1 Overview 2 ======== 3 4 .. warning:: 5 6 If you are using a released version of LLVM, see `the download page 7 <http://llvm.org/releases/>`_ to find your documentation. 8 9 The LLVM compiler infrastructure supports a wide range of projects, from 10 industrial strength compilers to specialized JIT applications to small 11 research projects. 12 13 Similarly, documentation is broken down into several high-level groupings 14 targeted at different audiences: 15 16 LLVM Design & Overview 17 ====================== 18 19 Several introductory papers and presentations. 20 21 .. toctree:: 22 :hidden: 23 24 LangRef 25 26 :doc:`LangRef` 27 Defines the LLVM intermediate representation. 28 29 `Introduction to the LLVM Compiler`__ 30 Presentation providing a users introduction to LLVM. 31 32 .. __: http://llvm.org/pubs/2008-10-04-ACAT-LLVM-Intro.html 33 34 `Intro to LLVM`__ 35 Book chapter providing a compiler hacker's introduction to LLVM. 36 37 .. __: http://www.aosabook.org/en/llvm.html 38 39 40 `LLVM: A Compilation Framework for Lifelong Program Analysis & Transformation`__ 41 Design overview. 42 43 .. __: http://llvm.org/pubs/2004-01-30-CGO-LLVM.html 44 45 `LLVM: An Infrastructure for Multi-Stage Optimization`__ 46 More details (quite old now). 47 48 .. __: http://llvm.org/pubs/2002-12-LattnerMSThesis.html 49 50 `Publications mentioning LLVM <http://llvm.org/pubs>`_ 51 .. 52 53 User Guides 54 =========== 55 56 For those new to the LLVM system. 57 58 NOTE: If you are a user who is only interested in using LLVM-based 59 compilers, you should look into `Clang <http://clang.llvm.org>`_ or 60 `DragonEgg <http://dragonegg.llvm.org>`_ instead. The documentation here is 61 intended for users who have a need to work with the intermediate LLVM 62 representation. 63 64 .. toctree:: 65 :hidden: 66 67 CMake 68 CMakePrimer 69 AdvancedBuilds 70 HowToBuildOnARM 71 HowToCrossCompileLLVM 72 CommandGuide/index 73 GettingStarted 74 GettingStartedVS 75 FAQ 76 Lexicon 77 HowToAddABuilder 78 yaml2obj 79 HowToSubmitABug 80 SphinxQuickstartTemplate 81 Phabricator 82 TestingGuide 83 tutorial/index 84 ReleaseNotes 85 Passes 86 YamlIO 87 GetElementPtr 88 Frontend/PerformanceTips 89 MCJITDesignAndImplementation 90 CodeOfConduct 91 CompileCudaWithLLVM 92 ReportingGuide 93 94 :doc:`GettingStarted` 95 Discusses how to get up and running quickly with the LLVM infrastructure. 96 Everything from unpacking and compilation of the distribution to execution 97 of some tools. 98 99 :doc:`CMake` 100 An addendum to the main Getting Started guide for those using the `CMake 101 build system <http://www.cmake.org>`_. 102 103 :doc:`HowToBuildOnARM` 104 Notes on building and testing LLVM/Clang on ARM. 105 106 :doc:`HowToCrossCompileLLVM` 107 Notes on cross-building and testing LLVM/Clang. 108 109 :doc:`GettingStartedVS` 110 An addendum to the main Getting Started guide for those using Visual Studio 111 on Windows. 112 113 :doc:`tutorial/index` 114 Tutorials about using LLVM. Includes a tutorial about making a custom 115 language with LLVM. 116 117 :doc:`LLVM Command Guide <CommandGuide/index>` 118 A reference manual for the LLVM command line utilities ("man" pages for LLVM 119 tools). 120 121 :doc:`Passes` 122 A list of optimizations and analyses implemented in LLVM. 123 124 :doc:`FAQ` 125 A list of common questions and problems and their solutions. 126 127 :doc:`Release notes for the current release <ReleaseNotes>` 128 This describes new features, known bugs, and other limitations. 129 130 :doc:`HowToSubmitABug` 131 Instructions for properly submitting information about any bugs you run into 132 in the LLVM system. 133 134 :doc:`SphinxQuickstartTemplate` 135 A template + tutorial for writing new Sphinx documentation. It is meant 136 to be read in source form. 137 138 :doc:`LLVM Testing Infrastructure Guide <TestingGuide>` 139 A reference manual for using the LLVM testing infrastructure. 