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

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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

Using sanitizers

Depending on your experience, you may already be familiar with the usage of sanitizers. If you’re not familiar with them, then this section is for you!

Sanitizers consist of instrumentation that’s automatically injected into your program by the compiler. This instrumentation is used to catch issues such as race conditions, memory leaks, and more.

If your compiler behaves in nondeterministic ways, using a sanitizer may be a good idea as you can take the pulse of the health of your system. Generally speaking, running your compiler with sanitizers enabled from time to time is a good idea.

To enable sanitizers, assuming you’re using Clang as the compiler toolchain, you only need to use -fsanitize=typeOfSanitizer, where typeOfSanitizer is one of the following:

address: Detects invalid address accesses – for instance, use-after-free, out-of-bounds access, and so on
memory: Detects access to valid addresses that haven...