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12 Getting Started with the LLVM System
16 <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a>
17 <li><a href="#quickstart">Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</a>
18 <li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a>
20 <li><a href="#hardware">Hardware</a></li>
21 <li><a href="#software">Software</a></li>
22 <li><a href="#brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC and other tools</a></li>
25 <li><a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a>
27 <li><a href="#terminology">Terminology and Notation</a></li>
28 <li><a href="#environment">Setting Up Your Environment</a></li>
29 <li><a href="#unpack">Unpacking the LLVM Archives</a></li>
30 <li><a href="#checkout">Checkout LLVM from Subversion</a></li>
31 <li><a href="#git_mirror">LLVM GIT mirror</a></li>
32 <li><a href="#installcf">Install the GCC Front End</a></li>
33 <li><a href="#config">Local LLVM Configuration</a></li>
34 <li><a href="#compile">Compiling the LLVM Suite Source Code</a></li>
35 <li><a href="#cross-compile">Cross-Compiling LLVM</a></li>
36 <li><a href="#objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a></li>
37 <li><a href="#optionalconfig">Optional Configuration Items</a></li>
40 <li><a href="#layout">Program layout</a>
42 <li><a href="#examples"><tt>llvm/examples</tt></a></li>
43 <li><a href="#include"><tt>llvm/include</tt></a></li>
44 <li><a href="#lib"><tt>llvm/lib</tt></a></li>
45 <li><a href="#projects"><tt>llvm/projects</tt></a></li>
46 <li><a href="#runtime"><tt>llvm/runtime</tt></a></li>
47 <li><a href="#test"><tt>llvm/test</tt></a></li>
48 <li><a href="#test-suite"><tt>test-suite</tt></a></li>
49 <li><a href="#tools"><tt>llvm/tools</tt></a></li>
50 <li><a href="#utils"><tt>llvm/utils</tt></a></li>
53 <li><a href="#tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
55 <li><a href="#tutorial4">Example with llvm-gcc4</a></li>
57 <li><a href="#problems">Common Problems</a>
58 <li><a href="#links">Links</a>
61 <div class="doc_author">
63 <a href="mailto:criswell@uiuc.edu">John Criswell</a>,
64 <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>,
65 <a href="http://misha.brukman.net/">Misha Brukman</a>,
66 <a href="http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/~vadve">Vikram Adve</a>, and
67 <a href="mailto:gshi1@uiuc.edu">Guochun Shi</a>.
72 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
74 <a name="overview">Overview</a>
76 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
80 <p>Welcome to LLVM! In order to get started, you first need to know some
81 basic information.</p>
83 <p>First, LLVM comes in three pieces. The first piece is the LLVM
84 suite. This contains all of the tools, libraries, and header files
85 needed to use the low level virtual machine. It contains an
86 assembler, disassembler, bitcode analyzer and bitcode optimizer. It
87 also contains basic regression tests that can be used to test the LLVM
88 tools and the GCC front end.</p>
90 <p>The second piece is the GCC front end. This component provides a version of
91 GCC that compiles C and C++ code into LLVM bitcode. Currently, the GCC front
92 end uses the GCC parser to convert code to LLVM. Once
93 compiled into LLVM bitcode, a program can be manipulated with the LLVM tools
94 from the LLVM suite.</p>
97 There is a third, optional piece called Test Suite. It is a suite of programs
98 with a testing harness that can be used to further test LLVM's functionality
104 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
106 <a name="quickstart">Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</a>
108 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
112 <p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
115 <li>Read the documentation.</li>
116 <li>Read the documentation.</li>
117 <li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
118 <li>Install the llvm-gcc-4.2 front end if you intend to compile C or C++
119 (see <a href="#installcf">Install the GCC Front End</a> for details):
121 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-the-C-front-end-to-live</i></tt></li>
122 <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-gcc-4.2-<i>version</i>-<i>platform</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt></li>
123 <li><tt><i>install-binutils-binary-from-MinGW</i></tt> (Windows only)</li>
124 <li>Note: If the binary extension is "<tt>.bz</tt>" use <tt>bunzip2</tt> instead of <tt>gunzip</tt>.</li>
125 <li>Note: On Windows, use <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-Zip</a> or a similar archiving tool.</li>
126 <li>Add <tt>llvm-gcc</tt>'s "<tt>bin</tt>" directory to your <tt>PATH</tt> environment variable.</li>
129 <li>Get the LLVM Source Code
131 <li>With the distributed files (or use <a href="#checkout">SVN</a>):
133 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
134 <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
139 <li><b>[Optional]</b> Get the Test Suite Source Code
141 <li>With the distributed files (or use <a href="#checkout">SVN</a>):
143 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
144 <li><tt>cd llvm/projects</tt>
145 <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-test-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
146 <li><tt>mv llvm-test-<i>version</i> test-suite</tt>
152 <li>Configure the LLVM Build Environment
154 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-to-build-llvm</i></tt></li>
155 <li><tt><i>/path/to/llvm/</i>configure [options]</tt><br>
159 <li><tt>--prefix=<i>directory</i></tt>
160 <p>Specify for <i>directory</i> the full pathname of where you
161 want the LLVM tools and libraries to be installed (default
162 <tt>/usr/local</tt>).</p></li>
163 <li><tt>--with-llvmgccdir=<i>directory</i></tt>
164 <p>Optionally, specify for <i>directory</i> the full pathname of the
165 C/C++ front end installation to use with this LLVM configuration. If
166 not specified, the PATH will be searched. This is only needed if you
167 want to run test-suite or do some special kinds of LLVM builds.</p></li>
168 <li><tt>--enable-spec2000=<i>directory</i></tt>
169 <p>Enable the SPEC2000 benchmarks for testing. The SPEC2000
170 benchmarks should be available in
171 <tt><i>directory</i></tt>.</p></li>
175 <li>Build the LLVM Suite:
177 <li><tt>gmake -k |& tee gnumake.out
178 # this is csh or tcsh syntax</tt></li>
179 <li>If you get an "internal compiler error (ICE)" or test failures, see
180 <a href="#brokengcc">below</a>.</li>
185 <p>Consult the <a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a> section for
186 detailed information on configuring and compiling LLVM. See <a
187 href="#environment">Setting Up Your Environment</a> for tips that simplify
188 working with the GCC front end and LLVM tools. Go to <a href="#layout">Program
189 Layout</a> to learn about the layout of the source code tree.</p>
193 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
195 <a name="requirements">Requirements</a>
197 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
201 <p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given below.