140 141 `How to build the C, C++, ObjC, and ObjC++ front end`__ 142 Instructions for building the clang front-end from source. 143 144 .. __: http://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html 145 146 :doc:`Lexicon` 147 Definition of acronyms, terms and concepts used in LLVM. 148 149 :doc:`HowToAddABuilder` 150 Instructions for adding new builder to LLVM buildbot master. 151 152 :doc:`YamlIO` 153 A reference guide for using LLVM's YAML I/O library. 154 155 :doc:`GetElementPtr` 156 Answers to some very frequent questions about LLVM's most frequently 157 misunderstood instruction. 158 159 :doc:`Frontend/PerformanceTips` 160 A collection of tips for frontend authors on how to generate IR 161 which LLVM is able to effectively optimize. 162 163 164 Programming Documentation 165 ========================= 166 167 For developers of applications which use LLVM as a library. 168 169 .. toctree:: 170 :hidden: 171 172 Atomics 173 CodingStandards 174 CommandLine 175 CompilerWriterInfo 176 ExtendingLLVM 177 HowToSetUpLLVMStyleRTTI 178 ProgrammersManual 179 Extensions 180 LibFuzzer 181 ScudoHardenedAllocator 182 183 :doc:`LLVM Language Reference Manual <LangRef>` 184 Defines the LLVM intermediate representation and the assembly form of the 185 different nodes. 186 187 :doc:`Atomics` 188 Information about LLVM's concurrency model. 189 190 :doc:`ProgrammersManual` 191 Introduction to the general layout of the LLVM sourcebase, important classes 192 and APIs, and some tips & tricks. 193 194 :doc:`Extensions` 195 LLVM-specific extensions to tools and formats LLVM seeks compatibility with. 196 197 :doc:`CommandLine` 198 Provides information on using the command line parsing library. 199 200 :doc:`CodingStandards` 201 Details the LLVM coding standards and provides useful information on writing 202 efficient C++ code. 203 204 :doc:`HowToSetUpLLVMStyleRTTI` 205 How to make ``isa<>``, ``dyn_cast<>``, etc. available for clients of your 206 class hierarchy. 207 208 :doc:`ExtendingLLVM` 209 Look here to see how to add instructions and intrinsics to LLVM. 210 211 `Doxygen generated documentation <http://llvm.org/doxygen/>`_ 212 (`classes <http://llvm.org/doxygen/inherits.html>`_) 213 (`tarball <http://llvm.org/doxygen/doxygen.tar.gz>`_) 214 215 `Documentation for Go bindings <http://godoc.org/llvm.org/llvm/bindings/go/llvm>`_ 216 217 `ViewVC Repository Browser <http://llvm.org/viewvc/>`_ 218 .. 219 220 :doc:`CompilerWriterInfo` 221 A list of helpful links for compiler writers. 222 223 :doc:`LibFuzzer` 224 A library for writing in-process guided fuzzers. 225 226 :doc:`ScudoHardenedAllocator` 227 A library that implements a security-hardened `malloc()`. 228 229 Subsystem Documentation 230 ======================= 231 232 For API clients and LLVM developers. 233 234 .. toctree:: 235 :hidden: 236 237 AliasAnalysis 238 BitCodeFormat 239 BlockFrequencyTerminology 240 BranchWeightMetadata 241 Bugpoint 242 CodeGenerator 243 ExceptionHandling 244 LinkTimeOptimization 245 SegmentedStacks 246 TableGenFundamentals 247 TableGen/index 248 DebuggingJITedCode 249 GoldPlugin 250 MarkedUpDisassembly 251 SystemLibrary 252 SourceLevelDebugging 253 Vectorizers 254 WritingAnLLVMBackend 255 GarbageCollection 256 WritingAnLLVMPass 257 HowToUseAttributes 258 NVPTXUsage 259 AMDGPUUsage 260 StackMaps 261 InAlloca 262 BigEndianNEON 263 CoverageMappingFormat 264 Statepoints 265 MergeFunctions 266 TypeMetadata 267 FaultMaps 268 MIRLangRef 269 270 :doc:`WritingAnLLVMPass` 271 Information on how to write LLVM transformations and analyses. 272 273 :doc:`WritingAnLLVMBackend` 274 Information on how to write LLVM backends for machine targets. 