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<div class="doc_title">
Getting Started with the LLVM System
</div>
<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>
<li><a href="#brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC</a>
</ol></li>
<li><a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
<li><a href="#environment">Setting Up Your Environment</a>
<li><a href="#unpack">Unpacking the LLVM Archives</a>
<li><a href="#checkout">Checkout LLVM from CVS</a>
<li><a href="#installcf">Install the GCC Front End</a>
<li><a href="#config">Local LLVM Configuration</a>
<li><a href="#compile">Compiling the LLVM Suite Source Code</a>
<li><a href="#objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
<li><a href="#optionalconfig">Optional Configuration Items</a>
</ol></li>
<li><a href="#layout">Program layout</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#cvsdir"><tt>CVS</tt> directories</a>
<li><a href="#include"><tt>llvm/include</tt></a>
<li><a href="#lib"><tt>llvm/lib</tt></a>
<li><a href="#runtime"><tt>llvm/runtime</tt></a>
<li><a href="#test"><tt>llvm/test</tt></a>
<li><a href="#llvmtest"><tt>llvm-test</tt></a>
<li><a href="#tools"><tt>llvm/tools</tt></a>
<li><a href="#utils"><tt>llvm/utils</tt></a>
</ol></li>
<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:criswell@uiuc.edu">John Criswell</a>,
<a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>,
<a href="http://misha.brukman.net">Misha Brukman</a>,
<a href="http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/~vadve">Vikram Adve</a>, and
<a href="mailto:gshi1@uiuc.edu">Guochun Shi</a>.
</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="overview"><b>Overview</b></a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>Welcome to LLVM! In order to get started, you first need to know some
basic information.</p>
<p>First, LLVM comes in two pieces. The first piece 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, bytecode
analyzer, and bytecode optimizer. It also contains a test suite that can be
used to test the LLVM tools and the GCC front end.</p>
<p>The second piece is the GCC front end. This component provides a version of
GCC that compiles C and C++ code into LLVM bytecode. Currently, the GCC front
end is a modified version of GCC 3.4 (we track the GCC 3.4 development). Once
compiled into LLVM bytecode, a program can be manipulated with the LLVM tools
from the LLVM suite.</p>
</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>Read the documentation.</li>
<li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
<li>Install the GCC front end:
<ol>
<li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-the-C-front-end-to-live</i></tt>
<li><tt>gunzip --stdout cfrontend.<i>platform</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
<li><b>Sparc and MacOS X Only:</b><br>
<tt>cd cfrontend/<i>platform</i><br>
./fixheaders</tt>
</ol></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>
<li><tt>cd llvm</tt>
</ol></li>
<li>With anonymous CVS access (or use a <a href="#mirror">mirror</a>):
<ol>
<li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
<li><tt>cvs -d
:pserver:anon@llvm-cvs.cs.uiuc.edu:/var/cvs/llvm login</tt></li>
<li>Hit the return key when prompted for the password.
<li><tt>cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anon@llvm-cvs.cs.uiuc.edu:/var/cvs/llvm
co llvm</tt></li>
<li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
</ol></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Configure the LLVM Build Environment
<ol>
<li>Change directory to where you want to store the LLVM object
files and run <tt>configure</tt> to configure the Makefiles and
header files for the default platform. Useful options include:
<ul>
<li><tt>--with-llvmgccdir=<i>directory</i></tt>
<p>Specify the full pathname of where the LLVM GCC frontend is
installed.</p></li>
<li><tt>--enable-spec2000=<i>directory</i></tt>
<p>Enable the SPEC2000 benchmarks for testing. The SPEC2000
benchmarks should be available in
<tt><i>directory</i></tt>.</p></li>
</ul>
</ol></li>
<li>Build the LLVM Suite:
<ol>
<li>Set your LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH environment variable.</li>
<li><tt>gmake -k |&amp; tee gnumake.out
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;# this is csh or tcsh syntax</tt></li>
<li>If you get an "internal compiler error (ICE)" see <a href="#brokengcc">below</a>.</li>
</ol>
</ol>
<p>Consult the <a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a> section for
detailed information on configuring and compiling LLVM. See <a
href="#environment">Setting Up Your Environment</a> for tips that simplify
working with the GCC front end and LLVM tools. Go to <a href="#layout">Program
Layout</a> to learn about the layout of the source code tree.</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="requirements"><b>Requirements</b></a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<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">
<a name="hardware"><b>Hardware</b></a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
<table cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th>OS</th>
<th>Arch</th>
<th>Source code</th>
<th>Object code</th>
<th>GCC front end</th>