202 This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware and
203 software you will need.</p>
205 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
207 <a name="hardware">Hardware</a>
212 <p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
214 <table cellpadding="3" summary="Known LLVM platforms">
222 <td>x86<sup><a href="#pf_1">1</a></sup></td>
227 <td>x86<sup><a href="#pf_1">1</a></sup></td>
237 <td>V9 (Ultrasparc)</td>
242 <td>x86<sup><a href="#pf_1">1</a></sup></td>
251 <td>MacOS X<sup><a href="#pf_2">2</a></sup></td>
256 <td>MacOS X<sup><a href="#pf_2">2</a>,<a href="#pf_9">9</a></sup></td>
261 <td>Cygwin/Win32</td>
262 <td>x86<sup><a href="#pf_1">1</a>,<a href="#pf_8">8</a>,
263 <a href="#pf_11">11</a></sup></td>
264 <td>GCC 3.4.X, binutils 2.20</td>
268 <td>x86<sup><a href="#pf_1">1</a>,<a href="#pf_6">6</a>,
269 <a href="#pf_8">8</a>, <a href="#pf_10">10</a>,
270 <a href="#pf_11">11</a></sup></td>
271 <td>GCC 3.4.X, binutils 2.20</td>
275 <p>LLVM has partial support for the following platforms:</p>
277 <table summary="LLVM partial platform support">
285 <td>x86<sup><a href="#pf_1">1</a></sup></td>
286 <td>Visual Studio 2005 SP1 or higher<sup><a href="#pf_4">4</a>,<a href="#pf_5">5</a></sup></td>
288 <td>AIX<sup><a href="#pf_3">3</a>,<a href="#pf_4">4</a></sup></td>
293 <td>Linux<sup><a href="#pf_3">3</a>,<a href="#pf_5">5</a></sup></td>
299 <td>Linux<sup><a href="#pf_7">7</a></sup></td>
304 <td>Linux<sup><a href="#pf_7">7</a></sup></td>
305 <td>Itanium (IA-64)</td>
309 <td>HP-UX<sup><a href="#pf_7">7</a></sup></td>
310 <td>Itanium (IA-64)</td>
316 <td>mingw-w64's GCC-4.5.x<sup><a href="#pf_12">12</a></sup></td>
322 <div class="doc_notes">
324 <li><a name="pf_1">Code generation supported for Pentium processors and
326 <li><a name="pf_2">Code generation supported for 32-bit ABI only</a></li>
327 <li><a name="pf_3">No native code generation</a></li>
328 <li><a name="pf_4">Build is not complete: one or more tools do not link or function</a></li>
329 <li><a name="pf_5">The GCC-based C/C++ frontend does not build</a></li>
330 <li><a name="pf_6">The port is done using the MSYS shell.</a></li>
331 <li><a name="pf_7">Native code generation exists but is not complete.</a></li>
332 <li><a name="pf_8">Binutils 2.20 or later is required to build the assembler
333 generated by LLVM properly.</a></li>
334 <li><a name="pf_9">XCode 2.5 and gcc 4.0.1</a> (Apple Build 5370) will trip
335 internal LLVM assert messages when compiled for Release at optimization
336 levels greater than 0 (i.e., <i>"-O1"</i> and higher).
337 Add <i>OPTIMIZE_OPTION="-O0"</i> to the build command line
338 if compiling for LLVM Release or bootstrapping the LLVM toolchain.</li>
339 <li><a name="pf_10">For MSYS/MinGW on Windows, be sure to install the MSYS
340 version of the perl package, and be sure it appears in your path
341 before any Windows-based versions such as Strawberry Perl and
342 ActivePerl, as these have Windows-specifics that will cause the
343 build to fail.</a></li>
344 <li><a name="pf_11">To use LLVM modules on Win32-based system,
345 you may configure LLVM with <i>"--enable-shared"</i>.</a></li>
346 <li><a name="pf_12">To compile SPU backend, you need to add
347 <tt>"LDFLAGS=-Wl,--stack,16777216"</tt> to configure.</a></li>
351 <p>Note that you will need about 1-3 GB of space for a full LLVM build in Debug
352 mode, depending on the system (it is so large because of all the debugging
353 information and the fact that the libraries are statically linked into multiple
354 tools). If you do not need many of the tools and you are space-conscious, you
355 can pass <tt>ONLY_TOOLS="tools you need"</tt> to make. The Release build
356 requires considerably less space.</p>
358 <p>The LLVM suite <i>may</i> compile on other platforms, but it is not
359 guaranteed to do so. If compilation is successful, the LLVM utilities should be
360 able to assemble, disassemble, analyze, and optimize LLVM bitcode. Code
361 generation should work as well, although the generated native code may not work
362 on your platform.</p>
364 <p>The GCC front end is not very portable at the moment. If you want to get it
365 to work on another platform, you can download a copy of the source and <a
366 href="GCCFEBuildInstrs.html">try to compile it</a> on your platform.</p>
370 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
372 <a name="software">Software</a>
375 <p>Compiling LLVM requires that you have several software packages
376 installed. The table below lists those required packages. The Package column
377 is the usual name for the software package that LLVM depends on. The Version
378 column provides "known to work" versions of the package. The Notes column
379 describes how LLVM uses the package and provides other details.</p>
380 <table summary="Packages required to compile LLVM">
381 <tr><th>Package</th><th>Version</th><th>Notes</th></tr>
384 <td><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/make">GNU Make</a></td>
385 <td>3.79, 3.79.1</td>
386 <td>Makefile/build processor</td>
390 <td><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/">GCC</a></td>
392 <td>C/C++ compiler<sup><a href="#sf1">1</a></sup></td>
396 <td><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/">TeXinfo</a></td>
398 <td>For building the CFE</td>
402 <td><a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html">SVN</a></td>
404 <td>Subversion access to LLVM<sup><a href="#sf2">2</a></sup></td>
409 Are DejaGnu and expect obsolete?
410 Shall we mention Python? -->
413 <td><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/dejagnu">DejaGnu</a></td>
415 <td>Automated test suite<sup><a href="#sf3">3</a></sup></td>
419 <td><a href="http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/">tcl</a></td>
421 <td>Automated test suite<sup><a href="#sf3">3</a></sup></td>
425 <td><a href="http://expect.nist.gov/">expect</a></td>
427 <td>Automated test suite<sup><a href="#sf3">3</a></sup></td>
431 <td><a href="http://www.perl.com/download.csp">perl</a></td>
433 <td>Nightly tester, utilities</td>
437 <td><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/m4">GNU M4</a>
439 <td>Macro processor for configuration<sup><a href="#sf4">4</a></sup></td>
443 <td><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/">GNU Autoconf</a></td>
445 <td>Configuration script builder<sup><a href="#sf4">4</a></sup></td>
449 <td><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/">GNU Automake</a></td>
451 <td>aclocal macro generator<sup><a href="#sf4">4</a></sup></td>
455 <td><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libtool">libtool</a></td>
457 <td>Shared library manager<sup><a href="#sf4">4</a></sup></td>
463 <div class="doc_notes">
465 <li><a name="sf1">Only the C and C++ languages are needed so there's no
466 need to build the other languages for LLVM's purposes.</a> See
467 <a href="#brokengcc">below</a> for specific version info.</li>
468 <li><a name="sf2">You only need Subversion if you intend to build from the
469 latest LLVM sources. If you're working from a release distribution, you
470 don't need Subversion.</a></li>
471 <li><a name="sf3">Only needed if you want to run the automated test
472 suite in the <tt>llvm/test</tt> directory.</a></li>
473 <li><a name="sf4">If you want to make changes to the configure scripts,
474 you will need GNU autoconf (2.60), and consequently, GNU M4 (version 1.4
475 or higher). You will also need automake (1.9.6). We only use aclocal
476 from that package.</a></li>
480 <p>Additionally, your compilation host is expected to have the usual
481 plethora of Unix utilities. Specifically:</p>
483 <li><b>ar</b> - archive library builder</li>
484 <li><b>bzip2*</b> - bzip2 command for distribution generation</li>
485 <li><b>bunzip2*</b> - bunzip2 command for distribution checking</li>
486 <li><b>chmod</b> - change permissions on a file</li>
487 <li><b>cat</b> - output concatenation utility</li>
488 <li><b>cp</b> - copy files</li>
489 <li><b>date</b> - print the current date/time </li>
490 <li><b>echo</b> - print to standard output</li>
491 <li><b>egrep</b> - extended regular expression search utility</li>
492 <li><b>find</b> - find files/dirs in a file system</li>
493 <li><b>grep</b> - regular expression search utility</li>
494 <li><b>gzip*</b> - gzip command for distribution generation</li>
495 <li><b>gunzip*</b> - gunzip command for distribution checking</li>
496 <li><b>install</b> - install directories/files </li>
497 <li><b>mkdir</b> - create a directory</li>
498 <li><b>mv</b> - move (rename) files</li>
499 <li><b>ranlib</b> - symbol table builder for archive libraries</li>
500 <li><b>rm</b> - remove (delete) files and directories</li>
501 <li><b>sed</b> - stream editor for transforming output</li>
502 <li><b>sh</b> - Bourne shell for make build scripts</li>
503 <li><b>tar</b> - tape archive for distribution generation</li>
504 <li><b>test</b> - test things in file system</li>
505 <li><b>unzip*</b> - unzip command for distribution checking</li>
506 <li><b>zip*</b> - zip command for distribution generation</li>
510 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
512 <a name="brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC and other tools</a>
517 <p>LLVM is very demanding of the host C++ compiler, and as such tends to expose
518 bugs in the compiler. In particular, several versions of GCC crash when trying
519 to compile LLVM. We routinely use GCC 3.3.3, 3.4.0, and Apple 4.0.1
520 successfully with them (however, see important notes below). Other versions
521 of GCC will probably work as well. GCC versions listed
522 here are known to not work. If you are using one of these versions, please try
523 to upgrade your GCC to something more recent. If you run into a problem with a
524 version of GCC not listed here, please <a href="mailto:llvmdev@cs.uiuc.edu">let
525 us know</a>. Please use the "<tt>gcc -v</tt>" command to find out which version
526 of GCC you are using.
