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6 <title>Getting Started with LLVM System for Microsoft Visual Studio</title>
7 <link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
8</head>
9<body>
10
11<div class="doc_title">
12 Getting Started with the LLVM System using Microsoft Visual Studio
13</div>
14
15<ul>
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>
19 <ol>
20 <li><a href="#hardware">Hardware</a>
21 <li><a href="#software">Software</a>
22 </ol></li>
23
24 <li><a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a>
25 <ol>
26 <li><a href="#terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
27 <li><a href="#objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
28 </ol></li>
29
30 <li><a href="#tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
31 <li><a href="#problems">Common Problems</a>
32 <li><a href="#links">Links</a>
33</ul>
34
35<div class="doc_author">
36 <p>Written by:
37 <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a>
38 </p>
39</div>
40
41
42<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
43<div class="doc_section">
44 <a name="overview"><b>Overview</b></a>
45</div>
46<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
47
48<div class="doc_text">
49
50 <p>The Visual Studio port at this time is experimental. It is suitable for
51 use only if you are writing your own compiler front end or otherwise have a
52 need to dynamically generate machine code. The JIT and interpreter are
53 functional, but it is currently not possible to generate assembly code which
54 is then assembled into an executable. You can indirectly create executables
55 by using the C back end.</p>
56
57 <p>To emphasize, there is no C/C++ front end currently available.
58 <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> is based on GCC, which cannot be bootstrapped using VC++.
59 Eventually there should be a <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> based on Cygwin or MinGW that
60 is usable. There is also the option of generating bitcode files on Unix and
61 copying them over to Windows. But be aware the odds of linking C++ code
62 compiled with <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> with code compiled with VC++ is essentially
63 zero.</p>
64
65 <p>The LLVM test suite cannot be run on the Visual Studio port at this
66 time.</p>
67
68 <p>Most of the tools build and work. <tt>llvm-db</tt> does not build at this
69 time. <tt>bugpoint</tt> does build, but does not work.
70
71 <p>Additional information about the LLVM directory structure and tool chain
72 can be found on the main <a href="GettingStarted.html">Getting Started</a>
73 page.</P>
74
75</div>
76
77<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
78<div class="doc_section">
79 <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</b></a>
80</div>
81<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
82
83<div class="doc_text">
84
85<p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
86
87<ol>
88 <li>Read the documentation.</li>
89 <li>Read the documentation.</li>
90 <li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
91
92 <li>Get the Source Code
93 <ul>
94 <li>With the distributed files:
95 <ol>
96 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
97 <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
98 <i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;or use WinZip</i>
99 <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
100 </ol></li>
101
102 <li>With anonymous Subversion access:
103 <ol>
104 <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
105 <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-top/trunk llvm-top
106 </tt></li>
107 <li><tt>make checkout MODULE=llvm</tt>
108 <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
109 </ol></li>
110 </ul></li>
111
112 <li>Start Visual Studio
113 <ol>
114 <li>Simply double click on the solution file <tt>llvm/win32/llvm.sln</tt>.
115 </li>
116 </ol></li>
117
118 <li>Build the LLVM Suite:
119 <ol>
120 <li>Simply build the solution.</li>
121 <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT. Modify
122 the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric command line
123 argument. The program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
124 </ol></li>
125
126</ol>
127
128<p>It is strongly encouraged that you get the latest version from Subversion as
129changes are continually making the VS support better.</p>
130
131</div>
132
133<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
134<div class="doc_section">
135 <a name="requirements"><b>Requirements</b></a>
136</div>
137<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
138
139<div class="doc_text">
140
141 <p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given
142 below. This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware
143 and software you will need.</p>
144
145</div>
146
147<!-- ======================================================================= -->
148<div class="doc_subsection">
149 <a name="hardware"><b>Hardware</b></a>
150</div>
151
152<div class="doc_text">
153
154 <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio .NET 2003 is fine. The
155 LLVM source tree and object files, libraries and executables will consume
156 approximately 3GB.</p>
157
158</div>
159
160<!-- ======================================================================= -->
161<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></div>
162<div class="doc_text">
163
164 <p>You will need Visual Studio .NET 2003. Earlier versions cannot open the
165 solution/project files. The VS 2005 beta can, but will migrate these files
166 to its own format in the process. While it should work with the VS 2005
167 beta, there are no guarantees and there is no support for it at this time.
