[GCC-XML] another set of questions after new tests

[Nicolas Hognon]

Hello,

(sorry if this email is too long)

I continue my evaluation of gcc-xml, so I come with another set of questions.

1. In some case it seems there is some autogenerated type and I do not
understand what is it exactly. for exemple:

<Variable id="_3" name="_ZTIN11MyNamespace10ClassTest3E" type="_11c"
               context="_1" location="f0:115" file="f0" line="115"
extern="1" artificial="1"/>
<Variable id="_4" name="_ZTIN11MyNamespace10ClassTest1E" type="_13c"
               context="_1" location="f0:15" file="f0" line="15"
extern="1" artificial="1"/>
<CvQualifiedType id="_11c" type="_11" const="1"/>
<CvQualifiedType id="_13c" type="_13" const="1"/>
<Struct id="_11" name="__vmi_class_type_info_pseudo2" context="_1"
            mangled="29__vmi_class_type_info_pseudo2" location="f0:115"
            file="f0" line="115" members="_21 _22 _23 _24 " bases=""/>
<Struct id="_13" name="__class_type_info_pseudo" context="_1"
            mangled="24__class_type_info_pseudo" location="f2:0" file="f2"
            line="0" members="" bases=""/>
<Field id="_21" name="" type="_73" context="_11" location="f0:115"
file="f0" line="115"/>
<Field id="_22" name="" type="_74" context="_11" location="f0:115"
file="f0" line="115"/>
<Field id="_23" name="" type="_74" context="_11" location="f0:115"
file="f0" line="115"/>
<Field id="_24" name="" type="_75" context="_11" location="f0:115"
file="f0" line="115"/>

id _3 and _4 are artificial so at this point I can know that they are
"autogenerated" variables.
But how can I detect that id _11 and _13 and fields _21/_22/_23/_24
are "autogenerated" data ?

2.  extern="1"
What does it means ?
What is an extern variable/method ?

3. incomplete="1" and class forward
Wwhat does incomplete means ?
How can I detect that a type definition, for exemple a class, is
forward definition.
For exemple when I wrote

class ClassForward;

to avoid including the file where ClassForward is defined.
In this case gcc-xml generate

<Struct id="_19" name="ClassForward" context="_10" incomplete="1"
        mangled="N11MyNamespace12ClassForwardE" location="f0:12"
        file="f0" line="12"/>
        
But I also see incomplete in another case (template instantiation, see
one of the following point).

4. What is the different between Class and Struct for gcc-xml ?

5. template

>From my first email on this list I know that gcc-xml does not generate
information about template which is not instantiated. Which is quite
"normal" in fact.

So I wrote the following code

template <class T>
class RefPtr
{
public:

	RefPtr();
	 RefPtr(T* iPointer);

	T* operator->() const;
	T& operator*() const;

protected:

	mutable T* m_Pointee;

};

And then I wrote the following code to have an instantiation of the
template class RefPtr

typedef RefPtr<Object> ObjectPtr;

gcc-xml generate me the following data

<Class id="_4" name="RefPtr<MyNamespace::Object>" context="_3" incomplete="1"
           mangled="N11MyNamespace6RefPtrINS_6ObjectEEE" location="f0:10"
           file="f0" line="10"/>
<Typedef id="_5" name="ObjectPtr" type="_4" context="_3" location="f0:27"
              file="f0" line="27"/>
         
But there is no other reference to the RefPtr class.

Why the RefPtr<MyNamespace::Object> is tagged as incomplete ?
Why there is no information about methods from the RefPtr class. There
is an instance
of the RefPtr class as I instantiate it with the typedef !

I make some test with template function and in this case it is ok.

If I have

template <class T> T TemplateMethod(const T& a);

and somewhere in the include

int a = TemplateMethod<int>(2);
float b = TemplateMethod<float>(3.0f);

there is in this case two instance of the function TemplateMethod in
the xml file.

6. I think it is time I close this email.

sorry for the long email.

nicolas