529 <p><b>GCC versions prior to 3.0</b>: GCC 2.96.x and before had several
530 problems in the STL that effectively prevent it from compiling LLVM.
533 <p><b>GCC 3.2.2 and 3.2.3</b>: These versions of GCC fails to compile LLVM with
534 a bogus template error. This was fixed in later GCCs.</p>
536 <p><b>GCC 3.3.2</b>: This version of GCC suffered from a <a
537 href="http://gcc.gnu.org/PR13392">serious bug</a> which causes it to crash in
538 the "<tt>convert_from_eh_region_ranges_1</tt>" GCC function.</p>
540 <p><b>Cygwin GCC 3.3.3</b>: The version of GCC 3.3.3 commonly shipped with
541 Cygwin does not work. Please <a href="GCCFEBuildInstrs.html#cygwin">upgrade
542 to a newer version</a> if possible.</p>
543 <p><b>SuSE GCC 3.3.3</b>: The version of GCC 3.3.3 shipped with SuSE 9.1 (and
544 possibly others) does not compile LLVM correctly (it appears that exception
545 handling is broken in some cases). Please download the FSF 3.3.3 or upgrade
546 to a newer version of GCC.</p>
547 <p><b>GCC 3.4.0 on linux/x86 (32-bit)</b>: GCC miscompiles portions of the
548 code generator, causing an infinite loop in the llvm-gcc build when built
549 with optimizations enabled (i.e. a release build).</p>
550 <p><b>GCC 3.4.2 on linux/x86 (32-bit)</b>: GCC miscompiles portions of the
551 code generator at -O3, as with 3.4.0. However gcc 3.4.2 (unlike 3.4.0)
552 correctly compiles LLVM at -O2. A work around is to build release LLVM
553 builds with "make ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1 OPTIMIZE_OPTION=-O2 ..."</p>
554 <p><b>GCC 3.4.x on X86-64/amd64</b>: GCC <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1056">
555 miscompiles portions of LLVM</a>.</p>
556 <p><b>GCC 3.4.4 (CodeSourcery ARM 2005q3-2)</b>: this compiler miscompiles LLVM
557 when building with optimizations enabled. It appears to work with
558 "<tt>make ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1 OPTIMIZE_OPTION=-O1</tt>" or build a debug
560 <p><b>IA-64 GCC 4.0.0</b>: The IA-64 version of GCC 4.0.0 is known to
562 <p><b>Apple Xcode 2.3</b>: GCC crashes when compiling LLVM at -O3 (which is the
563 default with ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1. To work around this, build with
564 "ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1 OPTIMIZE_OPTION=-O2".</p>
565 <p><b>GCC 4.1.1</b>: GCC fails to build LLVM with template concept check errors
566 compiling some files. At the time of this writing, GCC mainline (4.2)
567 did not share the problem.</p>
568 <p><b>GCC 4.1.1 on X86-64/amd64</b>: GCC <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1063">
569 miscompiles portions of LLVM</a> when compiling llvm itself into 64-bit
570 code. LLVM will appear to mostly work but will be buggy, e.g. failing
571 portions of its testsuite.</p>
572 <p><b>GCC 4.1.2 on OpenSUSE</b>: Seg faults during libstdc++ build and on x86_64
573 platforms compiling md5.c gets a mangled constant.</p>
574 <p><b>GCC 4.1.2 (20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)) on Debian</b>: Appears
575 to miscompile parts of LLVM 2.4. One symptom is ValueSymbolTable complaining
576 about symbols remaining in the table on destruction.</p>
577 <p><b>GCC 4.1.2 20071124 (Red Hat 4.1.2-42)</b>: Suffers from the same symptoms
578 as the previous one. It appears to work with ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=0 (the default).</p>
579 <p><b>Cygwin GCC 4.3.2 20080827 (beta) 2</b>:
580 Users <a href="http://llvm.org/PR4145">reported</a> various problems related
581 with link errors when using this GCC version.</p>
582 <p><b>Debian GCC 4.3.2 on X86</b>: Crashes building some files in LLVM 2.6.</p>
583 <p><b>GCC 4.3.3 (Debian 4.3.3-10) on ARM</b>: Miscompiles parts of LLVM 2.6
584 when optimizations are turned on. The symptom is an infinite loop in
585 FoldingSetImpl::RemoveNode while running the code generator.</p>
586 <p><b>GCC 4.3.5 and GCC 4.4.5 on ARM</b>: These can miscompile <tt>value >>
587 1</tt> even at -O0. A test failure in <tt>test/Assembler/alignstack.ll</tt> is
588 one symptom of the problem.
589 <p><b>GNU ld 2.16.X</b>. Some 2.16.X versions of the ld linker will produce very
590 long warning messages complaining that some ".gnu.linkonce.t.*" symbol was
591 defined in a discarded section. You can safely ignore these messages as they are
592 erroneous and the linkage is correct. These messages disappear using ld
595 <p><b>GNU binutils 2.17</b>: Binutils 2.17 contains <a
596 href="http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3111">a bug</a> which
597 causes huge link times (minutes instead of seconds) when building LLVM. We
598 recommend upgrading to a newer version (2.17.50.0.4 or later).</p>
600 <p><b>GNU Binutils 2.19.1 Gold</b>: This version of Gold contained
601 <a href="http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9836">a bug</a>
602 which causes intermittent failures when building LLVM with position independent
603 code. The symptom is an error about cyclic dependencies. We recommend
604 upgrading to a newer version of Gold.</p>
610 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
612 <a name="starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a>
614 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
618 <p>The remainder of this guide is meant to get you up and running with
619 LLVM and to give you some basic information about the LLVM environment.</p>
621 <p>The later sections of this guide describe the <a
622 href="#layout">general layout</a> of the the LLVM source tree, a <a
623 href="#tutorial">simple example</a> using the LLVM tool chain, and <a
624 href="#links">links</a> to find more information about LLVM or to get
627 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
629 <a name="terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
634 <p>Throughout this manual, the following names are used to denote paths
635 specific to the local system and working environment. <i>These are not
636 environment variables you need to set but just strings used in the rest
637 of this document below</i>. In any of the examples below, simply replace
638 each of these names with the appropriate pathname on your local system.
639 All these paths are absolute:</p>
644 This is the top level directory of the LLVM source tree.
649 This is the top level directory of the LLVM object tree (i.e. the
650 tree where object files and compiled programs will be placed. It
651 can be the same as SRC_ROOT).
656 This is where the LLVM GCC Front End is installed.
658 For the pre-built GCC front end binaries, the LLVMGCCDIR is
659 <tt>llvm-gcc/<i>platform</i>/llvm-gcc</tt>.
