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<title>Getting Started with LLVM System for Microsoft Visual Studio</title>
- <link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
+ <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/llvm.css" type="text/css">
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-<div class="doc_title">
+<h1>
Getting Started with the LLVM System using Microsoft Visual Studio
-</div>
+</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#overview">Overview</a>
- <li><a href="#quickstart">Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</a>
<li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#hardware">Hardware</a>
<li><a href="#software">Software</a>
</ol></li>
-
- <li><a href="#starting">Getting Started with LLVM</a>
- <ol>
- <li><a href="#terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
- <li><a href="#objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
- </ol></li>
-
+ <li><a href="#quickstart">Getting Started</a>
<li><a href="#tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
<li><a href="#problems">Common Problems</a>
<li><a href="#links">Links</a>
</ul>
<div class="doc_author">
- <p>Written by:
- <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a>
- </p>
+ <p>Written by: <a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Team</a></p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="overview"><b>Overview</b></a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
+
+ <p>Welcome to LLVM on Windows! This document only covers LLVM on Windows using
+ Visual Studio, not mingw or cygwin. In order to get started, you first need to
+ know some basic information.</p>
- <p>The Visual Studio port at this time is experimental. It is suitable for
- use only if you are writing your own compiler front end or otherwise have a
- need to dynamically generate machine code. The JIT and interpreter are
- functional, but it is currently not possible to generate assembly code which
- is then assembled into an executable. You can indirectly create executables
- by using the C back end.</p>
+ <p>There are many different projects that compose LLVM. The first is the LLVM
+ suite. This contains all of the tools, libraries, and header files needed to
+ use LLVM. It contains an assembler, disassembler,
+ bitcode analyzer and bitcode optimizer. It also contains a test suite that can
+ be used to test the LLVM tools.</p>
- <p>To emphasize, there is no C/C++ front end currently available.
- <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> is based on GCC, which cannot be bootstrapped using VC++.
- Eventually there should be a <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> based on Cygwin or MinGW that
- is usable. There is also the option of generating bitcode files on Unix and
- copying them over to Windows. But be aware the odds of linking C++ code
- compiled with <tt>llvm-gcc</tt> with code compiled with VC++ is essentially
- zero.</p>
+ <p>Another useful project on Windows is
+ <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang</a>. Clang is a C family
+ ([Objective]C/C++) compiler. Clang mostly works on Windows, but does not
+ currently understand all of the Microsoft extensions to C and C++. Because of
+ this, clang cannot parse the C++ standard library included with Visual Studio,
+ nor parts of the Windows Platform SDK. However, most standard C programs do
+ compile. Clang can be used to emit bitcode, directly emit object files or
+ even linked executables using Visual Studio's <tt>link.exe</tt></p>
- <p>The LLVM test suite cannot be run on the Visual Studio port at this
+ <p>The large LLVM test suite cannot be run on the Visual Studio port at this
time.</p>
<p>Most of the tools build and work. <tt>bugpoint</tt> does build, but does
- not work. The other tools 'should' work, but have not been fully tested.</p>
+ not work.</p>
<p>Additional information about the LLVM directory structure and tool chain
can be found on the main <a href="GettingStarted.html">Getting Started</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</b></a>
+<h2>
+ <a name="requirements"><b>Requirements</b></a>
+</h2>
+<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+
+<div>
+
+ <p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given
+ below. This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware
+ and software you will need.</p>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<h3>
+ <a name="hardware"><b>Hardware</b></a>
+</h3>
+
+<div>
+
+ <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio 2008 is fine. The LLVM
+ source tree and object files, libraries and executables will consume
+ approximately 3GB.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<h3><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></h3>
+<div>
+
+ <p>You will need Visual Studio 2008 or higher. Earlier versions of Visual
+ Studio have bugs, are not completely compatible, or do not support the C++
+ standard well enough.</p>
+
+ <p>You will also need the <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> build
+ system since it generates the project files you will use to build with.</p>
+
+ <p>If you would like to run the LLVM tests you will need
+ <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a>. Versions 2.4-2.7 are known to
+ work. You will need <a href="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/">"GnuWin32"</a>
+ tools, too.</p>
+
+ <p>Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
+ C:\Documents and Settings\...) as the configure step will fail.</p>
+
</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+<h2>
+ <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started</b></a>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
<li>With anonymous Subversion access:
<ol>
<li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
- <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-top/trunk llvm-top
- </tt></li>
- <li><tt>make checkout MODULE=llvm</tt>
+ <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm</tt></li>
<li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
</ol></li>
</ul></li>
-
+
<li> Use <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> to generate up-to-date
project files:
- <ul><li>This step is currently optional as LLVM does still come with a
- normal Visual Studio solution file, but it is not always kept up-to-date
- and will soon be deprecated in favor of the multi-platform generator
- CMake.</li>
- <li>If CMake is installed then the most simple way is to just start the