<th>Total space</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Linux</td>
<td>x86<sup>1</sup></td>
<td>57 MB</td>
<td>2.5 GB</td>
<td>30 MB</td>
<td>2.6 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Solaris</td>
<td>V9 (Ultrasparc)</td>
<td>57 MB</td>
<td>2.5 GB</td>
<td>46 MB</td>
<td>2.6 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>FreeBSD</td>
<td>x86<sup>1</sup></td>
<td>57 MB</td>
<td>850 GB</td>
<td>40 MB</td>
<td>1 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>MacOS X</td>
<td>PowerPC</td>
<td>57 MB</td>
<td>1.5 GB</td>
<td>36 MB</td>
<td>1.6 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>AIX<sup>2</sup></td>
<td>PowerPC</td>
<td>92 MB</td>
<td>2.8 GB</td>
<td>123 MB</td>
<td>3 GB</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
<sup>1</sup> Code generation supported for Pentium processors and up<br>
<sup>2</sup> No native code generation
</p>
<p>The LLVM suite <i>may</i> compile on other platforms, but it is not
guaranteed to do so. If compilation is successful, the LLVM utilities should be
able to assemble, disassemble, analyze, and optimize LLVM bytecode. Code
generation should work as well, although the generated native code may not work
on your platform.</p>
<p>The GCC front end is not very portable at the moment. If you want to get it
to work on another platform, you can download a copy of the source and <a
href="CFEBuildInstrs.html">try to compile it</a> on your platform.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="software"><b>Software</b></a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>Compiling LLVM requires that you have several software packages
installed:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org">GCC 3.x with C and C++ language
support</a> (See <a href="#brokengcc">below</a> for specific version info)</li>
<li><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/make">GNU Make</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/flex">Flex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/bison.html">Bison</a></li>
</ul>
<p>There are some additional tools that you may want to have when working with
LLVM:</p>
<ul>
<li><A href="http://www.gnu.org/software/automake">GNU Automake</A></li>
<li><A href="http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf">GNU Autoconf</A></li>
<li><A href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/m4">GNU M4</A>
<p>If you want to make changes to the configure scripts, you will need GNU
autoconf (2.57 or higher), and consequently, GNU M4 (version 1.4 or
higher). You will also need automake. Any old version of
automake from 1.4p5 on should work; we only use aclocal from that
package.</p></li>
<li><A href="http://www.codesourcery.com/qm/qmtest">QMTest 2.0.3</A></li>
<li><A href="http://www.python.org">Python</A>
<p>
These are needed to use the LLVM test suite. Please note that newer
versions of QMTest may not work with the LLVM test suite. QMTest 2.0.3
can be retrieved from the QMTest CVS repository using the following
commands:</p>
<ul>
<li><tt>cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.codesourcery.com:/home/qm/Repository login</tt>
</li>
<li>When prompted, use <tt>anoncvs</tt> as the password.
</li>
<li><tt>cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.codesourcery.com:/home/qm/Repository co -r release-2-0-3 qm</tt>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM is very demanding of the host C++ compiler, and as such tends to expose
bugs in the compiler. In particular, several versions of GCC crash when trying
to compile LLVM. We routinely use GCC 3.3.3 and GCC 3.4.0 and have had success
with them. Other versions of GCC will probably work as well. GCC versions listed
here are known to not work. If you are using one of these versions, please try
to upgrade your GCC to something more recent. If you run into a problem with a
version of GCC not listed here, please <a href="mailto:llvmdev@cs.uiuc.edu">let
us know</a>. Please use the "<tt>gcc -v</tt>" command to find out which version
of GCC you are using.
</p>
<p><b>GCC versions prior to 3.0</b>: GCC 2.96.x and before had several
problems in the STL that effectively prevent it from compiling LLVM.
</p>
<p><b>GCC 3.3.2</b>: This version of GCC suffered from a <a
href="http://gcc.gnu.org/PR13392">serious bug</a> which causes it to crash in
the "<tt>convert_from_eh_region_ranges_1</tt>" GCC function.</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="starting"><b>Getting Started with LLVM</b></a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The remainder of this guide is meant to get you up and running with
LLVM and to give you some basic information about the LLVM environment.</p>
<p>The later sections of this guide describe the <a
href="#layout">general layout</a> of the the LLVM source tree, a <a
href="#tutorial">simple example</a> using the LLVM tool chain, and <a
href="#links">links</a> to find more information about LLVM or to get
help via e-mail.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<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>
<dl>
<dt>SRC_ROOT
<dd>
This is the top level directory of the LLVM source tree.
<p>
<dt>OBJ_ROOT
<dd>
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
can be the same as SRC_ROOT).
