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

Beyond Instruction Selection

Now that we’ve learned about instruction selection using the SelectionDAG and GlobalISel LLVM-based frameworks in the previous chapters, we can explore other interesting concepts beyond instruction selection. This chapter encapsulates some more advanced topics outside of the backend that can be interesting for a highly optimizing compiler. For instance, some passes run beyond instruction selection and can perform different optimizations on various instructions, which can mean that developers have the luxury to introduce their own passes to perform meaningful target-specific tasks at this point in the compiler.

Ultimately, within this chapter, we will dive into the following concepts:

  • Adding a new machine function pass to LLVM
  • Integrating a new target into the clang frontend
  • How to target a different CPU architecture