Coccinelle: Program transformation in the real world
summary
Coccinelle provides a small semantic patch language that matches C source patterns using meta-variables and a ... operator to express general edits, then applies those edits across a large codebase and emits conventional patches. It targets the Linux kernel (growing from 4M to ~26M lines), produces over 11,000+ commits referencing Coccinelle, and is integrated into kernel continuous integration, trading full automation for predictable, reviewable, large-scale transformations that developers actually use.
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chapters (5)
- 0:00Introduction
- 6:21Partial evaluation challenges
- 11:18From partial evaluation to Coccinelle
- 17:17Automation and predictability
- 19:44Impact and future
