Book Image

Learn LLVM 17 - Second Edition

By : Kai Nacke, Amy Kwan
Book Image

Learn LLVM 17 - Second Edition

By: Kai Nacke, Amy Kwan

Overview of this book

LLVM was built to bridge the gap between the theoretical knowledge found in compiler textbooks and the practical demands of compiler development. With a modular codebase and advanced tools, LLVM empowers developers to build compilers with ease. This book serves as a practical introduction to LLVM, guiding you progressively through complex scenarios and ensuring that you navigate the challenges of building and working with compilers like a pro. The book starts by showing you how to configure, build, and install LLVM libraries, tools, and external projects. You’ll then be introduced to LLVM's design, unraveling its applications in each compiler stage: frontend, optimizer, and backend. Using a real programming language subset, you'll build a frontend, generate LLVM IR, optimize it through the pipeline, and generate machine code. Advanced chapters extend your expertise, covering topics such as extending LLVM with a new pass, using LLVM tools for debugging, and enhancing the quality of your code. You'll also focus on just-in-time compilation issues and the current state of JIT-compilation support with LLVM. Finally, you’ll develop a new backend for LLVM, gaining insights into target description and how instruction selection works. By the end of this book, you'll have hands-on experience with the LLVM compiler development framework through real-world examples and source code snippets.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Part 1: The Basics of Compiler Construction with LLVM
4
Part 2: From Source to Machine Code Generation
10
Part 3: Taking LLVM to the Next Level
14
Part 4: Roll Your Own Backend

Creating the target description

The target description is the heart of a backend implementation. It is written in the TableGen language and defines the basic properties of an architecture, such as the registers and the instruction formats and patterns for instruction selection. If you are not familiar with the TableGen language, then we recommend reading Chapter 8, The TableGen Language, first. The base definitions are in the llvm/include/llvm/Target/Target.td file, which can be found online at https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/llvm/include/llvm/Target/Target.td. This file is heavily commented on and is a useful source of information about the use of the definitions.

In an ideal world, we would generate the whole backend from the target description. This goal has not yet been reached, and therefore, we will need to extend the generated code later. Because of its size, the target description is split into several files. The top-level file will be M88k.td, inside the...