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

Managing the input files for the compiler

A real compiler has to deal with many files. Usually, the developer calls the compiler with the name of the main compilation unit. This compilation unit can refer to other files – for example, via #include directives in C or import statements in Python or Modula-2. An imported module can import other modules, and so on. All these files must be loaded into memory and run through the analysis stages of the compiler. During development, a developer may make syntactical or semantical errors. When detected, an error message, including the source line and a marker, should be printed. This essential component is not trivial.

Luckily, LLVM comes with a solution: the llvm::SourceMgr class. A new source file is added to SourceMgr with a call to the AddNewSourceBuffer() method. Alternatively, a file can be loaded with a call to the AddIncludeFile() method. Both methods return an ID to identify the buffer. You can use this ID to retrieve a pointer...