</head>
<body>
-<div class="doc_title">
+<h1>
Getting Started with the LLVM System using Microsoft Visual Studio
-</div>
+</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#overview">Overview</a>
- <li><a href="#quickstart">Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</a>
<li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#hardware">Hardware</a>
<li><a href="#software">Software</a>
</ol></li>
-
- <li><a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a>
- <ol>
- <li><a href="#terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
- <li><a href="#objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
- </ol></li>
-
+ <li><a href="#quickstart">Getting Started</a>
<li><a href="#tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
<li><a href="#problems">Common Problems</a>
<li><a href="#links">Links</a>
</ul>
<div class="doc_author">
- <p>Written by:
- <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a>
- </p>
+ <p>Written by: <a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Team</a></p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="overview"><b>Overview</b></a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
+
+ <p>Welcome to LLVM on Windows! This document only covers LLVM on Windows using
+ Visual Studio, not mingw or cygwin. In order to get started, you first need to
+ know some basic information.</p>
- <p>The Visual Studio port at this time is experimental. It is suitable for
- use only if you are writing your own compiler front end or otherwise have a
- need to dynamically generate machine code. The JIT and interpreter are
- functional, but it is currently not possible to generate assembly code which
- is then assembled into an executable. You can indirectly create executables
- by using the C back end.</p>
+ <p>There are many different projects that compose LLVM. The first is the LLVM
+ suite. This contains all of the tools, libraries, and header files needed to
+ use the low level virtual machine. It contains an assembler, disassembler,
+ bitcode analyzer and bitcode optimizer. It also contains a test suite that can
+ be used to test the LLVM tools.</p>
- <p>To emphasize, there is no C/C++ front end currently available.
- <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> is based on GCC, which cannot be bootstrapped using VC++.
- Eventually there should be a <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> based on Cygwin or MinGW that
- is usable. There is also the option of generating bitcode files on Unix and
- copying them over to Windows. But be aware the odds of linking C++ code
- compiled with <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> with code compiled with VC++ is essentially
- zero.</p>
+ <p>Another useful project on Windows is
+ <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang</a>. Clang is a C family
+ ([Objective]C/C++) compiler. Clang mostly works on Windows, but does not
+ currently understand all of the Microsoft extensions to C and C++. Because of
+ this, clang cannot parse the C++ standard library included with Visual Studio,
+ nor parts of the Windows Platform SDK. However, most standard C programs do
+ compile. Clang can be used to emit bitcode, directly emit object files or
+ even linked executables using Visual Studio's <tt>link.exe</tt></p>
- <p>The LLVM test suite cannot be run on the Visual Studio port at this
+ <p>The large LLVM test suite cannot be run on the Visual Studio port at this
time.</p>
<p>Most of the tools build and work. <tt>bugpoint</tt> does build, but does
- not work. The other tools 'should' work, but have not been fully tested.</p>
+ not work.</p>
<p>Additional information about the LLVM directory structure and tool chain
can be found on the main <a href="GettingStarted.html">Getting Started</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</b></a>
-</div>
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
-
-<ol>
- <li>Read the documentation.</li>
- <li>Seriously, read the documentation.</li>
- <li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
-
- <li>Get the Source Code
- <ul>
- <li>With the distributed files:
- <ol>
- <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
- <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
- <i> or use WinZip</i>
- <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
- </ol></li>
-
- <li>With anonymous Subversion access:
- <ol>
- <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
- <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-top/trunk llvm-top
- </tt></li>
- <li><tt>make checkout MODULE=llvm</tt>
- <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
- </ol></li>
- </ul></li>
-
- <li> Use <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> to generate up-to-date
- project files:
- <ul><li>This step is currently optional as LLVM does still come with a
- normal Visual Studio solution file, but it is not always kept up-to-date
- and will soon be deprecated in favor of the multi-platform generator
- CMake.</li>
- <li>If CMake is installed then the most simple way is to just start the
- CMake GUI, select the directory where you have LLVM extracted to, and
- the default options should all be fine. The one option you may really
- want to change, regardless of anything else, might be the
- CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX setting to select a directory to INSTALL to once
- compiling is complete.</li>
- <li>If you use CMake to generate the Visual Studio solution and project
- files, then the Solution will have a few extra options compared to the
- current included one. The projects may still be built individually, but
- to build them all do not just select all of them in batch build (as some
- are meant as configuration projects), but rather select and build just
- the ALL_BUILD project to build everything, or the INSTALL project, which
- first builds the ALL_BUILD project, then installs the LLVM headers, libs,
- and other useful things to the directory set by the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
- setting when you first configured CMake.</li>
- </ul>
- </li>
-
- <li>Start Visual Studio
- <ul>
- <li>If you did not use CMake, then simply double click on the solution
- file <tt>llvm/win32/llvm.sln</tt>.</li>
- <li>If you used CMake, then the directory you created the project files,
- the root directory will have an <tt>llvm.sln</tt> file, just
- double-click on that to open Visual Studio.</li>
- </ol></li>
-
- <li>Build the LLVM Suite:
- <ol>
- <li>Simply build the solution.</li>
- <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT. Modify
- the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric command line
- argument. The program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
- </ol></li>
-
-</ol>
-
-<p>It is strongly encouraged that you get the latest version from Subversion as
-changes are continually making the VS support better.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="requirements"><b>Requirements</b></a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given
below. This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware
and software you will need.</p>
-</div>
-
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h3>
<a name="hardware"><b>Hardware</b></a>
-</div>
+</h3>
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
- <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 is fine.
