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

Technical requirements

In this chapter, we will leverage the LLVM developer tool named opt to discover the available transformations in the middle end.

To get it, either build it from the LLVM source or download an official LLVM release. Both methods are explained in Chapter 1.

We recommend using a version built from the sources because this will ensure that the information that you get out of opt is in sync with the sources that you have access to. Of course, you can also extract the right branch from the LLVM repository to be in sync with what you downloaded, or directly download the source from the related release (https://releases.llvm.org/).

Finally, in the ch8 directory of the GitHub repository of this book, https://github.com/PacktPublishing/LLVM-Code-Generation.git, we provide the examples that we use in the various sections.

Let us get started with how you even begin this journey of finding what the middle end has to offer.