Bootstrapping the LLVM C/C++ Front-End

1. A Cautionary Note
2. Instructions
3. License Information

Written by Brian R. Gaeke

A Cautionary Note

This document is intended to explain the process of building the LLVM C/C++ front-end, based on GCC 3.4, from its source code. You would have to do this, for example, if you are porting LLVM to a new architecture or operating system.

NOTE: This is currently a somewhat fragile, error-prone process, and you should only try to do it if:

1. you really, really, really can't use the binaries we distribute
2. you need GCC to fix some of the header files on your system
3. you are an elite GCC hacker.

We welcome patches to help make this process simpler.

Instructions

1. Configure and build the LLVM libraries and tools using:

        % cd llvm
        % ./configure [options...]
        % gmake tools-only

   The use of the non-default target "tools-only" means that the LLVM tools and libraries will build, and the binaries will be deposited in llvm/tools/Debug, but the runtime (bytecode) libraries will not build.

2. Add the directory containing the tools to your PATH.

        % set path = ( `cd llvm/tools/Debug && pwd` $path )

3. Unpack the C/C++ front-end source into cfrontend/src.

4. Edit src/configure. Change the first line (starting w/ #!) to contain the correct full pathname of sh.

5. Make "build" and "install" directories as siblings of the "src" tree.

        % pwd
        /usr/local/example/cfrontend/src
        % cd ..
        % mkdir build install
        % set CFEINSTALL = `pwd`/install

6. Configure, build, and install the C front-end:

   Linux/x86:
   MacOS X/PowerPC:

        % cd build
        % ../src/configure --prefix=$CFEINSTALL --disable-threads --disable-nls --disable-shared \
          --enable-languages=c,c++
        % gmake all-gcc
        % setenv LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH `pwd`/gcc
        % gmake all; gmake install

   Solaris/SPARC:

   For Solaris/SPARC, LLVM only supports the SPARC V9. Therefore, the configure command line should specify sparcv9, as shown below. Also, note that Solaris has trouble with various wide (multibyte) character functions from C as referenced from C++, so we typically configure with --disable-c-mbchar (cf. Bug 206).

        % cd build
        % ../src/configure --prefix=$CFEINSTALL --disable-threads --disable-nls \
          --disable-shared --enable-languages=c,c++ --host=sparcv9-sun-solaris2.8 \
          --disable-c-mbchar
        % gmake all-gcc
        % setenv LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH `pwd`/gcc
        % gmake all; gmake install

   Common Problem: You may get error messages regarding the fact that LLVM does not support inline assembly. Here are two common fixes:

   - Fix 1: If you have system header files that include inline assembly, you may have to modify them to remove the inline assembly, and install the modified versions in `$CFEINSTALL/target-triplet/sys-include`.

   - Fix 2: If you are building the C++ front-end on a CPU we haven't tried yet, you will probably have to edit the appropriate version of atomicity.h under `src/libstdc++-v3/config/cpu/name-of-cpu/atomicity.h` and apply a patch so that it does not use inline assembly.

   Porting to a new architecture: If you are porting the new front-end to a new architecture, or compiling in a different configuration that we have previously, there are probably several changes you will have to make to the GCC target to get it to work correctly. These include:

   - Often targets include special or assembler linker flags which `gccas`/`gccld` does not understand. In general, these can just be removed.
   - LLVM currently does not support any floating point values other than 32-bit and 64-bit IEEE floating point. The primary effect of this is that you may have to map "long double" onto "double".
   - The profiling hooks in GCC do not apply at all to the LLVM front-end. These may need to be disabled.
   - No inline assembly for position independent code. At the LLVM level, everything is position independent.
   - We handle `.init` and `.fini` differently.
   - You may have to disable multilib support in your target. Using multilib support causes the GCC compiler driver to add a lot of "`-L`" options to the link line, which do not relate to LLVM and confuse `gccld`. To disable multilibs, delete any `MULTILIB_OPTIONS` lines from your target files.
   - Did we mention that we don't support inline assembly? You'll probably have to add some fixinclude hacks to disable it in the system headers.

7. Go back into the LLVM source tree proper. Edit Makefile.config to redefine `LLVMGCCDIR` to the full pathname of the `$CFEINSTALL` directory, which is the directory you just installed the C front-end into. (The ./configure script is likely to have set this to a directory which does not exist on your system.)

8. If you edited header files during the C/C++ front-end build as described in "Fix 1" above, you must now copy those header files from `$CFEINSTALL/target-triplet/sys-include` to `$CFEINSTALL/lib/gcc/target-triplet/3.4-llvm/include`. (This should be the "include" directory in the same directory as the libgcc.a library, which you can find by running `$CFEINSTALL/bin/gcc --print-libgcc-file-name`.)

9. Build and install the runtime (bytecode) libraries by running:

        % gmake -C runtime
        % mkdir $CFEINSTALL/bytecode-libs
        % gmake -C runtime install-bytecode
        % setenv LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH $CFEINSTALL/bytecode-libs

10. Test the newly-installed C frontend by one or more of the following means:

    - compiling and running a "hello, LLVM" program in C and C++.
    - running the tests under `test/Programs` using `gmake -C test/Programs`

License Information

The LLVM GCC frontend is licensed to you under the GNU General Public License and the GNU Lesser General Public License. Please see the files COPYING and COPYING.LIB for more details.

The software also has the following additional copyrights:

    Copyright (c) 2003, 2004 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    All rights reserved.

    Developed by:

        LLVM Team

        University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

        http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu

    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
    IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
    FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
    CONTRIBUTORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
    LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
    OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS WITH THE
    SOFTWARE.

    Copyright (c) 1994
    Hewlett-Packard Company

    Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software
    and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
    provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
    that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear
    in supporting documentation.  Hewlett-Packard Company makes no
    representations about the suitability of this software for any
    purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

    Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
    Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc.

    Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software
    and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
    provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
    that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear
    in supporting documentation.  Silicon Graphics makes no
    representations about the suitability of this software for any
    purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.