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

Defining the rules of the calling convention

Implementing the rules of the calling convention is an important part of lowering the LLVM intermediate representation (IR) to machine code. The basic rules can be defined in the target description. Let’s have a look.

Most calling conventions follow a basic pattern: they define a subset of registers for parameter passing. If this subset is not exhausted, the next parameter is passed in the next free register. If there is no free register, then the value is passed on the stack. This can be realized by looping over the parameters and deciding how to pass each parameter to the called function while keeping track of the used registers. In LLVM, this loop is implemented inside the framework, and the state is held in a class called CCState. Furthermore, the rules are defined in the target description.

The rules are given as a sequence of conditions. If the condition holds, then an action is executed. Depending on the outcome of that...