SPIRV-Tools/README.md

# SPIR-V Tools

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## Overview

The SPIR-V Tools project provides an API and commands for processing SPIR-V
modules.

The project includes an assembler, binary module parser, disassembler, and
validator for SPIR-V, all based on a common static library. The library contains
all of the implementation details, and is used in the standalone tools whilst
also enabling integration into other code bases directly.

The interfaces are still under development, and are expected to change.

SPIR-V is defined by the Khronos Group Inc.
See the [SPIR-V Registry][spirv-registry] for the SPIR-V specification,
headers, and XML registry.

## Verisoning SPIRV-Tools

See [`CHANGES`](CHANGES) for a high level summary of recent changes, by version.

SPIRV-Tools project version numbers are of the form `v`*year*`.`*index* and with
an optional `-dev` suffix to indicate work in progress.  For exampe, the
following versions are ordered from oldest to newest:

* `v2016.0`
* `v2016.1-dev`
* `v2016.1`
* `v2016.2-dev`
* `v2016.2`

Use the `--version` option on each command line tool to see the software
version.  An API call reports the software version as a C-style string.

## Supported features

### Assembler, binary parser, and disassembler

* Based on SPIR-V version 1.1 Rev 3
* Support for extended instruction sets:
  * GLSL std450 version 1.0 Rev 3
  * OpenCL version 1.0 Rev 2
* Support for SPIR-V 1.0 (with or without additional restrictions from Vulkan 1.0)
* Assembler only does basic syntax checking.  No cross validation of
  IDs or types is performed, except to check literal arguments to
  `OpConstant`, `OpSpecConstant`, and `OpSwitch`.

See [`syntax.md`](syntax.md) for the assembly language syntax.

### Validator

*Warning:* The validator is incomplete.

## Source code

The SPIR-V Tools are maintained by members of the The Khronos Group Inc.,
at https://github.com/KhronosGroup/SPIRV-Tools.

Contributions via merge request are welcome. Changes should:
* Be provided under the [Khronos license](#license).
* Include tests to cover updated functionality.
* C++ code should follow the [Google C++ Style Guide][cpp-style-guide].
* Code should be formatted with `clang-format`.  Settings are defined by
  the included [.clang-format](.clang-format) file.

We intend to maintain a linear history on the GitHub `master` branch.

### Source code organization

* `external/googletest`: Intended location for the
  [googletest][googletest] sources, not provided
* `include/`: API clients should add this directory to the include search path
* `external/spirv-headers`: Intended location for
  [SPIR-V headers][spirv-headers], not provided
* `include/spirv-tools/libspirv.h`: C API public interface
* `source/`: API implementation
* `test/`: Tests, using the [googletest][googletest] framework
* `tools/`: Command line executables

### Tests

The project contains a number of tests, used to drive development
and ensure correctness.  The tests are written using the
[googletest][googletest] framework.  The `googletest`
source is not provided with this project.  There are two ways to enable
tests:
* If SPIR-V Tools is configured as part of an enclosing project, then the
  enclosing project should configure `googletest` before configuring SPIR-V Tools.
* If SPIR-V Tools is configured as a standalone project, then download the
  `googletest` source into the `<spirv-dir>/external/googletest` directory before
  configuring and building the project.

*Note*: You must use a version of googletest that includes
[a fix][googletest-pull-612] for [googletest issue 610][googletest-issue-610].
The fix is included on the googletest master branch any time after 2015-11-10.
In particular, googletest must be newer than version 1.7.0.

## Build

The project uses [CMake][cmake] to generate platform-specific build
configurations. Assume that `<spirv-dir>` is the root directory of the checked
out code:

```
cd <spirv-dir>
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/SPIRV-Headers.git external/spirv-headers
git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git external/googletest # optional

mkdir build && cd build
cmake [-G <platform-generator>] <spirv-dir>
```

Once the build files have been generated, build using your preferred
development environment.

### CMake options

The following CMake options are supported:

* `SPIRV_COLOR_TERMINAL={ON|OFF}`, default `ON` - Enables color console output.
* `SPIRV_SKIP_EXECUTABLES={ON|OFF}`, default `OFF`- Build only the library, not
  the command line tools.  This will also prevent the tests from being built.
* `SPIRV_USE_SANITIZER=<sanitizer>`, default is no sanitizing - On UNIX
  platforms with an appropriate version of `clang` this option enables the use
  of the sanitizers documented [here][clang-sanitizers].
  This should only be used with a debug build.
* `SPIRV_WARN_EVERYTHING={ON|OFF}`, default `OFF` - On UNIX platforms enable
  more strict warnings.  The code might not compile with this option enabled.
  For Clang, enables `-Weverything`.  For GCC, enables `-Wpedantic`.
  See [`CMakeLists.txt`](CMakeLists.txt) for details.
* `SPIRV_WERROR={ON|OFF}`, default `ON` - Forces a compilation error on any
  warnings encountered by enabling the compiler-specific compiler front-end
  option.

## Library

### Usage

The library provides a C API, but the internals use C++11.

In order to use the library from an application, the include path should point
to `<spirv-dir>/include`, which will enable the application to include the
header `<spirv-dir>/include/spirv-tools/libspirv.h` then linking against the
static library in `<spirv-build-dir>/source/libSPIRV-Tools.a` or
`<spirv-build-dir>/source/SPIRV-Tools.lib`.

