Extra Clang Tools 9.0.0 Release Notes

Written by the LLVM Team

Introduction

This document contains the release notes for the Extra Clang Tools, part of the Clang release 9.0.0. Here we describe the status of the Extra Clang Tools in some detail, including major improvements from the previous release and new feature work. All LLVM releases may be downloaded from the LLVM releases web site.

For more information about Clang or LLVM, including information about the latest release, please see the Clang Web Site or the LLVM Web Site.

What’s New in Extra Clang Tools 9.0.0?

Some of the major new features and improvements to Extra Clang Tools are listed here. Generic improvements to Extra Clang Tools as a whole or to its underlying infrastructure are described first, followed by tool-specific sections.

Improvements to clangd

  • Background indexing is on by default

    When using clangd, it will build an index of your code base (all files listed in your compile database). This index enables go-to-definition, find-references, and even code completion to find symbols across your project.

    This feature can consume a lot of CPU. It can be disabled using the --background-index=false flag, and respects -j to use fewer threads. The index is written to .clangd/index in the project root.

  • Contextual code actions

    Extract variable, expand auto, expand macro, convert string to raw string. More to come in the future!

  • Clang-tidy warnings are available

    These will be produced for projects that have a .clang-tidy file in their source tree, as described in the clang-tidy documentation.

  • Improved diagnostics

    Errors from headers are now shown (on the #including line). The message now indicates if fixes are available. Navigation between errors and associated notes is improved (for editors that support Diagnostic.relatedInformation).

  • Suggested includes

    When a class or other name is not found, clangd may suggest to fix this by adding the corresponding #include directive.

  • Semantic highlighting

    clangd can push syntax information to the editor, allowing it to highlight e.g. member variables differently from locals. (requires editor support)

    This implements the proposed protocol from https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node/pull/367

  • Type hierachy

    Navigation to base/derived types is possible in editors that support the proposed protocol from https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node/pull/426

  • Improvements to include insertion

    Only headers with #include-guards will be inserted, and the feature can be disabled with the --header-insertion=never flag.

    Standard library headers should now be inserted more accurately, particularly for C++ other than libstdc++, and for the C standard library.

  • Code completion

    Overloads are bundled into a single completion item by default. (for editors that support signature-help).

    Redundant const/non-const overloads are no longer shown.

    Before clangd is warmed up (during preamble build), limited identifier- and index-based code completion is available.

  • Format-on-type

    A new implementation of format-on-type is triggered by hitting enter: it attempts to reformat the previous line and reindent the new line. (Requires editor support).

  • Toolchain header detection

    Projects that use an embedded gcc toolchain may only work when used with the corresponding standard library. clangd can now query the toolchain to find these headers. The compilation database must correctly specify this toolchain, and the --query-driver=/path/to/toolchain/bin/* flag must be passed to clangd.

  • Miscellaneous improvements

    Hover now produces richer Markdown-formatted text (for supported editors).

    Rename is safer and more helpful, though is still within one file only.

    Files without extensions (e.g. C++ standard library) are handled better.

    clangd can understand offsets in UTF-8 or UTF-32 through command-line flags or protocol extensions. (Useful with editors/platforms that don’t speak UTF-16).

    Editors that support edits near the cursor in code-completion can set the textDocument.completion.editsNearCursor capability to true, and clangd will provide completions that correct . to ->, and vice-versa.

Improvements to clang-tidy

Improvements to pp-trace

  • Added a new option -callbacks to filter preprocessor callbacks. It replaces the -ignore option.