664 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
666 <a name="environment">Setting Up Your Environment</a>
672 In order to compile and use LLVM, you may need to set some environment
676 <dt><tt>LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH</tt>=<tt>/path/to/your/bitcode/libs</tt></dt>
677 <dd>[Optional] This environment variable helps LLVM linking tools find the
678 locations of your bitcode libraries. It is provided only as a
679 convenience since you can specify the paths using the -L options of the
680 tools and the C/C++ front-end will automatically use the bitcode files
682 <tt>lib</tt> directory.</dd>
687 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
689 <a name="unpack">Unpacking the LLVM Archives</a>
695 If you have the LLVM distribution, you will need to unpack it before you
696 can begin to compile it. LLVM is distributed as a set of two files: the LLVM
697 suite and the LLVM GCC front end compiled for your platform. There is an
698 additional test suite that is optional. Each file is a TAR archive that is
699 compressed with the gzip program.
702 <p>The files are as follows, with <em>x.y</em> marking the version number:
704 <dt><tt>llvm-x.y.tar.gz</tt></dt>
705 <dd>Source release for the LLVM libraries and tools.<br></dd>
707 <dt><tt>llvm-test-x.y.tar.gz</tt></dt>
708 <dd>Source release for the LLVM test-suite.</dd>
710 <dt><tt>llvm-gcc-4.2-x.y.source.tar.gz</tt></dt>
711 <dd>Source release of the llvm-gcc-4.2 front end. See README.LLVM in the root
712 directory for build instructions.<br></dd>
714 <dt><tt>llvm-gcc-4.2-x.y-platform.tar.gz</tt></dt>
715 <dd>Binary release of the llvm-gcc-4.2 front end for a specific platform.<br></dd>
721 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
723 <a name="checkout">Checkout LLVM from Subversion</a>
728 <p>If you have access to our Subversion repository, you can get a fresh copy of
729 the entire source code. All you need to do is check it out from Subversion as
733 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
734 <li>Read-Only: <tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm</tt></li>
735 <li>Read-Write:<tt>svn co https://user@llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk
740 <p>This will create an '<tt>llvm</tt>' directory in the current
741 directory and fully populate it with the LLVM source code, Makefiles,
742 test directories, and local copies of documentation files.</p>
744 <p>If you want to get a specific release (as opposed to the most recent
745 revision), you can checkout it from the '<tt>tags</tt>' directory (instead of
746 '<tt>trunk</tt>'). The following releases are located in the following
747 subdirectories of the '<tt>tags</tt>' directory:</p>
750 <li>Release 2.9: <b>RELEASE_29/final</b></li>
751 <li>Release 2.8: <b>RELEASE_28</b></li>
752 <li>Release 2.7: <b>RELEASE_27</b></li>
753 <li>Release 2.6: <b>RELEASE_26</b></li>
754 <li>Release 2.5: <b>RELEASE_25</b></li>
755 <li>Release 2.4: <b>RELEASE_24</b></li>
756 <li>Release 2.3: <b>RELEASE_23</b></li>
757 <li>Release 2.2: <b>RELEASE_22</b></li>
758 <li>Release 2.1: <b>RELEASE_21</b></li>
759 <li>Release 2.0: <b>RELEASE_20</b></li>
760 <li>Release 1.9: <b>RELEASE_19</b></li>
761 <li>Release 1.8: <b>RELEASE_18</b></li>
762 <li>Release 1.7: <b>RELEASE_17</b></li>
763 <li>Release 1.6: <b>RELEASE_16</b></li>
764 <li>Release 1.5: <b>RELEASE_15</b></li>
765 <li>Release 1.4: <b>RELEASE_14</b></li>
766 <li>Release 1.3: <b>RELEASE_13</b></li>
767 <li>Release 1.2: <b>RELEASE_12</b></li>
768 <li>Release 1.1: <b>RELEASE_11</b></li>
769 <li>Release 1.0: <b>RELEASE_1</b></li>
772 <p>If you would like to get the LLVM test suite (a separate package as of 1.4),
773 you get it from the Subversion repository:</p>
775 <div class="doc_code">
778 % svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/trunk test-suite
782 <p>By placing it in the <tt>llvm/projects</tt>, it will be automatically
783 configured by the LLVM configure script as well as automatically updated when
784 you run <tt>svn update</tt>.</p>
786 <p>If you would like to get the GCC front end source code, you can also get it
787 and build it yourself. Please follow <a href="GCCFEBuildInstrs.html">these
788 instructions</a> to successfully get and build the LLVM GCC front-end.</p>
792 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
794 <a name="git_mirror">GIT mirror</a>
799 <p>GIT mirrors are available for a number of LLVM subprojects. These mirrors
800 sync automatically with each Subversion commit and contain all necessary
801 git-svn marks (so, you can recreate git-svn metadata locally). Note that right
802 now mirrors reflect only <tt>trunk</tt> for each project. You can do the
803 read-only GIT clone of LLVM via:</p>
805 <pre class="doc_code">
806 git clone http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git
809 <p>If you want to check out clang too, run:</p>
811 <pre class="doc_code">
812 git clone http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git
814 git clone http://llvm.org/git/clang.git
818 Since the upstream repository is in Subversion, you should use
819 <tt>"git pull --rebase"</tt>
820 instead of <tt>"git pull"</tt> to avoid generating a non-linear
821 history in your clone.
822 To configure <tt>"git pull"</tt> to pass <tt>--rebase</tt> by default
823 on the master branch, run the following command:
826 <pre class="doc_code">
827 git config branch.master.rebase true
830 <h4>Sending patches with Git</h4>
833 Please read <a href="DeveloperPolicy.html#patches">Developer Policy</a>, too.
837 Assume <tt>master</tt> points the upstream and <tt>mybranch</tt> points your
838 working branch, and <tt>mybranch</tt> is rebased onto <tt>master</tt>.
839 At first you may check sanity of whitespaces:
842 <pre class="doc_code">
843 git diff --check master..mybranch
847 The easiest way to generate a patch is as below:
850 <pre class="doc_code">
851 git diff master..mybranch > /path/to/mybranch.diff
855 It is a little different from svn-generated diff. git-diff-generated diff has
856 prefixes like <tt>a/</tt> and <tt>b/</tt>. Don't worry, most developers might
857 know it could be accepted with <tt>patch -p1 -N</tt>.
861 But you may generate patchset with git-format-patch. It generates
862 by-each-commit patchset. To generate patch files to attach to your article:
865 <pre class="doc_code">
866 git format-patch --no-attach master..mybranch -o /path/to/your/patchset
870 If you would like to send patches directly, you may use git-send-email or
871 git-imap-send. Here is an example to generate the patchset in Gmail's [Drafts].
874 <pre class="doc_code">
875 git format-patch --attach master..mybranch --stdout | git imap-send
879 Then, your .git/config should have [imap] sections.
882 <pre class="doc_code">
884 host = imaps://imap.gmail.com
885 user = <em>your.gmail.account</em>@gmail.com
886 pass = <em>himitsu!</em>
890 folder = "[Gmail]/Drafts"
891 ; example for Japanese, "Modified UTF-7" encoded.
892 folder = "[Gmail]/&Tgtm+DBN-"
897 <h4>For developers to work with git-svn</h4>
900 <p>To set up clone from which you can submit code using
901 <tt>git-svn</tt>, run:</p>
903 <pre class="doc_code">
904 git clone http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git
906 git svn init https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk --username=<username>
907 git config svn-remote.svn.fetch :refs/remotes/origin/master
908 git svn rebase -l # -l avoids fetching ahead of the git mirror.
910 # If you have clang too:
912 git clone http://llvm.org/git/clang.git
914 git svn init https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/trunk --username=<username>
915 git config svn-remote.svn.fetch :refs/remotes/origin/master
919 <p>To update this clone without generating git-svn tags that conflict
920 with the upstream git repo, run:</p>
922 <pre class="doc_code">
923 git fetch && (cd tools/clang && git fetch) # Get matching revisions of both trees.
