Low Level Virtual Machine

A toolchain and compiler used to create:

• Programming language frontends
• Instruction set backends It is used in Clang

Process

1. Create a Lexer to turn raw source-code text into LLVM Tokens
2. Define an AST to represent code structure and token relations using LLVM API
3. Create a Parser to loop over each token and fill out the AST
4. Import LLVM API primatives
5. Use the opt tool to optimize and generate IR
6. Write an LLVM Module that takes IR as input and returns executable object code

Bibliography Pages

• LLVM Operations
• LLVM Types

Concepts

• Compiler
• Interpreter
• Lexer
• Parser
• Intermediate Representation
• LLVM Virtual Registers
• LLVM Global Variables
• LLVM Constant
• LLVM Functions
• LLVM Control Flow
• LLVM dot
• LLVM lli
• LLVM as
• LLVM dis
• LLVM Unreachable Codepath
• Static Single Assignment
• LLVM opt
• LLVM Block Domination
• LLVM Intrinsics
• LLVM Module
• LLVM API
• Kaleidoscope

Documentation

• https://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html

Guides

• https://mcyoung.xyz/2023/08/01/llvm-ir/
• https://llvm.org/docs/tutorial/
• https://mukulrathi.com/create-your-own-programming-language/llvm-ir-cpp-api-tutorial/