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

The LLVM pass manager

The LLVM core libraries optimize the IR that your compiler creates and turn it into object code. This giant task is broken down into separate steps called passes. These passes need to be executed in the right order, which is the objective of the pass manager.

Why not hard-code the order of the passes? The user of your compiler usually expects your compiler to provide a different level of optimization. Developers prefer fast compilation speed over optimization during development time. The final application should run as fast as possible, and your compiler should be able to perform sophisticated optimizations, with longer a compilation time being accepted. A different level of optimization means a different number of optimization passes that need to be executed. Thus, as a compiler writer, you may want to provide your own passes to take advantage of your knowledge of your source language. For example, you may want to replace well-known library functions with...