927 git checkout master &&
931 <p>This leaves your working directories on their master branches, so
932 you'll need to <tt>checkout</tt> each working branch individually and
933 <tt>rebase</tt> it on top of its parent branch. (Note: This script is
934 intended for relative newbies to git. If you have more experience,
935 you can likely improve on it.)</p>
937 <p>The git-svn metadata can get out of sync after you mess around with
938 branches and <code>dcommit</code>. When that happens, <code>git svn
939 dcommit</code> stops working, complaining about files with uncommitted
940 changes. The fix is to rebuild the metadata:</p>
942 <pre class="doc_code">
951 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
953 <a name="installcf">Install the GCC Front End</a>
958 <p>Before configuring and compiling the LLVM suite (or if you want to use just the LLVM
959 GCC front end) you can optionally extract the front end from the binary distribution.
960 It is used for running the LLVM test-suite and for compiling C/C++ programs. Note that
961 you can optionally <a href="GCCFEBuildInstrs.html">build llvm-gcc yourself</a> after building the
962 main LLVM repository.</p>
964 <p>To install the GCC front end, do the following (on Windows, use an archival tool
965 like <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-zip</a> that understands gzipped tars):</p>
968 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-the-front-end-to-live</i></tt></li>
969 <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-gcc-4.2-<i>version</i>-<i>platform</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf
973 <p>Once the binary is uncompressed, if you're using a *nix-based system, add a symlink for
974 <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> and <tt>llvm-g++</tt> to some directory in your path. If you're using a
975 Windows-based system, add the <tt>bin</tt> subdirectory of your front end installation directory
976 to your <tt>PATH</tt> environment variable. For example, if you uncompressed the binary to
977 <tt>c:\llvm-gcc</tt>, add <tt>c:\llvm-gcc\bin</tt> to your <tt>PATH</tt>.</p>
979 <p>If you now want to build LLVM from source, when you configure LLVM, it will
980 automatically detect <tt>llvm-gcc</tt>'s presence (if it is in your path) enabling its
981 use in test-suite. Note that you can always build or install <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> at any
982 point after building the main LLVM repository: just reconfigure llvm and
983 test-suite will pick it up.
986 <p>As a convenience for Windows users, the front end binaries for MinGW/x86 include
987 versions of the required w32api and mingw-runtime binaries. The last remaining step for
988 Windows users is to simply uncompress the binary binutils package from
989 <a href="http://mingw.org/">MinGW</a> into your front end installation directory. While the
990 front end installation steps are not quite the same as a typical manual MinGW installation,
991 they should be similar enough to those who have previously installed MinGW on Windows systems.</p>
993 <p>To install binutils on Windows:</p>
996 <li><tt><i>download GNU Binutils from <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/">MinGW Downloads</a></i></tt></li>
997 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-uncompressed-the-front-end</i></tt></li>
998 <li><tt><i>uncompress archived binutils directories (not the tar file) into the current directory</i></tt></li>
1001 <p>The binary versions of the LLVM GCC front end may not suit all of your needs. For
1002 example, the binary distribution may include an old version of a system header
1003 file, not "fix" a header file that needs to be fixed for GCC, or it may be linked with
1004 libraries not available on your system. In cases like these, you may want to try
1005 <a href="GCCFEBuildInstrs.html">building the GCC front end from source</a>. Thankfully,
1006 this is much easier now than it was in the past.</p>
1008 <p>We also do not currently support updating of the GCC front end by manually overlaying
1009 newer versions of the w32api and mingw-runtime binary packages that may become available
1010 from MinGW. At this time, it's best to think of the MinGW LLVM GCC front end binary as
1011 a self-contained convenience package that requires Windows users to simply download and
1012 uncompress the GNU Binutils binary package from the MinGW project.</p>
1014 <p>Regardless of your platform, if you discover that installing the LLVM GCC front end
1015 binaries is not as easy as previously described, or you would like to suggest improvements,
1016 please let us know how you would like to see things improved by dropping us a note on our
1017 <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist">mailing list</a>.</p>
1021 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1023 <a name="config">Local LLVM Configuration</a>
1028 <p>Once checked out from the Subversion repository, the LLVM suite source
1030 configured via the <tt>configure</tt> script. This script sets variables in the
1031 various <tt>*.in</tt> files, most notably <tt>llvm/Makefile.config</tt> and
1032 <tt>llvm/include/Config/config.h</tt>. It also populates <i>OBJ_ROOT</i> with
1033 the Makefiles needed to begin building LLVM.</p>
1035 <p>The following environment variables are used by the <tt>configure</tt>
1036 script to configure the build system:</p>
1038 <table summary="LLVM configure script environment variables">
1039 <tr><th>Variable</th><th>Purpose</th></tr>
1042 <td>Tells <tt>configure</tt> which C compiler to use. By default,
1043 <tt>configure</tt> will look for the first GCC C compiler in
1044 <tt>PATH</tt>. Use this variable to override
1045 <tt>configure</tt>'s default behavior.</td>
1049 <td>Tells <tt>configure</tt> which C++ compiler to use. By default,
1050 <tt>configure</tt> will look for the first GCC C++ compiler in
1051 <tt>PATH</tt>. Use this variable to override
1052 <tt>configure</tt>'s default behavior.</td>
1056 <p>The following options can be used to set or enable LLVM specific options:</p>
1059 <dt><i>--with-llvmgccdir</i></dt>
1060 <dd>Path to the LLVM C/C++ FrontEnd to be used with this LLVM configuration.
1061 The value of this option should specify the full pathname of the C/C++ Front
1062 End to be used. If this option is not provided, the PATH will be searched for
1063 a program named <i>llvm-gcc</i> and the C/C++ FrontEnd install directory will
1064 be inferred from the path found. If the option is not given, and no llvm-gcc
1065 can be found in the path then a warning will be produced by
1066 <tt>configure</tt> indicating this situation. LLVM may still be built with
1067 the <tt>tools-only</tt> target but attempting to build the runtime libraries
1068 will fail as these libraries require llvm-gcc and llvm-g++. See
1069 <a href="#installcf">Install the GCC Front End</a> for details on installing
1070 the C/C++ Front End. See
1071 <a href="GCCFEBuildInstrs.html">Bootstrapping the LLVM C/C++ Front-End</a>
1072 for details on building the C/C++ Front End.</dd>
1073 <dt><i>--with-tclinclude</i></dt>
1074 <dd>Path to the tcl include directory under which <tt>tclsh</tt> can be
1075 found. Use this if you have multiple tcl installations on your machine and you
1076 want to use a specific one (8.x) for LLVM. LLVM only uses tcl for running the
1077 dejagnu based test suite in <tt>llvm/test</tt>. If you don't specify this
1078 option, the LLVM configure script will search for the tcl 8.4 and 8.3
1082 <dt><i>--enable-optimized</i></dt>
1084 Enables optimized compilation (debugging symbols are removed
1085 and GCC optimization flags are enabled). Note that this is the default
1086 setting if you are using the LLVM distribution. The default behavior
1087 of an Subversion checkout is to use an unoptimized build (also known as a
1091 <dt><i>--enable-debug-runtime</i></dt>
1093 Enables debug symbols in the runtime libraries. The default is to strip
1094 debug symbols from the runtime libraries.
1096 <dt><i>--enable-jit</i></dt>
1098 Compile the Just In Time (JIT) compiler functionality. This is not
1100 on all platforms. The default is dependent on platform, so it is best
1101 to explicitly enable it if you want it.
1104 <dt><i>--enable-targets=</i><tt>target-option</tt></dt>
1105 <dd>Controls which targets will be built and linked into llc. The default
1106 value for <tt>target_options</tt> is "all" which builds and links all
1107 available targets. The value "host-only" can be specified to build only a
1108 native compiler (no cross-compiler targets available). The "native" target is
1109 selected as the target of the build host. You can also specify a comma
1110 separated list of target names that you want available in llc. The target
1111 names use all lower case. The current set of targets is: <br>
1112 <tt>alpha, ia64, powerpc, skeleton, sparc, x86</tt>.
