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 608 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

C++

Tools

LLVM

Concepts

Programming Language

Author (1):

Quentin Colombet

View More author details

Table of Contents (29) Chapters

Preface

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. 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. Introduction to the Backend

14. Getting Started with the Backend

15. Getting Started with the Machine Code Layer

16. The Machine Pass Pipeline

17. 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. Final Lowering and Optimizations

23. Instruction Scheduling

24. Register Allocation

25. Lowering of the Stack Layout

26. Getting Started with the Assembler

27. Other Books You May Enjoy

28. Index

Introducing Target-Specific Constructs

So far, you have seen how the middle-end is structured and how to reuse the existing passes to create your own pass pipeline. In particular, in the previous chapter, you saw that some passes leverage some target-provided application programming interfaces (APIs) to perform their transformations. In this chapter, you will learn how to bring-up and populate this APIs to connect your target-specific information to the generic passes.

To this end, you will learn the following:

How to add a new target to the LLVM infrastructure, including the Clang frontend
How to add intrinsics, which are a mechanism that allows you to expose target-specific constructs at the language level (C, C++, etc.) all the way down to the backend
How to create your own TargetTransformInfo sub-class, which is the API that supplies the information that controls/informs some of the middle-end optimizations
How to inject your custom passes in the...