You're reading from LLVM Code Generation A deep dive into compiler backend development

Product type Paperback

Published in May 2025

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781837637782

Length 620 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

C++

Tools

LLVM

Concepts

Programming Language

Author (1):

Quentin Colombet

View More author details

Table of Contents (30) Chapters

Preface

1. Part 1: Getting Started with LLVM

2. Building LLVM and Understanding the Directory Structure FREE CHAPTER

3. Contributing to LLVM

4. Compiler Basics and How They Map to LLVM APIs

5. Writing Your First Optimization

6. Dealing with Pass Managers

7. TableGen – LLVM Swiss Army Knife for Modeling

8. Part 2: Middle-End: LLVM IR to LLVM IR

9. Understanding LLVM IR

10. Survey of the Existing Passes

11. Introducing Target-Specific Constructs

12. Hands-On Debugging LLVM IR Passes

13. Part 3: Introduction to the Backend

14. Getting Started with the Backend

15. Getting Started with the Machine Code Layer

16. The Machine Pass Pipeline

17. Part 4: LLVM IR to Machine IR

18. Getting Started with Instruction Selection

19. Instruction Selection: The IR Building Phase

20. Instruction Selection: The Legalization Phase

21. Instruction Selection: The Selection Phase and Beyond

22. Part 5: Final Lowering and Optimizations

23. Instruction Scheduling

24. Register Allocation

25. Lowering of the Stack Layout

26. Getting Started with the Assembler

27. Unlock Your Book’s Exclusive Benefits

28. Other Books You May Enjoy

29. Index

Optimization passes

In this section, you will discover some of the passes that you can leverage to improve the quality of the codegen of your target.

LLVM is a huge code base, so we cannot realistically cover all of the passes. This is why we again strongly recommend applying what you learned in the How to find the unknown section earlier in this chapter to discover what is available.

To help you in this task, the following sections give you a sort of identity card for a few of the passes available in the middle end. The sections are broken down following the directory structure of the LLVM code base.

The goal of these ID cards is to give you a single source of key information to use and understand a pass and that you can use as a quick reference in the future.

Feel free to complete this list by yourself or produce your own card format!

The identity card contains the following fields: