bin\make.exe
166# -G is needed for building on Windows
167# -DANDROID_ABI can also be armeabi-v7a for 32 bit
168```
169
170For building on Windows:
171
172```bash
173cmake $SOURCE_DIR -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$(pwd)/install"
174# The CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX part is for testing (explained later).
175```
176
177The CMake GUI also works for Windows (version 3.4.1 tested).
178
179Also, consider using `git config --global core.fileMode false` (or with `--local`) on Windows
180to prevent the addition of execution permission on files.
181
182#### 4) Build and Install
183
184```bash
185# for Linux:
186make -j4 install
187
188# for Windows:
189cmake --build . --config Release --target install
190# "Release" (for --config) could also be "Debug", "MinSizeRel", or "RelWithDebInfo"
191```
192
193If using MSVC, after running CMake to configure, use the
194Configuration Manager to check the `INSTALL` project.
195
196### Building (GN)
197
198glslang can also be built with the [GN build system](https://gn.googlesource.com/gn/).
199
200#### 1) Install `depot_tools`
201
202Download [depot_tools.zip](https://storage.googleapis.com/chrome-infra/depot_tools.zip),
203extract to a directory, and add this directory to your `PATH`.
204
205#### 2) Synchronize dependencies and generate build files
206
207This only needs to be done once after updating `glslang`.
208
209With the current directory set to your `glslang` checkout, type:
210
211```bash
212./update_glslang_sources.py
213gclient sync --gclientfile=standalone.gclient
214gn gen out/Default
215```
216
217#### 3) Build
218
219With the current directory set to your `glslang` checkout, type:
220
221```bash
222cd out/Default
223ninja
224```
225
226### If you need to change the GLSL grammar
227
228The grammar in `glslang/MachineIndependent/glslang.y` has to be recompiled with
229bison if it changes, the output files are committed to the repo to avoid every
230developer needing to have bison configured to compile the project when grammar
231changes are quite infrequent. For windows you can get binaries from
232[GnuWin32][bison-gnu-win32].
233
234The command to rebuild is:
235
236```bash
237m4 -P MachineIndependent/glslang.m4 > MachineIndependent/glslang.y
238bison --defines=MachineIndependent/glslang_tab.cpp.h
239      -t MachineIndependent/glslang.y
240      -o MachineIndependent/glslang_tab.cpp
241```
242
243The above commands are also available in the bash script in `updateGrammar`,
244when executed from the glslang subdirectory of the glslang repository.
245With no arguments it builds the full grammar, and with a "web" argument,
246the web grammar subset (see more about the web subset in the next section).
247
248### Building to WASM for the Web and Node
249### Building a standalone JS/WASM library for the Web and Node
250
251Use the steps in [Build Steps](#build-steps), with the following notes/exceptions:
252* `emsdk` needs to be present in your executable search path, *PATH* for
253  Bash-like environments:
254  + [Instructions located here](https://emscripten.org/docs/getting_started/downloads.html#sdk-download-and-install)
255* Wrap cmake call: `emcmake cmake`
256* Set `-DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DENABLE_OPT=OFF -DINSTALL_GTEST=OFF`.
257* Set `-DENABLE_HLSL=OFF` if HLSL is not needed.
258* For a standalone JS/WASM library, turn on `-DENABLE_GLSLANG_JS=ON`.
259* For building a minimum-size web subset of core glslang:
260  + turn on `-DENABLE_GLSLANG_WEBMIN=ON` (disables HLSL)
261  + execute `updateGrammar web` from the glslang subdirectory
262    (or if using your own scripts, `m4` needs a `-DGLSLANG_WEB` argument)
263  + optionally, for GLSL compilation error messages, turn on
264    `-DENABLE_GLSLANG_WEBMIN_DEVEL=ON`
265* To get a fully minimized build, make sure to use `brotli` to compress the .js
266  and .wasm files
267
268Example:
269
270```sh
271emcmake cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_GLSLANG_JS=ON \
272    -DENABLE_HLSL=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DENABLE_OPT=OFF -DINSTALL_GTEST=OFF ..
