Machine-readable error reports

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It would be useful if ASAN were capable of outputting a machine-readable format 
for its crash logs (e.g., XML or JSON), for other tools such as fuzzers and 
IDEs to ingest. (The Clang Static Analyzer can output XML-formatted 
descriptions of issues that it discovers for this purpose.)

It is possible to write a parser for the output format as it is, but it will 
break as the report format evolves.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by rgovostes on 22 Feb 2014 at 3:52

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I've been asked to do this once or twice and my response remains solid "NO". 
We are not going to do this, sorry. 
Rationale: 
  1. The current output format is quite machine readable, despite the lack of <tags>. We have *many* users who parse it and don't complain. 
  2. Introducing 2-nd output format makes the code more hairy and testing harder
  3. The two output formats will eventually diverge 

We've seen all sorts of trouble with valgrind's xml output and we don't want to 
have the same experience with out tool.

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 22 Feb 2014 at 4:27

• Changed state: WontFix

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Kostya, what do you think of the following solution?

If an external contributor agree to contribute a program that can pipe asan 
output and convert it into a json and contribute tests that verify that it 
works. It must be relatively simple for us to do minor fixes to the program 
when we do changes to asan output format (which are not all that frequent).
This solution does not touch asan runtime at all, but at the same time solves 
some pain points related to automation and does not force people to reinvent 
the wheel every time.

rgovostes, will it solve at least some problems for you? Are you willing to 
contribute the program and tests?

Original comment by dvyu...@google.com on 22 Feb 2014 at 10:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I would not object to such solution (tests are a must-have), 
but I still don't think it's worth it. 

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 22 Feb 2014 at 10:43