1114 <dt><i>--enable-doxygen</i></dt>
1115 <dd>Look for the doxygen program and enable construction of doxygen based
1116 documentation from the source code. This is disabled by default because
1117 generating the documentation can take a long time and producess 100s of
1118 megabytes of output.</dd>
1119 <dt><i>--with-udis86</i></dt>
1120 <dd>LLVM can use external disassembler library for various purposes (now it's
1121 used only for examining code produced by JIT). This option will enable usage
1122 of <a href="http://udis86.sourceforge.net/">udis86</a> x86 (both 32 and 64
1123 bits) disassembler library.</dd>
1126 <p>To configure LLVM, follow these steps:</p>
1129 <li><p>Change directory into the object root directory:</p>
1131 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% cd <i>OBJ_ROOT</i></pre></div></li>
1133 <li><p>Run the <tt>configure</tt> script located in the LLVM source
1136 <div class="doc_code">
1137 <pre>% <i>SRC_ROOT</i>/configure --prefix=/install/path [other options]</pre>
1143 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1145 <a name="compile">Compiling the LLVM Suite Source Code</a>
1150 <p>Once you have configured LLVM, you can build it. There are three types of
1156 These builds are the default when one is using an Subversion checkout and
1157 types <tt>gmake</tt> (unless the <tt>--enable-optimized</tt> option was
1158 used during configuration). The build system will compile the tools and
1159 libraries with debugging information. To get a Debug Build using the
1160 LLVM distribution the <tt>--disable-optimized</tt> option must be passed
1161 to <tt>configure</tt>.
1164 <dt>Release (Optimized) Builds
1166 These builds are enabled with the <tt>--enable-optimized</tt> option to
1167 <tt>configure</tt> or by specifying <tt>ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1</tt> on the
1168 <tt>gmake</tt> command line. For these builds, the build system will
1169 compile the tools and libraries with GCC optimizations enabled and strip
1170 debugging information from the libraries and executables it generates.
1171 Note that Release Builds are default when using an LLVM distribution.
1176 These builds are for use with profiling. They compile profiling
1177 information into the code for use with programs like <tt>gprof</tt>.
1178 Profile builds must be started by specifying <tt>ENABLE_PROFILING=1</tt>
1179 on the <tt>gmake</tt> command line.
1182 <p>Once you have LLVM configured, you can build it by entering the
1183 <i>OBJ_ROOT</i> directory and issuing the following command:</p>
1185 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% gmake</pre></div>
1187 <p>If the build fails, please <a href="#brokengcc">check here</a> to see if you
1188 are using a version of GCC that is known not to compile LLVM.</p>
1191 If you have multiple processors in your machine, you may wish to use some of
1192 the parallel build options provided by GNU Make. For example, you could use the
1195 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% gmake -j2</pre></div>
1197 <p>There are several special targets which are useful when working with the LLVM
1201 <dt><tt>gmake clean</tt>
1203 Removes all files generated by the build. This includes object files,
1204 generated C/C++ files, libraries, and executables.
1207 <dt><tt>gmake dist-clean</tt>
1209 Removes everything that <tt>gmake clean</tt> does, but also removes files
1210 generated by <tt>configure</tt>. It attempts to return the source tree to the
1211 original state in which it was shipped.
1214 <dt><tt>gmake install</tt>
1216 Installs LLVM header files, libraries, tools, and documentation in a
1218 under $PREFIX, specified with <tt>./configure --prefix=[dir]</tt>, which
1219 defaults to <tt>/usr/local</tt>.
1222 <dt><tt>gmake -C runtime install-bytecode</tt>
1224 Assuming you built LLVM into $OBJDIR, when this command is run, it will
1225 install bitcode libraries into the GCC front end's bitcode library
1226 directory. If you need to update your bitcode libraries,
1227 this is the target to use once you've built them.
1231 <p>Please see the <a href="MakefileGuide.html">Makefile Guide</a> for further
1232 details on these <tt>make</tt> targets and descriptions of other targets
1235 <p>It is also possible to override default values from <tt>configure</tt> by
1236 declaring variables on the command line. The following are some examples:</p>
1239 <dt><tt>gmake ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1</tt>
1241 Perform a Release (Optimized) build.
1244 <dt><tt>gmake ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1 DISABLE_ASSERTIONS=1</tt>
1246 Perform a Release (Optimized) build without assertions enabled.
1249 <dt><tt>gmake ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=0</tt>
1251 Perform a Debug build.
1254 <dt><tt>gmake ENABLE_PROFILING=1</tt>
1256 Perform a Profiling build.
1259 <dt><tt>gmake VERBOSE=1</tt>
1261 Print what <tt>gmake</tt> is doing on standard output.
1264 <dt><tt>gmake TOOL_VERBOSE=1</tt></dt>
1265 <dd>Ask each tool invoked by the makefiles to print out what it is doing on
1266 the standard output. This also implies <tt>VERBOSE=1</tt>.
1270 <p>Every directory in the LLVM object tree includes a <tt>Makefile</tt> to build
1271 it and any subdirectories that it contains. Entering any directory inside the
1272 LLVM object tree and typing <tt>gmake</tt> should rebuild anything in or below
1273 that directory that is out of date.</p>
1277 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1279 <a name="cross-compile">Cross-Compiling LLVM</a>
1283 <p>It is possible to cross-compile LLVM itself. That is, you can create LLVM
1284 executables and libraries to be hosted on a platform different from the
1285 platform where they are build (a Canadian Cross build). To configure a
1286 cross-compile, supply the configure script with <tt>--build</tt> and
1287 <tt>--host</tt> options that are different. The values of these options must
1288 be legal target triples that your GCC compiler supports.</p>
1290 <p>The result of such a build is executables that are not runnable on
1291 on the build host (--build option) but can be executed on the compile host
1292 (--host option).</p>
1295 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1297 <a name="objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
1302 <p>The LLVM build system is capable of sharing a single LLVM source tree among
1303 several LLVM builds. Hence, it is possible to build LLVM for several different
1304 platforms or configurations using the same source tree.</p>
1306 <p>This is accomplished in the typical autoconf manner:</p>
1309 <li><p>Change directory to where the LLVM object files should live:</p>
1311 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% cd <i>OBJ_ROOT</i></pre></div></li>
1313 <li><p>Run the <tt>configure</tt> script found in the LLVM source
1316 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% <i>SRC_ROOT</i>/configure</pre></div></li>
1319 <p>The LLVM build will place files underneath <i>OBJ_ROOT</i> in directories
1320 named after the build type:</p>
1323 <dt>Debug Builds with assertions enabled (the default)
1327 <dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/Debug+Asserts/bin</tt>
1329 <dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/Debug+Asserts/lib</tt>
1337 <dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/Release/bin</tt>
1339 <dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/Release/lib</tt>
1347 <dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/Profile/bin</tt>
1349 <dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/Profile/lib</tt>
1355 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1357 <a name="optionalconfig">Optional Configuration Items</a>
1363 If you're running on a Linux system that supports the "<a
1364 href="http://www.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/~rguenth/linux/binfmt_misc.html">binfmt_misc</a>"
1365 module, and you have root access on the system, you can set your system up to
1366 execute LLVM bitcode files directly. To do this, use commands like this (the
1367 first command may not be required if you are already using the module):</p>
1369 <div class="doc_code">
1371 $ mount -t binfmt_misc none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
1372 $ echo ':llvm:M::BC::/path/to/lli:' > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
1373 $ chmod u+x hello.bc (if needed)
1379 This allows you to execute LLVM bitcode files directly. On Debian, you
1380 can also use this command instead of the 'echo' command above:
1383 <div class="doc_code">
1385 $ sudo update-binfmts --install llvm /path/to/lli --magic 'BC'
1393 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1395 <a name="layout">Program Layout</a>
1397 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1401 <p>One useful source of information about the LLVM source base is the LLVM <a
1402 href="http://www.doxygen.org/">doxygen</a> documentation available at <tt><a
1403 href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">http://llvm.org/doxygen/</a></tt>.
