bear

Tool that generates a compilation database for clang tooling

Bear is a tool that generates a compilation database for clang tooling. The JSON compilation database is used in the clang project to provide information on how a single compilation unit is processed. With this, it is easy to re-run the compilation with alternate programs. One way to get a compilation database is to use cmake as the build tool. Passing -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON to cmake generates the compile_commands.json file into the current directory. For non-cmake projects, Bear generates the JSON file during the build process. The concept behind Bear is: to execute the original build command and intercept the exec calls issued by the build tool. To achieve that, Bear uses the LD_PRELOAD or DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES mechanisms provided by the dynamic linker.