275 276 :doc:`CodeGenerator` 277 The design and implementation of the LLVM code generator. Useful if you are 278 working on retargetting LLVM to a new architecture, designing a new codegen 279 pass, or enhancing existing components. 280 281 :doc:`Machine IR (MIR) Format Reference Manual <MIRLangRef>` 282 A reference manual for the MIR serialization format, which is used to test 283 LLVM's code generation passes. 284 285 :doc:`TableGen <TableGen/index>` 286 Describes the TableGen tool, which is used heavily by the LLVM code 287 generator. 288 289 :doc:`AliasAnalysis` 290 Information on how to write a new alias analysis implementation or how to 291 use existing analyses. 292 293 :doc:`GarbageCollection` 294 The interfaces source-language compilers should use for compiling GC'd 295 programs. 296 297 :doc:`Source Level Debugging with LLVM <SourceLevelDebugging>` 298 This document describes the design and philosophy behind the LLVM 299 source-level debugger. 300 301 :doc:`Vectorizers` 302 This document describes the current status of vectorization in LLVM. 303 304 :doc:`ExceptionHandling` 305 This document describes the design and implementation of exception handling 306 in LLVM. 307 308 :doc:`Bugpoint` 309 Automatic bug finder and test-case reducer description and usage 310 information. 311 312 :doc:`BitCodeFormat` 313 This describes the file format and encoding used for LLVM "bc" files. 314 315 :doc:`System Library <SystemLibrary>` 316 This document describes the LLVM System Library (``lib/System``) and 317 how to keep LLVM source code portable 318 319 :doc:`LinkTimeOptimization` 320 This document describes the interface between LLVM intermodular optimizer 321 and the linker and its design 322 323 :doc:`GoldPlugin` 324 How to build your programs with link-time optimization on Linux. 325 326 :doc:`DebuggingJITedCode` 327 How to debug JITed code with GDB. 328 329 :doc:`MCJITDesignAndImplementation` 330 Describes the inner workings of MCJIT execution engine. 331 332 :doc:`BranchWeightMetadata` 333 Provides information about Branch Prediction Information. 334 335 :doc:`BlockFrequencyTerminology` 336 Provides information about terminology used in the ``BlockFrequencyInfo`` 337 analysis pass. 338 339 :doc:`SegmentedStacks` 340 This document describes segmented stacks and how they are used in LLVM. 341 342 :doc:`MarkedUpDisassembly` 343 This document describes the optional rich disassembly output syntax. 344 345 :doc:`HowToUseAttributes` 346 Answers some questions about the new Attributes infrastructure. 347 348 :doc:`NVPTXUsage` 349 This document describes using the NVPTX back-end to compile GPU kernels. 350 351 :doc:`AMDGPUUsage` 352 This document describes how to use the AMDGPU back-end. 353 354 :doc:`StackMaps` 355 LLVM support for mapping instruction addresses to the location of 356 values and allowing code to be patched. 357 358 :doc:`BigEndianNEON` 359 LLVM's support for generating NEON instructions on big endian ARM targets is 360 somewhat nonintuitive. This document explains the implementation and rationale. 361 362 :doc:`CoverageMappingFormat` 363 This describes the format and encoding used for LLVMs code coverage mapping. 364 365 :doc:`Statepoints` 366 This describes a set of experimental extensions for garbage 367 collection support. 368 369 :doc:`MergeFunctions` 370 Describes functions merging optimization. 371 372 :doc:`InAlloca` 373 Description of the ``inalloca`` argument attribute. 374 375 :doc:`FaultMaps` 376 LLVM support for folding control flow into faulting machine instructions. 377 378 :doc:`CompileCudaWithLLVM` 379 LLVM support for CUDA. 380 381 Development Process Documentation 382 ================================= 383 384 Information about LLVM's development process. 