<p>
<dt>LLVMGCCDIR
<dd>
This is the where the LLVM GCC Front End is installed.
<p>
For the pre-built GCC front end binaries, the LLVMGCCDIR is
<tt>cfrontend/<i>platform</i>/llvm-gcc</tt>.
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="environment">Setting Up Your Environment</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
In order to compile and use LLVM, you will need to set some environment
variables. There are also some shell aliases which you may find useful.
You can set these on the command line, or better yet, set them in your
<tt>.cshrc</tt> or <tt>.profile</tt>.
<dl>
<dt><tt>LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH</tt>=<tt><i>LLVMGCCDIR</i>/bytecode-libs</tt>
<dd>
This environment variable helps the LLVM GCC front end find bytecode
libraries that it will need for compilation.
<p>
<dt>alias llvmgcc <i>LLVMGCCDIR</i><tt>/bin/gcc</tt>
<dt>alias llvmg++ <i>LLVMGCCDIR</i><tt>/bin/g++</tt>
<dd>
This alias allows you to use the LLVM C and C++ front ends without putting
them in your <tt>PATH</tt> or typing in their complete pathnames.
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="unpack">Unpacking the LLVM Archives</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
If you have the LLVM distribution, you will need to unpack it before you
can begin to compile it. LLVM is distributed as a set of two files: the LLVM
suite and the LLVM GCC front end compiled for your platform. Each
file is a TAR archive that is compressed with the gzip program.
</p>
<p> The files are as follows:
<dl>
<dt>llvm-1.3.tar.gz
<dd>This is the source code to the LLVM suite.
<p>
<dt>cfrontend-1.3.sparc-sun-solaris2.8.tar.gz
<dd>This is the binary release of the GCC front end for Solaris/Sparc.
<p>
<dt>cfrontend-1.3.i686-redhat-linux-gnu.tar.gz
<dd>This is the binary release of the GCC front end for Linux/x86.
<p>
<dt>cfrontend-1.3.i386-unknown-freebsd5.1.tar.gz
<dd>This is the binary release of the GCC front end for FreeBSD/x86.
<p>
<dt>cfrontend-1.3.powerpc-apple-darwin7.0.0.tar.gz
<dd>This is the binary release of the GCC front end for MacOS X/PPC.
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="checkout">Checkout LLVM from CVS</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>If you have access to our CVS repository, you can get a fresh copy of
the entire source code. All you need to do is check it out from CVS as
follows:</p>
<ul>
<li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
<li><tt>cvs -d :pserver:anon@llvm-cvs.cs.uiuc.edu:/var/cvs/llvm login</tt>
<li>Hit the return key when prompted for the password.
<li><tt>cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anon@llvm-cvs.cs.uiuc.edu:/var/cvs/llvm co
llvm</tt>
</ul>
<p>This will create an '<tt>llvm</tt>' directory in the current
directory and fully populate it with the LLVM source code, Makefiles,
test directories, and local copies of documentation files.</p>
<p>If you want to get a specific release (as opposed to the most recent
revision), you can specify a label. The following releases have the following
label:</p>
<ul>
<li>Release 1.3: <b>RELEASE_13</b></li>
<li>Release 1.2: <b>RELEASE_12</b></li>
<li>Release 1.1: <b>RELEASE_11</b></li>
<li>Release 1.0: <b>RELEASE_1</b></li>
</ul>
<p>If you would like to get the GCC front end source code, you can also get it
from the CVS repository:</p>
<pre>
cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anon@llvm-cvs.cs.uiuc.edu:/var/cvs/llvm co llvm-gcc
</pre>
<p>Please note that you must follow <a href="CFEBuildInstrs.html">these
instructions</a> to successfully build the LLVM C front-end.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
<a name="mirrors">LLVM CVS Mirrors</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>If the main CVS server is overloaded or inaccessible, you can try one of
these user-hosted mirrors:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://llvm.x10sys.com/">Mirror hosted by eXtensible Systems
Inc.</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="installcf">Install the GCC Front End</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>Before configuring and compiling the LLVM suite, you need to extract the LLVM
GCC front end from the binary distribution. It is used for building the
bytecode libraries later used by the GCC front end for linking programs, and its
location must be specified when the LLVM suite is configured.</p>
<p>To install the GCC front end, do the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-the-front-end-to-live</i></tt></li>
<li><tt>gunzip --stdout cfrontend-<i>version</i>.<i>platform</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf
-</tt></li>
</ol>
<p>If you are using Solaris/Sparc or MacOS X/PPC, you will need to fix the
header files:</p>