168 It has been reported that VC++ Express also works.</p>
169
170 <p>If you plan to modify any .y or .l files, you will need to have bison
171 and/or flex installed where Visual Studio can find them. Otherwise, you do
172 not need them and the pre-generated files that come with the source tree
173 will be used.</p>
174
175</div>
176
177<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
178<div class="doc_section">
179 <a name="starting"><b>Getting Started with LLVM</b></a>
180</div>
181<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
182
183<div class="doc_text">
184
185<p>The remainder of this guide is meant to get you up and running with
186LLVM using Visual Studio and to give you some basic information about the LLVM
187environment.</p>
188
189</div>
190
191<!-- ======================================================================= -->
192<div class="doc_subsection">
193 <a name="terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
194</div>
195
196<div class="doc_text">
197
198<p>Throughout this manual, the following names are used to denote paths
199specific to the local system and working environment. <i>These are not
200environment variables you need to set but just strings used in the rest
201of this document below</i>. In any of the examples below, simply replace
202each of these names with the appropriate pathname on your local system.
203All these paths are absolute:</p>
204
205<dl>
206 <dt>SRC_ROOT
207 <dd>
208 This is the top level directory of the LLVM source tree.
209 <p>
210
211 <dt>OBJ_ROOT
212 <dd>
213 This is the top level directory of the LLVM object tree (i.e. the
214 tree where object files and compiled programs will be placed. It
215 is fixed at SRC_ROOT/win32).
216 <p>
217</dl>
218
219</div>
220
221<!-- ======================================================================= -->
222<div class="doc_subsection">
223 <a name="objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
224</div>
225
226<div class="doc_text">
227
228 <p>The object files are placed under <tt>OBJ_ROOT/Debug</tt> for debug builds
229 and <tt>OBJ_ROOT/Release</tt> for release (optimized) builds. These include
230 both executables and libararies that your application can link against.
231
232 <p>The files that <tt>configure</tt> would create when building on Unix are
233 created by the <tt>Configure</tt> project and placed in
234 <tt>OBJ_ROOT/llvm</tt>. You application must have OBJ_ROOT in its include
235 search path just before <tt>SRC_ROOT/include</tt>.
236
237</div>
238
239<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
240<div class="doc_section">
241 <a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
242</div>
243<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
244
245<div class="doc_text">
246
247<ol>
248 <li>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':
249 <pre>
250 #include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
251 int main() {
252 printf("hello world\n");
253 return 0;
254 }
255 </pre></li>
256
257 <li><p>Next, compile the C file into a LLVM bitcode file:</p>
258 <p><tt>% llvm-gcc -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc</tt></p>
259
260 <p>This will create the result file <tt>hello.bc</tt> which is the LLVM
261 bitcode that corresponds the the compiled program and the library
262 facilities that it required. You can execute this file directly using
263 <tt>lli</tt> tool, compile it to native assembly with the <tt>llc</tt>,
264 optimize or analyze it further with the <tt>opt</tt> tool, etc.</p>
265
266 <p><b>Note: while you cannot do this step on Windows, you can do it on a
267 Unix system and transfer <tt>hello.bc</tt> to Windows. Important:
268 transfer as a binary file!</b></p></li>
269
270 <li><p>Run the program using the just-in-time compiler:</p>
271
272 <p><tt>% lli hello.bc</tt></p></li>
273
274 <p>Note: this will only work for trivial C programs. Non-trivial programs
275 (and any C++ program) will have dependencies on the GCC runtime that
276 won't be satisfied by the Microsoft runtime libraries.</p>
277
278 <li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
279 code:</p>
280
281 <p><tt>% llvm-dis &lt; hello.bc | more</tt><p></li>
282
283 <li><p>Compile the program to C using the LLC code generator:</p>
284
285 <p><tt>% llc -march=c hello.bc</tt></p></li>
286
287 <li><p>Compile to binary using Microsoft C:</p>
288
289 <p><tt>% cl hello.cbe.c</tt></p></li>
290
291 <p>Note: this will only work for trivial C programs. Non-trivial programs
292 (and any C++ program) will have dependencies on the GCC runtime that
293 won't be satisfied by the Microsoft runtime libraries.</p>
294
295 <li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
296
297 <p><tt>% hello.cbe.exe</tt></p></li>
298
299</ol>
300
301</div>
302
303<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
304<div class="doc_section">
305 <a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
306</div>
307<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
308
309<div class="doc_text">
310
311<p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
312general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a href="FAQ.html">Frequently
313Asked Questions</a> page.</p>
314
315</div>
316
317<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
318<div class="doc_section">
319 <a name="links">Links</a>
320</div>
321<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
322
323<div class="doc_text">
324
325<p>This document is just an <b>introduction</b> to how to use LLVM to do
326some simple things... there are many more interesting and complicated things
327that you can do that aren't documented here (but we'll gladly accept a patch
328if you want to write something up!). For more information about LLVM, check
329out:</p>
330
331<ul>
332 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
333 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
334 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
335 that Uses LLVM</a></li>
336</ul>
337
338</div>
339
340<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
341
342<hr>
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348
349 <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a><br>
350 <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
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