+ <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 is fine.
The LLVM source tree and object files, libraries and executables will consume
approximately 3GB.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></div>
-<div class="doc_text">
+<h3><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></h3>
+<div>
<p>You will need Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 or higher. The VS2005 SP1
beta and the normal VS2005 still have bugs that are not completely
- compatible. VS2003 would work except (at last check) it has a bug with
- friend classes that you can work-around with some minor code rewriting
- (and please submit a patch if you do). Earlier versions of Visual Studio
- do not support the C++ standard well enough and will not work.</p>
-
+ compatible. Earlier versions of Visual Studio do not support the C++ standard
+ well enough and will not work.</p>
+
<p>You will also need the <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> build
system since it generates the project files you will use to build with.</p>
- <p>If you plan to modify any .y or .l files, you will need to have bison
- and/or flex installed where Visual Studio can find them. Otherwise, you do
- not need them and the pre-generated files that come with the source tree
- will be used.</p>
+ <p>If you would like to run the LLVM tests you will need
+ <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a>. Versions 2.4-2.7 are known to
+ work. You will need <a href="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/">"GnuWin32"</a>
+ tools, too.</p>
- <p>
- Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
+ <p>Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
C:\Documents and Settings\...) as the configure step will fail.</p>
</div>
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="starting"><b>Getting Started with LLVM</b></a>
</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+<h2>
+ <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started</b></a>
+</h2>
+<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+
+<div>
-<div class="doc_text">
+<p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
-<p>The remainder of this guide is meant to get you up and running with
-LLVM using Visual Studio and to give you some basic information about the LLVM
-environment.</p>
+<ol>
+ <li>Read the documentation.</li>
+ <li>Seriously, read the documentation.</li>
+ <li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
-</div>
+ <li>Get the Source Code
+ <ul>
+ <li>With the distributed files:
+ <ol>
+ <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
+ <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
+ <i> or use WinZip</i>
+ <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
+ </ol></li>
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
-</div>
+ <li>With anonymous Subversion access:
+ <ol>
+ <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
+ <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm</tt></li>
+ <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
+ </ol></li>
+ </ul></li>
-<div class="doc_text">
+ <li> Use <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> to generate up-to-date
+ project files:
+ <ul>
+ <li>Once CMake is installed then the simplest way is to just start the
+ CMake GUI, select the directory where you have LLVM extracted to, and the
+ default options should all be fine. One option you may really want to
+ change, regardless of anything else, might be the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
+ setting to select a directory to INSTALL to once compiling is complete,
+ although installation is not mandatory for using LLVM. Another important
+ option is LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD, which controls the LLVM target
+ architectures that are included on the build.
+ <li>See the <a href="CMake.html">LLVM CMake guide</a> for
+ detailed information about how to configure the LLVM
+ build.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
-<p>Throughout this manual, the following names are used to denote paths
-specific to the local system and working environment. <i>These are not
-environment variables you need to set but just strings used in the rest
-of this document below</i>. In any of the examples below, simply replace
-each of these names with the appropriate pathname on your local system.