<p><tt>cd cfrontend/<i>platform</i><br>
./fixheaders</tt></p>
<p>The binary versions of the GCC front end may not suit all of your needs. For
example, the binary distribution may include an old version of a system header
file, not "fix" a header file that needs to be fixed for GCC, or it may be
linked with libraries not available on your system.</p>
<p>In cases like these, you may want to try <a
href="CFEBuildInstrs.html">building the GCC front end from source.</a> This is
not for the faint of heart, so be forewarned.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="config">Local LLVM Configuration</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>Once checked out from the CVS repository, the LLVM suite source code must be
configured via the <tt>configure</tt> script. This script sets variables in
<tt>llvm/Makefile.config</tt> and <tt>llvm/include/Config/config.h</tt>. It
also populates <i>OBJ_ROOT</i> with the Makefiles needed to begin building
LLVM.</p>
<p>The following environment variables are used by the <tt>configure</tt>
script to configure the build system:</p>
<table>
<tr><th>Variable</th><th>Purpose</th></tr>
<tr>
<td>CC</td>
<td>Tells <tt>configure</tt> which C compiler to use. By default,
<tt>configure</tt> will look for the first GCC C compiler in
<tt>PATH</tt>. Use this variable to override
<tt>configure</tt>'s default behavior.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>CXX</td>
<td>Tells <tt>configure</tt> which C++ compiler to use. By default,
<tt>configure</tt> will look for the first GCC C++ compiler in
<tt>PATH</tt>. Use this variable to override
<tt>configure</tt>'s default behavior.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>The following options can be used to set or enable LLVM specific options:</p>
<dl>
<dt><i>--with-llvmgccdir=LLVMGCCDIR</i>
<dd>
Path to the location where the LLVM GCC front end binaries and
associated libraries were installed. This must be specified as an
absolute pathname.
<p>
<dt><i>--enable-optimized</i>
<dd>
Enables optimized compilation by default (debugging symbols are removed
and GCC optimization flags are enabled). The default is to use an
unoptimized build (also known as a debug build).
<p>
<dt><i>--enable-jit</i>
<dd>
Compile the Just In Time (JIT) compiler functionality. This is not
available
on all platforms. The default is dependent on platform, so it is best
to explicitly enable it if you want it.
<p>
<dt><i>--enable-spec2000</i>
<dt><i>--enable-spec2000=&lt;<tt>directory</tt>&gt;</i>
<dd>
Enable the use of SPEC2000 when testing LLVM. This is disabled by default
(unless <tt>configure</tt> finds SPEC2000 installed). By specifying
<tt>directory</tt>, you can tell configure where to find the SPEC2000
benchmarks. If <tt>directory</tt> is left unspecified, <tt>configure</tt>
uses the default value
<tt>/home/vadve/shared/benchmarks/speccpu2000/benchspec</tt>.
<p>
<dt><i>--enable-spec95</i>
<dt><i>--enable-spec95=&lt;<tt>directory</tt>&gt;</i>
<dd>
Enable the use of SPEC95 when testing LLVM. It is similar to the
<i>--enable-spec2000</i> option.
<p>
<dt><i>--enable-povray</i>
<dt><i>--enable-povray=&lt;<tt>directory</tt>&gt;</i>
<dd>
Enable the use of Povray as an external test. Versions of Povray written
in C should work. This option is similar to the <i>--enable-spec2000</i>
option.
</dl>
<p>To configure LLVM, follow these steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Change directory into the object root directory:
<br>
<tt>cd <i>OBJ_ROOT</i></tt>
<p>
<li>Run the <tt>configure</tt> script located in the LLVM source tree:
<br>
<tt><i>SRC_ROOT</i>/configure</tt>
<p>
</ol>
<p>In addition to running <tt>configure</tt>, you must set the
<tt>LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH</tt> environment variable in your startup scripts.
This environment variable is used to locate "system" libraries like
"<tt>-lc</tt>" and "<tt>-lm</tt>" when linking. This variable should be set to
the absolute path of the <tt>bytecode-libs</tt> subdirectory of the GCC front
end, or <i>LLVMGCCDIR</i>/<tt>bytecode-libs</tt>. For example, one might set
<tt>LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH</tt> to
<tt>/home/vadve/lattner/local/x86/llvm-gcc/bytecode-libs</tt> for the x86
version of the GCC front end on our research machines.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="compile">Compiling the LLVM Suite Source Code</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>Once you have configured LLVM, you can build it. There are three types of
builds:</p>
<dl>
<dt>Debug Builds
<dd>
These builds are the default when one types <tt>gmake</tt> (unless the
<tt>--enable-optimized</tt> option was used during configuration). The
build system will compile the tools and libraries with debugging
information.
