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

Instruction Selection

The heart of any backend is instruction selection. LLVM implements several approaches; in this chapter, we will implement instruction selection via the selection directed acyclic graph (DAG) and with global instruction selection.

In this chapter, you will learn about the following topics:

  • Defining the rules of the calling convention: This section shows you how to describe the rules of a calling convention in the target description
  • Instruction selection via the selection DAG: This section teaches you how to implement instruction selection with a graph data structure
  • Adding register and instruction information: This section explains how to access information in the target description, and what additional information you need to provide
  • Putting an empty frame lowering in place: This section introduces you to the stack layout and the prologue of a function
  • Emitting machine instructions: This section tells you how machine instructions are...