* `SPIRV-Tools` CMake target: Creates the static library:
  * `<spirv-build-dir>/source/libSPIRV-Tools.a` on Linux and OS X.
  * `<spirv-build-dir>/source/libSPIRV-Tools.lib` on Windows.

#### Entry points

The interfaces are still under development, and are expected to change.

There are three main entry points into the library.

* `spvTextToBinary`: An assembler, translating text to a binary SPIR-V module.
* `spvBinaryToText`: A disassembler, translating a binary SPIR-V module to
  text.
* `spvBinaryParse`: The entry point to a binary parser API.  It issues callbacks
  for the header and each parsed instruction.  The disassembler is implemented
  as a client of `spvBinaryParse`.
* `spvValidate` implements the validator functionality. *Incomplete*

## Command line tools

Command line tools, which wrap the above library functions, are provided to
assemble or disassemble shader files.  It's a convention to name SPIR-V
assembly and binary files with suffix `.spvasm` and `.spv`, respectively.

### Assembler tool

The assembler reads the assembly language text, and emits the binary form.

The standalone assembler is the exectuable called `spirv-as`, and is located in
`<spirv-build-dir>/tools/spirv-as`.  The functionality of the assembler is implemented
by the `spvTextToBinary` library function.

* `spirv-as` - the standalone assembler
  * `<spirv-dir>/tools/as`

Use option `-h` to print help.

### Disassembler tool

The disassembler reads the binary form, and emits assembly language text.

The standalone disassembler is the executable called `spirv-dis`, and is located in
`<spirv-build-dir>/tools/spirv-dis`. The functionality of the disassembler is implemented
by the `spvBinaryToText` library function.

* `spirv-dis` - the standalone disassembler
  * `<spirv-dir>/tools/dis`

Use option `-h` to print help.

The output includes syntax colouring when printing to the standard output stream,
on Linux, Windows, and OS X.

### Optimizer tool

The optimizer processes a SPIR-V binary module, applying transformations
in the specified order.

This is a work in progress, with initially only few available transformations.

* `spirv-opt` - the standalone optimizer
  * `<spirv-dir>/tools/opt`

### Validator tool

*Warning:* This functionality is under development, and is incomplete.

The standalone validator is the executable called `spirv-val`, and is located in
`<spirv-build-dir>/tools/spirv-val`. The functionality of the validator is implemented
by the `spvValidate` library function.

The validator operates on the binary form.

* `spirv-val` - the standalone validator
  * `<spirv-dir>/tools/val`

### Control flow dumper tool

The control flow dumper prints the control flow graph for a SPIR-V module as a
[GraphViz](http://www.graphviz.org/) graph.

This is experimental.

* `spirv-cfg` - the control flow graph dumper
  * `<spirv-dir>/tools/cfg`

### Utility filters

* `spirv-lesspipe.sh` - Automatically disassembles `.spv` binary files for the
  `less` program, on compatible systems.  For example, set the `LESSOPEN`
  environment variable as follows, assuming both `spirv-lesspipe.sh` and
  `spirv-dis` are on your executable search path:
  ```
   export LESSOPEN='| spirv-lesspipe.sh "%s"'
  ```
  Then you page through a disassembled module as follows:
  ```
  less foo.spv
  ```
  * The `spirv-lesspipe.sh` script will pass through any extra arguments to
    `spirv-dis`.  So, for example, you can turn off colours and friendly ID
    naming as follows:
    ```
    export LESSOPEN='| spirv-lesspipe.sh "%s" --no-color --raw-id'
    ```

### Tests

Tests are only built when googletest is found.

The `<spirv-build-dir>/test/UnitSPIRV` executable runs the project tests.
It supports the standard `googletest` command line options.

The project also adds a CMake test `spirv-tools-testsuite`, which executes
`UnitSPIRV`.  That way it's possible to run the tests using `ctest`.

## Future Work
<a name="future"></a>

### Assembler and disassembler

* The disassembler could emit helpful annotations in comments.  For example:
  * Use variable name information from debug instructions to annotate
    key operations on variables.
  * Show control flow information by annotating `OpLabel` instructions with
    that basic block's predecessors.
* Error messages could be improved.

### Validator

This is a work in progress.

## Licence
<a name="license"></a>
```
Copyright (c) 2015-2016 The Khronos Group Inc.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and/or associated documentation files (the
"Materials"), to deal in the Materials without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Materials, and to
permit persons to whom the Materials are furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Materials.

MODIFICATIONS TO THIS FILE MAY MEAN IT NO LONGER ACCURATELY REFLECTS
KHRONOS STANDARDS. THE UNMODIFIED, NORMATIVE VERSIONS OF KHRONOS
SPECIFICATIONS AND HEADER INFORMATION ARE LOCATED AT
   https://www.khronos.org/registry/

THE MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
MATERIALS OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE MATERIALS.
```

[spirv-registry]: https://www.khronos.org/registry/spir-v/
[spirv-headers]: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/SPIRV-Headers
[googletest]: https://github.com/google/googletest
[googletest-pull-612]: https://github.com/google/googletest/pull/612
[googletest-issue-610]: https://github.com/google/googletest/issues/610
[CMake]: https://cmake.org/
[cpp-style-guide]: https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html
[clang-sanitizers]: http://clang.llvm.org/docs/UsersManual.html#controlling-code-generation