<p>
<dt>Release (Optimized) Builds
<dd>
These builds are enabled with the <tt>--enable-optimized</tt> option to
<tt>configure</tt> or by specifying <tt>ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1</tt> on the
<tt>gmake</tt> command line. For these builds, the build system will
compile the tools and libraries with GCC optimizations enabled and strip
debugging information from the libraries and executables it generates.
<p>
<dt>Profile Builds
<dd>
These builds are for use with profiling. They compile profiling
information into the code for use with programs like <tt>gprof</tt>.
Profile builds must be started by specifying <tt>ENABLE_PROFILING=1</tt>
on the <tt>gmake</tt> command line.
</dl>
<p>Once you have LLVM configured, you can build it by entering the
<i>OBJ_ROOT</i> directory and issuing the following command:</p>
<p><tt>gmake</tt></p>
<p>If the build fails, please <a href="#brokengcc">check here</a> to see if you
are using a known broken version of GCC to compile LLVM with.</p>
<p>
If you have multiple processors in your machine, you may wish to use some of
the parallel build options provided by GNU Make. For example, you could use the
command:</p>
<p><tt>gmake -j2</tt></p>
<p>There are several special targets which are useful when working with the LLVM
source code:</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt>gmake clean</tt>
<dd>
Removes all files generated by the build. This includes object files,
generated C/C++ files, libraries, and executables.
<p>
<dt><tt>gmake distclean</tt>
<dd>
Removes everything that <tt>gmake clean</tt> does, but also removes files
generated by <tt>configure</tt>. It attempts to return the source tree to the
original state in which it was shipped.
<p>
<dt><tt>gmake install</tt>
<dd>
Installs LLVM libraries and tools in a heirarchy under $PREFIX, specified with
<tt>./configure --prefix=[dir]</tt>, defaults to <tt>/usr/local</tt>.
<p>
<dt><tt>gmake -C runtime install</tt>
<dd>
Assuming you built LLVM into $OBJDIR, when this command is run, it will
install bytecode libraries into the GCC front end's bytecode library
directory. If you need to update your bytecode libraries,
this is the target to use once you've built them.
<p>
</dl>
<p>It is also possible to override default values from <tt>configure</tt> by
declaring variables on the command line. The following are some examples:</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt>gmake ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1</tt>
<dd>
Perform a Release (Optimized) build.
<p>
<dt><tt>gmake ENABLE_PROFILING=1</tt>
<dd>
Perform a Profiling build.
<p>
<dt><tt>gmake VERBOSE=1</tt>
<dd>
Print what <tt>gmake</tt> is doing on standard output.
<p>
</dl>
<p>Every directory in the LLVM object tree includes a <tt>Makefile</tt> to build
it and any subdirectories that it contains. Entering any directory inside the
LLVM object tree and typing <tt>gmake</tt> should rebuild anything in or below
that directory that is out of date.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The LLVM build system is capable of sharing a single LLVM source tree among
several LLVM builds. Hence, it is possible to build LLVM for several different
platforms or configurations using the same source tree.</p>
<p>This is accomplished in the typical autoconf manner:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Change directory to where the LLVM object files should live:</p>
<p><tt>cd <i>OBJ_ROOT</i></tt></p></li>
<li><p>Run the <tt>configure</tt> script found in the LLVM source
directory:</p>
<p><tt><i>SRC_ROOT</i>/configure</tt></p></li>
</ul>
<p>The LLVM build will place files underneath <i>OBJ_ROOT</i> in directories
named after the build type:</p>
<dl>
<dt>Debug Builds
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>Tools
<dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/tools/Debug</tt>
<dt>Libraries
<dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/lib/Debug</tt>
</dl>
<p>
<dt>Release Builds
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>Tools
<dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/tools/Release</tt>
<dt>Libraries
<dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/lib/Release</tt>
</dl>
<p>
<dt>Profile Builds
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>Tools
<dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/tools/Profile</tt>
<dt>Libraries
<dd><tt><i>OBJ_ROOT</i>/lib/Profile</tt>
</dl>
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="optionalconfig">Optional Configuration Items</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
If you're running on a linux system that supports the "<a
href="http://www.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/~rguenth/linux/binfmt_misc.html">binfmt_misc</a>"
module, and you have root access on the system, you can set your system up to
execute LLVM bytecode files directly. To do this, use commands like this (the
first command may not be required if you are already using the module):</p>
<pre>
$ mount -t binfmt_misc none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
$ echo ':llvm:M::llvm::/path/to/lli:' > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
$ chmod u+x hello.bc (if needed)
$ ./hello.bc
</pre>
<p>
This allows you to execute LLVM bytecode files directly. Thanks to Jack
Cummings for pointing this out!