385 386 .. toctree:: 387 :hidden: 388 389 DeveloperPolicy 390 Projects 391 LLVMBuild 392 HowToReleaseLLVM 393 Packaging 394 ReleaseProcess 395 Phabricator 396 397 :doc:`DeveloperPolicy` 398 The LLVM project's policy towards developers and their contributions. 399 400 :doc:`Projects` 401 How-to guide and templates for new projects that *use* the LLVM 402 infrastructure. The templates (directory organization, Makefiles, and test 403 tree) allow the project code to be located outside (or inside) the ``llvm/`` 404 tree, while using LLVM header files and libraries. 405 406 :doc:`LLVMBuild` 407 Describes the LLVMBuild organization and files used by LLVM to specify 408 component descriptions. 409 410 :doc:`HowToReleaseLLVM` 411 This is a guide to preparing LLVM releases. Most developers can ignore it. 412 413 :doc:`ReleaseProcess` 414 This is a guide to validate a new release, during the release process. Most developers can ignore it. 415 416 :doc:`Packaging` 417 Advice on packaging LLVM into a distribution. 418 419 :doc:`Phabricator` 420 Describes how to use the Phabricator code review tool hosted on 421 http://reviews.llvm.org/ and its command line interface, Arcanist. 422 423 Community 424 ========= 425 426 LLVM has a thriving community of friendly and helpful developers. 427 The two primary communication mechanisms in the LLVM community are mailing 428 lists and IRC. 429 430 Mailing Lists 431 ------------- 432 433 If you can't find what you need in these docs, try consulting the mailing 434 lists. 435 436 `Developer's List (llvm-dev)`__ 437 This list is for people who want to be included in technical discussions of 438 LLVM. People post to this list when they have questions about writing code 439 for or using the LLVM tools. It is relatively low volume. 440 441 .. __: http://lists.llvm.org/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev 442 443 `Commits Archive (llvm-commits)`__ 444 This list contains all commit messages that are made when LLVM developers 445 commit code changes to the repository. It also serves as a forum for 446 patch review (i.e. send patches here). It is useful for those who want to 447 stay on the bleeding edge of LLVM development. This list is very high 448 volume. 449 450 .. __: http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-commits/ 451 452 `Bugs & Patches Archive (llvm-bugs)`__ 453 This list gets emailed every time a bug is opened and closed. It is 454 higher volume than the LLVM-dev list. 455 456 .. __: http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-bugs/ 457 458 `Test Results Archive (llvm-testresults)`__ 459 A message is automatically sent to this list by every active nightly tester 460 when it completes. As such, this list gets email several times each day, 461 making it a high volume list. 462 463 .. __: http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-testresults/ 464 465 `LLVM Announcements List (llvm-announce)`__ 466 This is a low volume list that provides important announcements regarding 467 LLVM. It gets email about once a month. 468 469 .. __: http://lists.llvm.org/mailman/listinfo/llvm-announce 470 471 IRC 472 --- 473 474 Users and developers of the LLVM project (including subprojects such as Clang) 475 can be found in #llvm on `irc.oftc.net <irc://irc.oftc.net/llvm>`_. 476 477 This channel has several bots. 478 479 * Buildbot reporters 480 481 * llvmbb - Bot for the main LLVM buildbot master. 482 http://lab.llvm.org:8011/console 483 * bb-chapuni - An individually run buildbot master. http://bb.pgr.jp/console 484 * smooshlab - Apple's internal buildbot master. 485 486 * robot - Bugzilla linker. %bug <number> 487 488 * clang-bot - A `geordi <http://www.eelis.net/geordi/>`_ instance running 489 near-trunk clang instead of gcc. 490 491 492 Indices and tables 493 ================== 494 495 * :ref:`genindex` 496 * :ref:`search` 497