1404 The following is a brief introduction to code layout:</p>
1406 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1408 <a name="examples"><tt>llvm/examples</tt></a>
1412 <p>This directory contains some simple examples of how to use the LLVM IR and
1416 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1418 <a name="include"><tt>llvm/include</tt></a>
1423 <p>This directory contains public header files exported from the LLVM
1424 library. The three main subdirectories of this directory are:</p>
1427 <dt><tt><b>llvm/include/llvm</b></tt></dt>
1428 <dd>This directory contains all of the LLVM specific header files. This
1429 directory also has subdirectories for different portions of LLVM:
1430 <tt>Analysis</tt>, <tt>CodeGen</tt>, <tt>Target</tt>, <tt>Transforms</tt>,
1433 <dt><tt><b>llvm/include/llvm/Support</b></tt></dt>
1434 <dd>This directory contains generic support libraries that are provided with
1435 LLVM but not necessarily specific to LLVM. For example, some C++ STL utilities
1436 and a Command Line option processing library store their header files here.
1439 <dt><tt><b>llvm/include/llvm/Config</b></tt></dt>
1440 <dd>This directory contains header files configured by the <tt>configure</tt>
1441 script. They wrap "standard" UNIX and C header files. Source code can
1442 include these header files which automatically take care of the conditional
1443 #includes that the <tt>configure</tt> script generates.</dd>
1447 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1449 <a name="lib"><tt>llvm/lib</tt></a>
1454 <p>This directory contains most of the source files of the LLVM system. In LLVM,
1455 almost all code exists in libraries, making it very easy to share code among the
1456 different <a href="#tools">tools</a>.</p>
1459 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/VMCore/</b></tt></dt>
1460 <dd> This directory holds the core LLVM source files that implement core
1461 classes like Instruction and BasicBlock.</dd>
1463 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/AsmParser/</b></tt></dt>
1464 <dd>This directory holds the source code for the LLVM assembly language parser
1467 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/BitCode/</b></tt></dt>
1468 <dd>This directory holds code for reading and write LLVM bitcode.</dd>
1470 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Analysis/</b></tt><dd>This directory contains a variety of
1471 different program analyses, such as Dominator Information, Call Graphs,
1472 Induction Variables, Interval Identification, Natural Loop Identification,
1475 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Transforms/</b></tt></dt>
1476 <dd> This directory contains the source code for the LLVM to LLVM program
1477 transformations, such as Aggressive Dead Code Elimination, Sparse Conditional
1478 Constant Propagation, Inlining, Loop Invariant Code Motion, Dead Global
1479 Elimination, and many others.</dd>
1481 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Target/</b></tt></dt>
1482 <dd> This directory contains files that describe various target architectures
1483 for code generation. For example, the <tt>llvm/lib/Target/X86</tt>
1484 directory holds the X86 machine description while
1485 <tt>llvm/lib/Target/CBackend</tt> implements the LLVM-to-C converter.</dd>
1487 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/CodeGen/</b></tt></dt>
1488 <dd> This directory contains the major parts of the code generator: Instruction
1489 Selector, Instruction Scheduling, and Register Allocation.</dd>
1491 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/MC/</b></tt></dt>
1492 <dd>(FIXME: T.B.D.)</dd>
1494 <!--FIXME: obsoleted -->
1495 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Debugger/</b></tt></dt>
1496 <dd> This directory contains the source level debugger library that makes
1497 it possible to instrument LLVM programs so that a debugger could identify
1498 source code locations at which the program is executing.</dd>
1500 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/ExecutionEngine/</b></tt></dt>
1501 <dd> This directory contains libraries for executing LLVM bitcode directly
1502 at runtime in both interpreted and JIT compiled fashions.</dd>
1504 <dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Support/</b></tt></dt>
1505 <dd> This directory contains the source code that corresponds to the header
1506 files located in <tt>llvm/include/ADT/</tt>
1507 and <tt>llvm/include/Support/</tt>.</dd>
1512 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1514 <a name="projects"><tt>llvm/projects</tt></a>
1518 <p>This directory contains projects that are not strictly part of LLVM but are
1519 shipped with LLVM. This is also the directory where you should create your own
1520 LLVM-based projects. See <tt>llvm/projects/sample</tt> for an example of how
1521 to set up your own project.</p>
1524 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1526 <a name="runtime"><tt>llvm/runtime</tt></a>
1531 <p>This directory contains libraries which are compiled into LLVM bitcode and
1532 used when linking programs with the GCC front end. Most of these libraries are
1533 skeleton versions of real libraries; for example, libc is a stripped down
1534 version of glibc.</p>
1536 <p>Unlike the rest of the LLVM suite, this directory needs the LLVM GCC front
1541 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1543 <a name="test"><tt>llvm/test</tt></a>
1547 <p>This directory contains feature and regression tests and other basic sanity
1548 checks on the LLVM infrastructure. These are intended to run quickly and cover
1549 a lot of territory without being exhaustive.</p>
1552 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1554 <a name="test-suite"><tt>test-suite</tt></a>
1558 <p>This is not a directory in the normal llvm module; it is a separate
1560 module that must be checked out (usually to <tt>projects/test-suite</tt>).
1562 module contains a comprehensive correctness, performance, and benchmarking
1564 suite for LLVM. It is a separate Subversion module because not every LLVM
1566 interested in downloading or building such a comprehensive test suite. For
1567 further details on this test suite, please see the
1568 <a href="TestingGuide.html">Testing Guide</a> document.</p>
1571 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1573 <a name="tools"><tt>llvm/tools</tt></a>
1578 <p>The <b>tools</b> directory contains the executables built out of the
1579 libraries above, which form the main part of the user interface. You can
1580 always get help for a tool by typing <tt>tool_name -help</tt>. The
1581 following is a brief introduction to the most important tools. More detailed
1582 information is in the <a href="CommandGuide/index.html">Command Guide</a>.</p>
1586 <dt><tt><b>bugpoint</b></tt></dt>
1587 <dd><tt>bugpoint</tt> is used to debug
1588 optimization passes or code generation backends by narrowing down the
1589 given test case to the minimum number of passes and/or instructions that
1590 still cause a problem, whether it is a crash or miscompilation. See <a
1591 href="HowToSubmitABug.html">HowToSubmitABug.html</a> for more information
1592 on using <tt>bugpoint</tt>.</dd>
1594 <dt><tt><b>llvm-ar</b></tt></dt>
1595 <dd>The archiver produces an archive containing
1596 the given LLVM bitcode files, optionally with an index for faster
1599 <dt><tt><b>llvm-as</b></tt></dt>
1600 <dd>The assembler transforms the human readable LLVM assembly to LLVM
1603 <dt><tt><b>llvm-dis</b></tt></dt>
1604 <dd>The disassembler transforms the LLVM bitcode to human readable
1607 <dt><tt><b>llvm-ld</b></tt></dt>
1608 <dd><tt>llvm-ld</tt> is a general purpose and extensible linker for LLVM.
1609 It performs standard link time optimizations and allows optimization
1610 modules to be loaded and run so that language specific optimizations can
1611 be applied at link time.</dd>
1613 <dt><tt><b>llvm-link</b></tt></dt>
1614 <dd><tt>llvm-link</tt>, not surprisingly, links multiple LLVM modules into
1615 a single program.</dd>
1617 <dt><tt><b>lli</b></tt></dt>
1618 <dd><tt>lli</tt> is the LLVM interpreter, which
1619 can directly execute LLVM bitcode (although very slowly...). For architectures
1620 that support it (currently x86, Sparc, and PowerPC), by default, <tt>lli</tt>
1621 will function as a Just-In-Time compiler (if the functionality was compiled
1622 in), and will execute the code <i>much</i> faster than the interpreter.</dd>
1624 <dt><tt><b>llc</b></tt></dt>
1625 <dd> <tt>llc</tt> is the LLVM backend compiler, which
1626 translates LLVM bitcode to a native code assembly file or to C code (with
1627 the -march=c option).</dd>
1629 <dt><tt><b>llvm-gcc</b></tt></dt>
1630 <dd><tt>llvm-gcc</tt> is a GCC-based C frontend that has been retargeted to
1631 use LLVM as its backend instead of GCC's RTL backend. It can also emit LLVM
1632 bitcode or assembly (with the <tt>-emit-llvm</tt> option) instead of the
1633 usual machine code output. It works just like any other GCC compiler,
1634 taking the typical <tt>-c, -S, -E, -o</tt> options that are typically used.