273```
274
275## Building glslang - Using vcpkg
276
277You can download and install glslang using the [vcpkg](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) dependency manager:
278
279    git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
280    cd vcpkg
281    ./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
282    ./vcpkg integrate install
283    ./vcpkg install glslang
284
285The 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.
286
287## Testing
288
289Right now, there are two test harnesses existing in glslang: one is [Google
290Test](gtests/), one is the [`runtests` script](Test/runtests). The former
291runs unit tests and single-shader single-threaded integration tests, while
292the latter runs multiple-shader linking tests and multi-threaded tests.
293
294### Running tests
295
296The [`runtests` script](Test/runtests) requires compiled binaries to be
297installed into `$BUILD_DIR/install`. Please make sure you have supplied the
298correct configuration to CMake (using `-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX`) when building;
299otherwise, you may want to modify the path in the `runtests` script.
300
301Running Google Test-backed tests:
302
303```bash
304cd $BUILD_DIR
305
306# for Linux:
307ctest
308
309# for Windows:
310ctest -C {Debug|Release|RelWithDebInfo|MinSizeRel}
311
312# or, run the test binary directly
313# (which gives more fine-grained control like filtering):
314<dir-to-glslangtests-in-build-dir>/glslangtests
315```
316
317Running `runtests` script-backed tests:
318
319```bash
320cd $SOURCE_DIR/Test && ./runtests
321```
322
323If some tests fail with validation errors, there may be a mismatch between the
324version of `spirv-val` on the system and the version of glslang.  In this
325case, it is necessary to run `update_glslang_sources.py`.  See "Check-Out
326External Projects" above for more details.
327
328### Contributing tests
329
330Test results should always be included with a pull request that modifies
331functionality.
332
333If you are writing unit tests, please use the Google Test framework and
334place the tests under the `gtests/` directory.
335
336Integration tests are placed in the `Test/` directory. It contains test input
337and a subdirectory `baseResults/` that contains the expected results of the
338tests.  Both the tests and `baseResults/` are under source-code control.
339
340Google Test runs those integration tests by reading the test input, compiling
341them, and then compare against the expected results in `baseResults/`. The
342integration tests to run via Google Test is registered in various
343`gtests/*.FromFile.cpp` source files. `glslangtests` provides a command-line
344option `--update-mode`, which, if supplied, will overwrite the golden files
345under the `baseResults/` directory with real output from that invocation.
346For more information, please check `gtests/` directory's
347[README](gtests/README.md).
348
349For the `runtests` script, it will generate current results in the
350`localResults/` directory and `diff` them against the `baseResults/`.
351When you want to update the tracked test results, they need to be
352copied from `localResults/` to `baseResults/`.  This can be done by
353the `bump` shell script.
354
355You can add your own private list of tests, not tracked publicly, by using
356`localtestlist` to list non-tracked tests.  This is automatically read
357by `runtests` and included in the `diff` and `bump` process.
358
359## Programmatic Interfaces
360
361Another piece of software can programmatically translate shaders to an AST
362using one of two different interfaces:
363* A new C++ class-oriented interface, or
364* The original C functional interface
365
366The `main()` in `StandAlone/StandAlone.cpp` shows examples using both styles.