</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="layout"><b>Program Layout</b></a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>One useful source of information about the LLVM source base is the LLVM <a
href="http://www.doxygen.org">doxygen</a> documentation available at <tt><a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/doxygen/">http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/doxygen/</a></tt>.
The following is a brief introduction to code layout:</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="cvsdir"><tt>CVS</tt> directories</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>Every directory checked out of CVS will contain a <tt>CVS</tt> directory; for
the most part these can just be ignored.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="include"><tt>llvm/include</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This directory contains public header files exported from the LLVM
library. The three main subdirectories of this directory are:</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/include/llvm</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This directory contains all of the LLVM specific header files. This
directory also has subdirectories for different portions of LLVM:
<tt>Analysis</tt>, <tt>CodeGen</tt>, <tt>Target</tt>, <tt>Transforms</tt>,
etc...</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/include/llvm/Support</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This directory contains generic support libraries that are provided with
LLVM but not necessarily specific to LLVM. For example, some C++ STL utilities
and a Command Line option processing library store their header files here.
</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/include/llvm/Config</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This directory contains header files configured by the <tt>configure</tt>
script. They wrap "standard" UNIX and C header files. Source code can
include these header files which automatically take care of the conditional
#includes that the <tt>configure</tt> script generates.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="lib"><tt>llvm/lib</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This directory contains most of the source files of the LLVM system. In LLVM,
almost all code exists in libraries, making it very easy to share code among the
different <a href="#tools">tools</a>.</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/VMCore/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory holds the core LLVM source files that implement core
classes like Instruction and BasicBlock.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/AsmParser/</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This directory holds the source code for the LLVM assembly language parser
library.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/ByteCode/</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This directory holds code for reading and write LLVM bytecode.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Analysis/</b></tt><dd>This directory contains a variety of
different program analyses, such as Dominator Information, Call Graphs,
Induction Variables, Interval Identification, Natural Loop Identification,
etc.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Transforms/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory contains the source code for the LLVM to LLVM program
transformations, such as Aggressive Dead Code Elimination, Sparse Conditional
Constant Propagation, Inlining, Loop Invariant Code Motion, Dead Global
Elimination, and many others.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Target/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory contains files that describe various target architectures
for code generation. For example, the <tt>llvm/lib/Target/SparcV9</tt>
directory holds the Sparc machine description while
<tt>llvm/lib/Target/CBackend</tt> implements the LLVM-to-C converter</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/CodeGen/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory contains the major parts of the code generator: Instruction
Selector, Instruction Scheduling, and Register Allocation.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Debugger/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory contains the source level debugger library that makes
it possible to instrument LLVM programs so that a debugger could identify
source code locations at which the program is executing.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/ExecutionEngine/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory contains libraries for executing LLVM bytecode directly
at runtime in both interpreted and JIT compiled fashions.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/Support/</b></tt></dt>
<dd> This directory contains the source code that corresponds to the header
files located in <tt>llvm/include/Support/</tt>.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm/lib/System/</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This directory contains the operating system abstraction layer that
shields LLVM from platform-specific coding.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="runtime"><tt>llvm/runtime</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This directory contains libraries which are compiled into LLVM bytecode and
used when linking programs with the GCC front end. Most of these libraries are
skeleton versions of real libraries; for example, libc is a stripped down
version of glibc.</p>
<p>Unlike the rest of the LLVM suite, this directory needs the LLVM GCC front