-All these paths are absolute:</p>
+ <li>Start Visual Studio
+ <ul>
+ <li>In the directory you created the project files will have
+ an <tt>llvm.sln</tt> file, just double-click on that to open
+ Visual Studio.</li>
+ </ul></li>
-<dl>
- <dt>SRC_ROOT</dt>
- <dd><p>This is the top level directory of the LLVM source tree.</p></dd>
+ <li>Build the LLVM Suite:
+ <ul>
+ <li>The projects may still be built individually, but
+ to build them all do not just select all of them in batch build (as some
+ are meant as configuration projects), but rather select and build just
+ the ALL_BUILD project to build everything, or the INSTALL project, which
+ first builds the ALL_BUILD project, then installs the LLVM headers, libs,
+ and other useful things to the directory set by the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
+ setting when you first configured CMake.</li>
+ <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT.
+ Modify the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric
+ command line argument or run it from the command line. The
+ program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
+ </ul></li>
- <dt>OBJ_ROOT</dt>
- <dd><p>This is the top level directory of the LLVM object tree (i.e. the
- tree where object files and compiled programs will be placed. It is
- fixed at SRC_ROOT/win32).</p></dd>
-</dl>
+ <li>Test LLVM on Visual Studio:
+ <ul>
+ <li>If %PATH% does not contain GnuWin32, you may specify LLVM_LIT_TOOLS_DIR
+ on CMake for the path to GnuWin32.</li>
+ <li>You can run LLVM tests by merely building the project
+ "check". The test results will be shown in the VS output
+ window.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
-</div>
+ <!-- FIXME: Is it up-to-date? -->
+ <li>Test LLVM:
+ <ul>
+ <li>The LLVM tests can be run by <tt>cd</tt>ing to the llvm source directory
+ and running:
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+% llvm-lit test
+</pre>
</div>
-<div class="doc_text">
+ <p>Note that quite a few of these test will fail.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>The object files are placed under <tt>OBJ_ROOT/Debug</tt> for debug builds
- and <tt>OBJ_ROOT/Release</tt> for release (optimized) builds. These include
- both executables and libararies that your application can link against.</p>
+ <li>A specific test or test directory can be run with:
- <p>The files that <tt>configure</tt> would create when building on Unix are
- created by the <tt>Configure</tt> project and placed in
- <tt>OBJ_ROOT/llvm</tt>. You application must have OBJ_ROOT in its include
- search path just before <tt>SRC_ROOT/include</tt>.</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+% llvm-lit test/path/to/test
+</pre>
+</div>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+</ol>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<ol>
<li><p>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% llvm-gcc -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc
+% clang -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc
</pre>
</div>
facilities that it required. You can execute this file directly using
<tt>lli</tt> tool, compile it to native assembly with the <tt>llc</tt>,
optimize or analyze it further with the <tt>opt</tt> tool, etc.</p>
-
- <p><b>Note: while you cannot do this step on Windows, you can do it on a
- Unix system and transfer <tt>hello.bc</tt> to Windows. Important:
- transfer as a binary file!</b></p></li>
+
+ <p>Alternatively you can directly output an executable with clang with:
+ </p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+% clang hello.c -o hello.exe
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+ <p>The <tt>-o hello.exe</tt> is required because clang currently outputs
+ <tt>a.out</tt> when neither <tt>-o</tt> nor <tt>-c</tt> are given.</p>
<li><p>Run the program using the just-in-time compiler:</p>
-
+
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
% lli hello.bc
</pre>
</div>
- <p>Note: this will only work for trivial C programs. Non-trivial programs
- (and any C++ program) will have dependencies on the GCC runtime that
- won't be satisfied by the Microsoft runtime libraries.</p></li>
-
<li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
code:</p>
</pre>
</div></li>
- <li><p>Compile the program to C using the LLC code generator:</p>
+ <li><p>Compile the program to object code using the LLC code generator:</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% llc -march=c hello.bc
+% llc -filetype=obj hello.bc
</pre>
</div></li>
- <li><p>Compile to binary using Microsoft C:</p>
+ <li><p>Link to binary using Microsoft link:</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% cl hello.cbe.c
+% link hello.obj -defaultlib:libcmt
</pre>
</div>
- <p>Note: this will only work for trivial C programs. Non-trivial programs
- (and any C++ program) will have dependencies on the GCC runtime that
- won't be satisfied by the Microsoft runtime libraries.</p></li>
-
<li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% hello.cbe.exe
+% hello.exe
</pre>
</div></li>
</ol>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a href="FAQ.html">Frequently
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="links">Links</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<p>This document is just an <b>introduction</b> to how to use LLVM to do
some simple things... there are many more interesting and complicated things
<ul>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
- that Uses LLVM</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401-blue" alt="Valid HTML 4.01"></a>
- <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a><br>
- <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Last modified: $Date$
</address>
</body>
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