- CMake GUI, select the directory where you have LLVM extracted to, and
- the default options should all be fine. The one option you may really
- want to change, regardless of anything else, might be the
- CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX setting to select a directory to INSTALL to once
- compiling is complete.</li>
- <li>If you use CMake to generate the Visual Studio solution and project
- files, then the Solution will have a few extra options compared to the
- current included one. The projects may still be built individually, but
- to build them all do not just select all of them in batch build (as some
- are meant as configuration projects), but rather select and build just
- the ALL_BUILD project to build everything, or the INSTALL project, which
- first builds the ALL_BUILD project, then installs the LLVM headers, libs,
- and other useful things to the directory set by the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
- setting when you first configured CMake.</li>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Once CMake is installed then the simplest way is to just start the
+ CMake GUI, select the directory where you have LLVM extracted to, and the
+ default options should all be fine. One option you may really want to
+ change, regardless of anything else, might be the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
+ setting to select a directory to INSTALL to once compiling is complete,
+ although installation is not mandatory for using LLVM. Another important
+ option is LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD, which controls the LLVM target
+ architectures that are included on the build.
+ <li>See the <a href="CMake.html">LLVM CMake guide</a> for
+ detailed information about how to configure the LLVM
+ build.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Start Visual Studio
<ul>
- <li>If you did not use CMake, then simply double click on the solution
- file <tt>llvm/win32/llvm.sln</tt>.</li>
- <li>If you used CMake, then the directory you created the project files,
- the root directory will have an <tt>llvm.sln</tt> file, just
- double-click on that to open Visual Studio.</li>
+ <li>In the directory you created the project files will have
+ an <tt>llvm.sln</tt> file, just double-click on that to open
+ Visual Studio.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Build the LLVM Suite:
<ul>
- <li>Simply build the solution.</li>
- <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT. Modify
- the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric command line
- argument. The program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
+ <li>The projects may still be built individually, but
+ to build them all do not just select all of them in batch build (as some
+ are meant as configuration projects), but rather select and build just
+ the ALL_BUILD project to build everything, or the INSTALL project, which
+ first builds the ALL_BUILD project, then installs the LLVM headers, libs,
+ and other useful things to the directory set by the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
+ setting when you first configured CMake.</li>
+ <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT.
+ Modify the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric
+ command line argument or run it from the command line. The
+ program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
</ul></li>
-</ol>
-
-<p>It is strongly encouraged that you get the latest version from Subversion as
-changes are continually making the VS support better.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="requirements"><b>Requirements</b></a>
-</div>
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
- <p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given
- below. This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware
- and software you will need.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="hardware"><b>Hardware</b></a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
- <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 is fine.
- The LLVM source tree and object files, libraries and executables will consume
- approximately 3GB.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></div>
-<div class="doc_text">
-
- <p>You will need Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 or higher. The VS2005 SP1
- beta and the normal VS2005 still have bugs that are not completely
- compatible. VS2003 would work except (at last check) it has a bug with
- friend classes that you can work-around with some minor code rewriting
- (and please submit a patch if you do). Earlier versions of Visual Studio
- do not support the C++ standard well enough and will not work.</p>
-
- <p>You will also need the <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> build
- system since it generates the project files you will use to build with.</p>
-
- <p>
- Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
- C:\Documents and Settings\...) as the configure step will fail.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="starting"><b>Getting Started with LLVM</b></a>
-</div>
-<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>The remainder of this guide is meant to get you up and running with
-LLVM using Visual Studio and to give you some basic information about the LLVM
-environment.</p>
+ <li>Test LLVM on Visual Studio:
+ <ul>
+ <li>If %PATH% does not contain GnuWin32, you may specify LLVM_LIT_TOOLS_DIR
+ on CMake for the path to GnuWin32.</li>
+ <li>You can run LLVM tests by merely building the project
+ "check". The test results will be shown in the VS output
+ window.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
-</div>
+ <!-- FIXME: Is it up-to-date? -->
+ <li>Test LLVM:
+ <ul>
+ <li>The LLVM tests can be run by <tt>cd</tt>ing to the llvm source directory
+ and running:
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="terminology">Terminology and Notation</a>
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+% llvm-lit test
+</pre>
</div>
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>Throughout this manual, the following names are used to denote paths
-specific to the local system and working environment. <i>These are not
-environment variables you need to set but just strings used in the rest
-of this document below</i>. In any of the examples below, simply replace
-each of these names with the appropriate pathname on your local system.