367
368### C++ Class Interface (new, preferred)
369
370This interface is in roughly the last 1/3 of `ShaderLang.h`.  It is in the
371glslang namespace and contains the following, here with suggested calls
372for generating SPIR-V:
373
374```cxx
375const char* GetEsslVersionString();
376const char* GetGlslVersionString();
377bool InitializeProcess();
378void FinalizeProcess();
379
380class TShader
381    setStrings(...);
382    setEnvInput(EShSourceHlsl or EShSourceGlsl, stage,  EShClientVulkan or EShClientOpenGL, 100);
383    setEnvClient(EShClientVulkan or EShClientOpenGL, EShTargetVulkan_1_0 or EShTargetVulkan_1_1 or EShTargetOpenGL_450);
384    setEnvTarget(EShTargetSpv, EShTargetSpv_1_0 or EShTargetSpv_1_3);
385    bool parse(...);
386    const char* getInfoLog();
387
388class TProgram
389    void addShader(...);
390    bool link(...);
391    const char* getInfoLog();
392    Reflection queries
393```
394
395For just validating (not generating code), substitute these calls:
396
397```cxx
398    setEnvInput(EShSourceHlsl or EShSourceGlsl, stage,  EShClientNone, 0);
399    setEnvClient(EShClientNone, 0);
400    setEnvTarget(EShTargetNone, 0);
401```
402
403See `ShaderLang.h` and the usage of it in `StandAlone/StandAlone.cpp` for more
404details. There is a block comment giving more detail above the calls for
405`setEnvInput, setEnvClient, and setEnvTarget`.
406
407### C Functional Interface (original)
408
409This interface is in roughly the first 2/3 of `ShaderLang.h`, and referred to
410as the `Sh*()` interface, as all the entry points start `Sh`.
411
412The `Sh*()` interface takes a "compiler" call-back object, which it calls after
413building call back that is passed the AST and can then execute a back end on it.
414
415The following is a simplified resulting run-time call stack:
416
417```c
418ShCompile(shader, compiler) -> compiler(AST) -> <back end>
419```
420
421In practice, `ShCompile()` takes shader strings, default version, and
422warning/error and other options for controlling compilation.
423
424## Basic Internal Operation
425
426* Initial lexical analysis is done by the preprocessor in
427  `MachineIndependent/Preprocessor`, and then refined by a GLSL scanner
428  in `MachineIndependent/Scan.cpp`.  There is currently no use of flex.
429
430* Code is parsed using bison on `MachineIndependent/glslang.y` with the
431  aid of a symbol table and an AST.  The symbol table is not passed on to
432  the back-end; the intermediate representation stands on its own.
433  The tree is built by the grammar productions, many of which are
434  offloaded into `ParseHelper.cpp`, and by `Intermediate.cpp`.
435
436* The intermediate representation is very high-level, and represented
437  as an in-memory tree.   This serves to lose no information from the
438  original program, and to have efficient transfer of the result from
439  parsing to the back-end.  In the AST, constants are propagated and
440  folded, and a very small amount of dead code is eliminated.
441
442  To aid linking and reflection, the last top-level branch in the AST
443  lists all global symbols.
444
445* The primary algorithm of the back-end compiler is to traverse the
446  tree (high-level intermediate representation), and create an internal
447  object code representation.  There is an example of how to do this
448  in `MachineIndependent/intermOut.cpp`.
449
450* Reduction of the tree to a linear byte-code style low-level intermediate
451  representation is likely a good way to generate fully optimized code.
452
453* There is currently some dead old-style linker-type code still lying around.
454
455* Memory pool: parsing uses types derived from C++ `std` types, using a
456  custom allocator that puts them in a memory pool.  This makes allocation
457  of individual container/contents just few cycles and deallocation free.
458  This pool is popped after the AST is made and processed.
459
460  The use is simple: if you are going to call `new`, there are three cases:
461
462  - the object comes from the pool (its base class has the macro
463    `POOL_ALLOCATOR_NEW_DELETE` in it) and you do not have to call `delete`
464
465  - it is a `TString`, in which case call `NewPoolTString()`, which gets
466    it from the pool, and there is no corresponding `delete`
467
468  - the object does not come from the pool, and you have to do normal
469    C++ memory management of what you `new`
470
471* Features can be protected by version/extension/stage/profile:
472  See the comment in `glslang/MachineIndependent/Versions.cpp`.
473
474[cmake]: https://cmake.org/
475[python]: https://www.python.org/
476[bison]: https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/
477[googletest]: https://github.com/google/googletest
478[bison-gnu-win32]: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/bison.htm
479[master-tot-release]: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/releases/tag/master-tot
480