end to compile.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="test"><tt>llvm/test</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This directory contains feature and regression tests and other basic sanity
checks on the LLVM infrastructure. These are intended to run quickly and cover
a lot of territory without being exhaustive.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="llvmtest"><tt>llvm-test</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This is not a directory in the normal llvm module, it is a separate CVS
module that must be checked out (usually to <tt>test/projects</tt>). This
module contains a comprehensive correctness, performance and benchmarking test
suite for LLVM. It is a separate CVS module because not every LLVM user is
interested in downloading or building such a comprehensive test. For further
details on this test suite, please see the
<a href="TestingGuide.html">Testing Guide</a> document.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="tools"><tt>llvm/tools</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The <b>tools</b> directory contains the executables built out of the
libraries above, which form the main part of the user interface. You can
always get help for a tool by typing <tt>tool_name --help</tt>. The
following is a brief introduction to the most important tools:</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt><b>analyze</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>analyze</tt> is used to run a specific
analysis on an input LLVM bytecode file and print out the results. It is
primarily useful for debugging analyses, or familiarizing yourself with
what an analysis does.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>bugpoint</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>bugpoint</tt> is used to debug
optimization passes or code generation backends by narrowing down the
given test case to the minimum number of passes and/or instructions that
still cause a problem, whether it is a crash or miscompilation. See <a
href="HowToSubmitABug.html">HowToSubmitABug.html</a> for more information
on using <tt>bugpoint</tt>.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvmc</b></tt></dt>
<dd>The LLVM Compiler Driver. This program can
be configured to utilize both LLVM and non-LLVM compilation tools to enable
pre-processing, translation, optimization, assembly, and linking of programs
all from one command line. <tt>llvmc</tt> also takes care of processing the
dependent libraries found in bytecode. This reduces the need to get the
traditional <tt>-l&lt;name&gt;</tt> options right on the command line.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm-ar</b></tt></dt>
<dd>The archiver produces an archive containing
the given LLVM bytecode files, optionally with an index for faster
lookup.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm-as</b></tt></dt>
<dd>The assembler transforms the human readable LLVM assembly to LLVM
bytecode.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm-dis</b></tt></dt>
<dd>The disassembler transforms the LLVM bytecode to human readable
LLVM assembly.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvm-link</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>llvm-link</tt>, not surprisingly, links multiple LLVM modules into
a single program.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>lli</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>lli</tt> is the LLVM interpreter, which
can directly execute LLVM bytecode (although very slowly...). In addition
to a simple interpreter, <tt>lli</tt> also has a tracing mode (entered by
specifying <tt>-trace</tt> on the command line). Finally, for
architectures that support it (currently only x86 and Sparc), by default,
<tt>lli</tt> will function as a Just-In-Time compiler (if the
functionality was compiled in), and will execute the code <i>much</i>
faster than the interpreter.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llc</b></tt></dt>
<dd> <tt>llc</tt> is the LLVM backend compiler, which
translates LLVM bytecode to a SPARC or x86 assembly file, or to C code (with
the -march=c option).</dd>
<dt><tt><b>llvmgcc</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>llvmgcc</tt> is a GCC-based C frontend
that has been retargeted to emit LLVM code as the machine code output. It
works just like any other GCC compiler, taking the typical <tt>-c, -S, -E,
-o</tt> options that are typically used. The source code for the
<tt>llvmgcc</tt> tool is currently not included in the LLVM CVS tree
because it is quite large and not very interesting.
<blockquote>
<dl>
<dt><tt><b>gccas</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This tool is invoked by the <tt>llvmgcc</tt> frontend as the
"assembler" part of the compiler. This tool actually assembles LLVM
assembly to LLVM bytecode, performs a variety of optimizations, and
outputs LLVM bytecode. Thus when you invoke
<tt>llvmgcc -c x.c -o x.o</tt>, you are causing <tt>gccas</tt> to be
run, which writes the <tt>x.o</tt> file (which is an LLVM bytecode file
that can be disassembled or manipulated just like any other bytecode
file). The command line interface to <tt>gccas</tt> is designed to be
as close as possible to the <b>system</b> `<tt>as</tt>' utility so that
the gcc frontend itself did not have to be modified to interface to
a "weird" assembler.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>gccld</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>gccld</tt> links together several LLVM bytecode files into one
bytecode file and does some optimization. It is the linker invoked by
the GCC frontend when multiple .o files need to be linked together.
