NAME

       Bear - a tool to generate compilation database for Clang tooling.

SYNOPSIS

       bear [options] -- [build command]

DESCRIPTION

       The  JSON compilation database <http://clang.llvm.org/docs/JSONCompilationDatabase.html> is used in Clang
       project to provide information how a single compilation unit was processed.  When that is available  then
       it is easy to re-run the compilation with different programs.

       Bear  executes  the original build command and intercept the command executions issued by the build tool.
       From the log of command executions it tries to identify the compiler calls and creates the final compila‐
       tion database.

OPTIONS

       --version
              Print version number.

       --help Print help message.

       --verbose
              Enable verbose logging.

       --output file
              Specify output file.  (Default file name provided.) The output is a JSON compilation database.

       --append
              Use previously generated output file and append the new entries to it.  This way you can run  Bear
              continuously during work, and it keeps the compilation database up to date.  File deletion and ad‐
              dition  are  both considered.  But build process change (compiler flags change) might cause dupli‐
              cate entries.

       --config file
              Specify a configuration file.  The configuration file captures how the output should be  formatted
              and which entries it shall contain.

       --force-preload
              Force to use the dynamic linker method of intercept command.

       --force-wrapper
              Force to use the compiler wrapper method of intercept command.

COMMANDS

       bear-intercept(1)
              Intercepts events that happened during the execution of the build command.

       bear-citnames(1)
              Deduce the semantics of the commands captured by bear-intercept(1).

OUTPUT

       The  JSON  compilation  database definition changed over time.  The current version of Bear generates en‐
       tries where:

       directory
              has absolute path.

       file   has absolute path.

       output has absolute path.

       arguments
              used instead of command to avoid shell escaping problems.  (Configuration can force  to  emit  the
              command field.) The compiler as the first argument has absolute path.  Some non compilation relat‐
              ed flags are filtered out from the final output.

CONFIG FILE

       Read  bear-citnames(1)  man  page  for the content of this file.  bear is not reading the content of this
       file, but passing the file name to bear citnames command.

EXIT STATUS

       The exit status of the program is the exit status of the build command.  Except when the  program  itself
       crashes, then it sets to non-zero.

TROUBLESHOOTING

       The  potential problems you can face with are: the build with and without Bear behaves differently or the
       output is empty.

       The most common cause for empty outputs is that the build command did not execute any commands.  The rea‐
       son for that could be, because incremental builds not running the compilers if everything is  up-to-date.
       Remember, Bear does not understand the build file (eg.: makefile), but intercepts the executed commands.

       The other common cause for empty output is that the build has a “configure” step, which captures the com‐
       piler to build the project.  In case of Bear is using the wrapper mode (read bear-intercept(1) man page),
       it  needs  to  run  the configure step with Bear too (and discard that output), before run the build with
       Bear.

       There could be many reasons for any of these failures.  It’s better to consult with the project wiki page
       for known problems, before open a bug report.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2012-2023 by László Nagy <https://github.com/rizsotto/Bear>

AUTHORS

       László Nagy.

Bear User Manuals                                 Jan 02, 2023                                           BEAR(1)