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

Advanced IR Generation

With IR generation introduced in the previous chapters, you can already implement most of the functionality required in a compiler. In this chapter, we will look at some advanced topics that often arise in real-world compilers. For example, many modern languages make use of exception handling, so we’ll look at how to translate this into LLVM IR.

To support the LLVM optimizer so that it can produce better code in certain situations, we must add additional type metadata to the IR code. Moreover, attaching debug metadata enables the compiler’s user to take advantage of source-level debug tools.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Throwing and catching exceptions: Here, you will learn how to implement exception handling in your compiler
  • Generating metadata for type-based alias analysis: Here, you will attach additional metadata to LLVM IR, which helps LLVM to better optimize the code
  • Adding debug metadata: Here...