The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure
This directory and its sub-directories contain source code for LLVM,
a toolkit for the construction of highly optimized compilers,
optimizers, and run-time environments.
The README briefly describes how to get started with building LLVM.
For more information on how to contribute to the LLVM project, please
take a look at the
Contributing to LLVM guide.
Getting Started with the LLVM System
Overview
Welcome to the LLVM project!
The LLVM project has multiple components. The core of the project is
itself called "LLVM". This contains all of the tools, libraries, and header
files needed to process intermediate representations and converts it into
object files. Tools include an assembler, disassembler, bitcode analyzer, and
bitcode optimizer. It also contains basic regression tests.
C-like languages use the Clang front end. This
component compiles C, C++, Objective-C, and Objective-C++ code into LLVM bitcode
-- and from there into object files, using LLVM.
Other components include:
the libc++ C++ standard library,
the LLD linker, and more.
Getting the Source Code and Building LLVM
The LLVM Getting Started documentation may be out of date. The Clang
Getting Started page might have more
accurate information.
This is an example work-flow and configuration to get and build the LLVM source:
Checkout LLVM (including related sub-projects like Clang):
git clone https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git
Or, on windows, git clone --config core.autocrlf=false https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git
Configure and build LLVM and Clang:
cd llvm-project
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G [options] ../llvm
Some common build system generators are:
Ninja --- for generating Ninja
build files. Most llvm developers use Ninja.
Unix Makefiles --- for generating make-compatible parallel makefiles.
Visual Studio --- for generating Visual Studio projects and
solutions.
Xcode --- for generating Xcode projects.
Some Common options:
-DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS='...' --- semicolon-separated list of the LLVM
sub-projects you'd like to additionally build. Can include any of: clang,
clang-tools-extra, libcxx, libcxxabi, libunwind, lldb, compiler-rt, lld,
polly, or debuginfo-tests.
For example, to build LLVM, Clang, libcxx, and libcxxabi, use
-DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS="clang;libcxx;libcxxabi".
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=directory --- Specify for directory the full
path name of where you want the LLVM tools and libraries to be installed
(default /usr/local).
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=type --- Valid options for type are Debug,
Release, RelWithDebInfo, and MinSizeRel. Default is Debug.
-DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=On --- Compile with assertion checks enabled
(default is Yes for Debug builds, No for all other build types).
cmake --build . [-- [options] ] or your build system specified above
directly.
The default target (i.e. ninja or make) will build all of LLVM.
The check-all target (i.e. ninja check-all) will run the
regression tests to ensure everything is in working order.
CMake will generate targets for each tool and library, and most
LLVM sub-projects generate their own check- target.
Running a serial build will be slow. To improve speed, try running a
parallel build. That's done by default in Ninja; for make, use the option
-j NNN, where NNN is the number of parallel jobs, e.g. the number of
CPUs you have.
For more information see CMake
Consult the
Getting Started with LLVM
page for detailed information on configuring and compiling LLVM. You can visit
Directory Layout
to learn about the layout of the source code tree.