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

Performing semantic analysis

The parser we constructed in the previous section only checks the syntax of the input. The next step is to add the ability to perform semantic analysis. In the calc example in the previous chapter, the parser constructed an AST. In a separate phase, the semantic analyzer worked on this tree. This approach can always be used. In this section, we will use a slightly different approach and intertwine the parser and the semantic analyzer more.

What does the semantic analyzer need to do? Let’s take a look:

  • For each declaration, the names of variables, objects, and more must be checked to ensure they have not been declared elsewhere.
  • For each occurrence of a name in an expression or statement, it must be checked that the name is declared and that the desired use fits the declaration.
  • For each expression, the resulting type must be computed. It is also necessary to compute if the expression is constant and if so, which value it has.
  • ...