</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>
</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 has some limitations. It is suitable for
- use 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 output object files
- in COFF format, though. You can also indirectly create executables
- by using the C backend.</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 LLVM. 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><tt>llvm-gcc</tt> is based on GCC, which cannot be bootstrapped
- using VC++. There are <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> binaries based on MinGW
- available on the
- LLVM <a href="http://www.llvm.org/releases/download.html"> download
- page</a>. Eventually, <a href="http://clang.llvm.org">Clang</a>
- will be able to produce executables on Windows.</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><tt>bugpoint</tt> does build, but does not work. The other tools
- 'should' work, but have not been fully tested.</p>
+ <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.</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">
+<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.
- The LLVM source tree and object files, libraries and executables will consume
+ <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio 2008 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">
-
- <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>
-
+<h3><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></h3>
+<div>
+
+ <p>You will need Visual Studio 2008 or higher. Earlier versions of Visual
+ Studio have bugs, are not completely compatible, or do not support the C++
+ standard well enough.</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>
- Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
+ <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.
C:\Documents and Settings\...) as the configure step will fail.</p>
</div>
+</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started</b></a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
<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>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm</tt></li>
<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>Once 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. 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. If
- you want to run the <a href="#tutorial">example described
- below</a> you must set that variable to "X86;CBackend".</li>
+ <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>
program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
</ul></li>
+ <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>
+
+ <!-- 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_code">
+<pre>
+% llvm-lit test
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+ <p>Note that quite a few of these test will fail.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>A specific test or test directory can be run with:
+
+<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: you will need the llvm-gcc binaries from the
- LLVM <a href="http://www.llvm.org/releases/download.html">
- download page</a></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>
-
- <p><b>Note: you need to add the C backend to the LLVM build,
- which amounts to setting the CMake
- variable <i>LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD</i> to "X86;CBackend" when
- you generate the VS solution files. See
- the <a href="CMake.html">LLVM CMake guide</a> for more
- information about how to configure the LLVM
- build.</b></p></li>
-
</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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