Scope based cleanup

Introduction

This repository contains Coccinelle semantic patch that transforms explicit lock/unlock patterns into a scope-based cleanup style using guard macros.

Prerequisites

Before running the script, you need to have Coccinelle installed on your system.

Install Coccinelle

On Ubuntu/debian

sudo apt install coccinelle

On Fedora

sudo dnf install coccinelle

On Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S coccinelle

Verify installation

spatch --version

How to Run the Script

Directly with Coccinelle

The top of file scoped_guard includes two file, guard_goto.cocci and cleanup.cocci. The files should be run in this precedence.

spatch --sp-file path_to/scoped_guard.cocci [path_to_c_file] --very-quiet -D lock=[lock pattern] -D unlock=[unlock pattern] -D lock_type=[lock type]

Example of mutex transformation

spatch --sp-file ./scoped_guard.cocci file.c --very-quiet -D lock=mutex_lock -D unlock=mutex_unlock -D lock_type=mutex

Using the Makefile

To simplify running of the script one could use the provide Makefile. Before running the make file please configure

1. COCCI_SCRIPT with the path to your coccinelle script
2. SOURCE_DIR with path of your test c file

After making above configurations simply run:-

make [target]

Example for spinlock target

make spinlock

References

For further understanding on the inner working of the script, please refer to the blog posts below:

1. https://erickkaranja1.wordpress.com/2025/06/08/smarter-resource-management-with-scoped_guard/
2. https://erickkaranja1.wordpress.com/2025/07/02/from-mutex_lock-mutex_unlock-to-scoped_guard-part-2/
3. https://erickkaranja1.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/from-lock-unlock-to-scoped_guard-part-3/