<\/p>\n
Finding references and definitions<\/h2>\n
The first powerful feature we have added is a very fast and precise “Find All References” command. Unlike Visual Studio that first searches\u00a0all files for a certain text and then verifies each occurrence, VisualGDB builds a global cache containing\u00a0pre-sorted information about the code structure and references. As a result, finding references to the correct method or\u00a0field, even if its uses are scattered around 10 thousand files, is always instant.<\/p>\n
For example, let’s\u00a0try it with a Decl::PrintStats()<\/strong> function in clang itself. The clang\u00a0project contains\u00a0almost\u00a03000 .cpp files and 21 of them\u00a0contain the ‘PrintStats’ word. However, right-clicking on the\u00a0function definition and\u00a0finding all references\u00a0takes less than a second with no false positives:<\/p>\n Let’s look at another example:\u00a0search for all uses of panic()\u00a0in\u00a0almost 10000 source files of the Linux kernel. This takes a bit longer (3 seconds), but is still much faster than looking through each file manually.<\/p>\n It will also find references\u00a0behind preprocessor macros. E.g. in this example\u00a0you will also see all\u00a0places where a use of IOMMU_WAIT_OP() was expanded to a call to panic(): Building the cache initially\u00a0can take a while for a really large project, however we have\u00a0optimized that greatly:<\/p>\n Go to definition works similarly to “find all references”. It uses the global cache to find the right function or class among thousands of source files.<\/p>\n Althrough “Find all references” gives a good overview\u00a0where a certain function or class is used, sometimes\u00a0a good hierarchical view can\u00a0give a much better understanding. E.g. let’s explore the hierarchy of declaration classes in clang sources. Simply\u00a0right-click on the ‘Decl’ class somewhere in the code and, “Explore class tree” and choose to only\u00a0explore the tree downwards (from parent to derived classes): You can quickly see what classes are derived from a given\u00a0class in the entire solution (or browse parent classes if you change tree direction). Each time you expand a tree node,\u00a0it takes less than a second for VisualGDB to find the matching classes because it takes that data from the fast global cache.<\/p>\n Similarly to class trees you can\u00a0explore override trees. E.g. if you right-click on the TypeDecl::getSourceRange()<\/strong> method, you will see that it overrides a method in the Decl<\/strong> class and is in turn overridden in 4 derived\u00a0classes. You can tweak numerous settings related to the new engine via Tools->Options->Text Editor->C\/C++(VisualGDB): And\u00a0if you have further suggestions or encounter bugs, do not hesitate to drop a note to our support so that we can ensure your VisualGDB experience will be flawless.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have recently released a new preview build of VisualGDB 5.0 featuring a new Clang-based IntelliSense engine. This\u00a0preview build focuses on greatly improving the experience with\u00a0navigating large code bases. In this post I will show how to quickly analyze the code structure and navigate in 2 large codebases: The source code of clang itself (~30MB … Continue reading Exploring code with VisualGDB 5.0 Preview 4<\/span> ![\"findrefs\"](\"http:\/\/sysprogs.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/findrefs.png\")
<\/a>This is achieved because VisualGDB\u00a0pre-sorts the\u00a0references when building the cache, so finding the correct ones is as easy as finding the right word in a dictionary.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
Exploring code hierarchies<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Similarly to override trees you can explore call trees (e.g. see that get_random_bytes()<\/strong> calls extract_entropy()<\/strong>\u00a0that is also called by xfer_seconday_pool()<\/strong>).<\/a><\/p>\nTweaking<\/h2>\n
<\/a>You can read more about the features in our new Clang-based IntelliSense engine here<\/a>.<\/p>\n