Like <tt>gccas</tt>, the command line interface of <tt>gccld</tt> is
designed to match the system linker, to aid interfacing with the GCC
frontend.</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
</dd>
<dt><tt><b>opt</b></tt></dt>
<dd><tt>opt</tt> reads LLVM bytecode, applies a
series of LLVM to LLVM transformations (which are specified on the command
line), and then outputs the resultant bytecode. The '<tt>opt --help</tt>'
command is a good way to get a list of the program transformations
available in LLVM.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="utils"><tt>llvm/utils</tt></a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This directory contains utilities for working with LLVM source code, and some
of the utilities are actually required as part of the build process because they
are code generators for parts of LLVM infrastructure.</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt><b>Burg/</b></tt> <dd><tt>Burg</tt> is an instruction selector
generator -- it builds trees on which it then performs pattern-matching to
select instructions according to the patterns the user has specified. Burg
is currently used in the Sparc V9 backend.<p>
<dt><tt><b>codegen-diff</b></tt> <dd><tt>codegen-diff</tt> is a script
that finds differences between code that LLC generates and code that LLI
generates. This is a useful tool if you are debugging one of them,
assuming that the other generates correct output. For the full user
manual, run <tt>`perldoc codegen-diff'</tt>.<p>
<dt><tt><b>cvsupdate</b></tt> <dd><tt>cvsupdate</tt> is a script that will
update your CVS tree, but produce a much cleaner and more organized output
than simply running <tt>`cvs -z3 up -dP'</tt> will. For example, it will group
together all the new and updated files and modified files in separate
sections, so you can see at a glance what has changed. If you are at the
top of your LLVM CVS tree, running <tt>utils/cvsupdate</tt> is the
preferred way of updating the tree.<p>
<dt><tt><b>emacs/</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>emacs</tt> directory contains
syntax-highlighting files which will work with Emacs and XEmacs editors,
providing syntax highlighting support for LLVM assembly files and TableGen
description files. For information on how to use the syntax files, consult
the <tt>README</tt> file in that directory.<p>
<dt><tt><b>getsrcs.sh</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>getsrcs.sh</tt> script finds
and outputs all non-generated source files, which is useful if one wishes
to do a lot of development across directories and does not want to
individually find each file. One way to use it is to run, for example:
<tt>xemacs `utils/getsources.sh`</tt> from the top of your LLVM source
tree.<p>
<dt><tt><b>llvmgrep</b></tt></dt>
<dd>This little tool performs an "egrep -H -n" on each source file in LLVM and
passes to it a regular expression provided on <tt>llvmgrep</tt>'s command
line. This is a very efficient way of searching the source base for a
particular regular expression.</dd>
<dt><tt><b>makellvm</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>makellvm</tt> script compiles all
files in the current directory and then compiles and links the tool that
is the first argument. For example, assuming you are in the directory
<tt>llvm/lib/Target/Sparc</tt>, if <tt>makellvm</tt> is in your path,
simply running <tt>makellvm llc</tt> will make a build of the current
directory, switch to directory <tt>llvm/tools/llc</tt> and build it,
causing a re-linking of LLC.<p>
<dt><tt><b>NightlyTest.pl</b></tt> and
<tt><b>NightlyTestTemplate.html</b></tt> <dd>These files are used in a
cron script to generate nightly status reports of the functionality of
tools, and the results can be seen by following the appropriate link on
the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/">LLVM homepage</a>.<p>
<dt><tt><b>TableGen/</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>TableGen</tt> directory contains
the tool used to generate register descriptions, instruction set
descriptions, and even assemblers from common TableGen description
files.<p>
<dt><tt><b>vim/</b></tt> <dd>The <tt>vim</tt> directory contains
syntax-highlighting files which will work with the VIM editor, providing
syntax highlighting support for LLVM assembly files and TableGen
description files. For information on how to use the syntax files, consult
the <tt>README</tt> file in that directory.<p>
</dl>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<ol>
<li>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':
<pre>
#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
int main() {
printf("hello world\n");
return 0;
}
</pre></li>
<li><p>Next, compile the C file into a LLVM bytecode file:</p>
<p><tt>% llvmgcc hello.c -o hello</tt></p>
<p>Note that you should have already built the tools and they have to be
in your path, at least <tt>gccas</tt> and <tt>gccld</tt>.</p>
<p>This will create two result files: <tt>hello</tt> and
<tt>hello.bc</tt>. The <tt>hello.bc</tt> is the LLVM bytecode that
corresponds the the compiled program and the library facilities that it
required. <tt>hello</tt> is a simple shell script that runs the bytecode
file with <tt>lli</tt>, making the result directly executable. Note that
all LLVM optimizations are enabled by default, so there is no need for a
"-O3" switch.</p></li>
<li><p>Run the program. To make sure the program ran, execute one of the
following commands:</p>
<p><tt>% ./hello</tt></p>
<p>or</p>
<p><tt>% lli hello.bc</tt></p></li>
<li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
code:</p>
<p><tt>% llvm-dis &lt; hello.bc | less</tt><p></li>
<li><p>Compile the program to native assembly using the LLC code
generator:</p>
<p><tt>% llc hello.bc -o hello.s</tt></p>
<li><p>Assemble the native assembly language file into a program:</p>
<p><b>Solaris:</b><tt>% /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -xarch=v9 hello.s -o hello.native</tt></p>
<p><b>Others:</b><tt>% gcc hello.s -o hello.native</tt></p>
<li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
<p><tt>% ./hello.native</tt></p></li>
</ol>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<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
Asked Questions</a> page.</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="links">Links</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<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
that you can do that aren't documented here (but we'll gladly accept a patch
if you want to write something up!). For more information about LLVM, check
out:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
that Uses LLVM</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
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