1635 Additionally, the the source code for <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> is available as a
1636 separate Subversion module.</dd>
1638 <dt><tt><b>opt</b></tt></dt>
1639 <dd><tt>opt</tt> reads LLVM bitcode, applies a series of LLVM to LLVM
1640 transformations (which are specified on the command line), and then outputs
1641 the resultant bitcode. The '<tt>opt -help</tt>' command is a good way to
1642 get a list of the program transformations available in LLVM.<br>
1643 <dd><tt>opt</tt> can also be used to run a specific analysis on an input
1644 LLVM bitcode file and print out the results. It is primarily useful for
1645 debugging analyses, or familiarizing yourself with what an analysis does.</dd>
1649 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1651 <a name="utils"><tt>llvm/utils</tt></a>
1656 <p>This directory contains utilities for working with LLVM source code, and some
1657 of the utilities are actually required as part of the build process because they
1658 are code generators for parts of LLVM infrastructure.</p>
1661 <dt><tt><b>codegen-diff</b></tt> <dd><tt>codegen-diff</tt> is a script
1662 that finds differences between code that LLC generates and code that LLI
1663 generates. This is a useful tool if you are debugging one of them,
1664 assuming that the other generates correct output. For the full user
1665 manual, run <tt>`perldoc codegen-diff'</tt>.<br><br>
1667 <dt><tt><b>emacs/</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>emacs</tt> directory contains
1668 syntax-highlighting files which will work with Emacs and XEmacs editors,
1669 providing syntax highlighting support for LLVM assembly files and TableGen
1670 description files. For information on how to use the syntax files, consult
1671 the <tt>README</tt> file in that directory.<br><br>
1673 <dt><tt><b>getsrcs.sh</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>getsrcs.sh</tt> script finds
1674 and outputs all non-generated source files, which is useful if one wishes
1675 to do a lot of development across directories and does not want to
1676 individually find each file. One way to use it is to run, for example:
1677 <tt>xemacs `utils/getsources.sh`</tt> from the top of your LLVM source
1680 <dt><tt><b>llvmgrep</b></tt></dt>
1681 <dd>This little tool performs an "egrep -H -n" on each source file in LLVM and
1682 passes to it a regular expression provided on <tt>llvmgrep</tt>'s command
1683 line. This is a very efficient way of searching the source base for a
1684 particular regular expression.</dd>
1686 <dt><tt><b>makellvm</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>makellvm</tt> script compiles all
1687 files in the current directory and then compiles and links the tool that
1688 is the first argument. For example, assuming you are in the directory
1689 <tt>llvm/lib/Target/Sparc</tt>, if <tt>makellvm</tt> is in your path,
1690 simply running <tt>makellvm llc</tt> will make a build of the current
1691 directory, switch to directory <tt>llvm/tools/llc</tt> and build it,
1692 causing a re-linking of LLC.<br><br>
1694 <dt><tt><b>NewNightlyTest.pl</b></tt> and
1695 <tt><b>NightlyTestTemplate.html</b></tt> <dd>These files are used in a
1696 cron script to generate nightly status reports of the functionality of
1697 tools, and the results can be seen by following the appropriate link on
1698 the <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a>.<br><br>
1700 <dt><tt><b>TableGen/</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>TableGen</tt> directory contains
1701 the tool used to generate register descriptions, instruction set
1702 descriptions, and even assemblers from common TableGen description
1705 <dt><tt><b>vim/</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>vim</tt> directory contains
1706 syntax-highlighting files which will work with the VIM editor, providing
1707 syntax highlighting support for LLVM assembly files and TableGen
1708 description files. For information on how to use the syntax files, consult
1709 the <tt>README</tt> file in that directory.<br><br>
1717 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1719 <a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
1721 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1724 <p>This section gives an example of using LLVM. llvm-gcc3 is now obsolete,
1725 so we only include instructions for llvm-gcc4.
1728 <p><b>Note:</b> The <i>gcc4</i> frontend's invocation is <b><i>considerably different</i></b>
1729 from the previous <i>gcc3</i> frontend. In particular, the <i>gcc4</i> frontend <b><i>does not</i></b>
1730 create bitcode by default: <i>gcc4</i> produces native code. As the example below illustrates,
1731 the '--emit-llvm' flag is needed to produce LLVM bitcode output. For <i>makefiles</i> and
1732 <i>configure</i> scripts, the CFLAGS variable needs '--emit-llvm' to produce bitcode
1735 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1737 <a name="tutorial4">Example with llvm-gcc4</a>
1743 <li><p>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':</p>
1745 <div class="doc_code">
1747 #include <stdio.h>
1750 printf("hello world\n");
1755 <li><p>Next, compile the C file into a native executable:</p>
1757 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% llvm-gcc hello.c -o hello</pre></div>
1759 <p>Note that llvm-gcc works just like GCC by default. The standard -S and
1760 -c arguments work as usual (producing a native .s or .o file,
1761 respectively).</p></li>
1763 <li><p>Next, compile the C file into a LLVM bitcode file:</p>
1765 <div class="doc_code">
1766 <pre>% llvm-gcc -O3 -emit-llvm hello.c -c -o hello.bc</pre></div>
1768 <p>The -emit-llvm option can be used with the -S or -c options to emit an
1769 LLVM ".ll" or ".bc" file (respectively) for the code. This allows you
1770 to use the <a href="CommandGuide/index.html">standard LLVM tools</a> on
1771 the bitcode file.</p>
1773 <p>Unlike llvm-gcc3, llvm-gcc4 correctly responds to -O[0123] arguments.
1776 <li><p>Run the program in both forms. To run the program, use:</p>
1778 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% ./hello</pre></div>
1782 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% lli hello.bc</pre></div>
1784 <p>The second examples shows how to invoke the LLVM JIT, <a
1785 href="CommandGuide/html/lli.html">lli</a>.</p></li>
1787 <li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
1790 <div class="doc_code">
1791 <pre>llvm-dis < hello.bc | less</pre>
1794 <li><p>Compile the program to native assembly using the LLC code
1797 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% llc hello.bc -o hello.s</pre></div></li>
1799 <li><p>Assemble the native assembly language file into a program:</p>
1801 <div class="doc_code">
1803 <b>Solaris:</b> % /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -xarch=v9 hello.s -o hello.native
1805 <b>Others:</b> % gcc hello.s -o hello.native
1809 <li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
1811 <div class="doc_code"><pre>% ./hello.native</pre></div>
1813 <p>Note that using llvm-gcc to compile directly to native code (i.e. when
1814 the -emit-llvm option is not present) does steps 6/7/8 for you.</p>
1823 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1825 <a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
1827 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1831 <p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
1832 general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a href="FAQ.html">Frequently
1833 Asked Questions</a> page.</p>
1837 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1839 <a name="links">Links</a>
1841 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1845 <p>This document is just an <b>introduction</b> on how to use LLVM to do
1846 some simple things... there are many more interesting and complicated things
1847 that you can do that aren't documented here (but we'll gladly accept a patch
1848 if you want to write something up!). For more information about LLVM, check
1852 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
1853 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
1854 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
1855 that Uses LLVM</a></li>
1860 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
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1869 <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a><br>
1870 <a href="http://llvm.x10sys.com/rspencer/">Reid Spencer</a><br>
1871 <a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
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