-All these paths are absolute:</p>
-
-<dl>
- <dt>SRC_ROOT</dt>
- <dd><p>This is the top level directory of the LLVM source tree.</p></dd>
-
- <dt>OBJ_ROOT</dt>
- <dd><p>This is the top level directory of the LLVM object tree (i.e. the
- tree where object files and compiled programs will be placed. It is
- fixed at SRC_ROOT/win32).</p></dd>
-</dl>
+ <p>Note that quite a few of these test will fail.</p>
+ </li>
-</div>
+ <li>A specific test or test directory can be run with:
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="objfiles">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a>
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+% llvm-lit test/path/to/test
+</pre>
</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
- <p>The object files are placed under <tt>OBJ_ROOT/Debug</tt> for debug builds
- and <tt>OBJ_ROOT/Release</tt> for release (optimized) builds. These include
- both executables and libararies that your application can link against.</p>
-
- <p>The files that <tt>configure</tt> would create when building on Unix are
- created by the <tt>Configure</tt> project and placed in
- <tt>OBJ_ROOT/llvm</tt>. You application must have OBJ_ROOT in its include
- search path just before <tt>SRC_ROOT/include</tt>.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+</ol>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<ol>
<li><p>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% llvm-gcc -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc
+% clang -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc
</pre>
</div>
facilities that it required. You can execute this file directly using
<tt>lli</tt> tool, compile it to native assembly with the <tt>llc</tt>,
optimize or analyze it further with the <tt>opt</tt> tool, etc.</p>
-
- <p><b>Note: while you cannot do this step on Windows, you can do it on a
- Unix system and transfer <tt>hello.bc</tt> to Windows. Important:
- transfer as a binary file!</b></p></li>
+
+ <p>Alternatively you can directly output an executable with clang with:
+ </p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+% clang hello.c -o hello.exe
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+ <p>The <tt>-o hello.exe</tt> is required because clang currently outputs
+ <tt>a.out</tt> when neither <tt>-o</tt> nor <tt>-c</tt> are given.</p>
<li><p>Run the program using the just-in-time compiler:</p>
-
+
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
% lli hello.bc
</pre>
</div>
- <p>Note: this will only work for trivial C programs. Non-trivial programs
- (and any C++ program) will have dependencies on the GCC runtime that
- won't be satisfied by the Microsoft runtime libraries.</p></li>
-
<li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
code:</p>
</pre>
</div></li>
- <li><p>Compile the program to C using the LLC code generator:</p>
+ <li><p>Compile the program to object code using the LLC code generator:</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% llc -march=c hello.bc
+% llc -filetype=obj hello.bc
</pre>
</div></li>
- <li><p>Compile to binary using Microsoft C:</p>
+ <li><p>Link to binary using Microsoft link:</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% cl hello.cbe.c
+% link hello.obj -defaultlib:libcmt
</pre>
</div>
- <p>Note: this will only work for trivial C programs. Non-trivial programs
- (and any C++ program) will have dependencies on the GCC runtime that won't
- be satisfied by the Microsoft runtime libraries.</p></li>
-
<li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-% hello.cbe.exe
+% hello.exe
</pre>
</div></li>
</ol>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
-
- <ul>
- <li>In Visual C++, if you are linking with the x86 target statically, the
- linker will remove the x86 target library from your generated executable or
- shared library because there are no references to it. You can force the
- linker to include these references by using
- <tt>"/INCLUDE:_X86TargetMachineModule"</tt> when linking. In the Visual
- Studio IDE, this can be added in
-<tt>Project Properties->Linker->Input->Force Symbol References</tt>.
- </li>
- </ul>
+<div>
<p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a href="FAQ.html">Frequently
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h2>
<a name="links">Links</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_text">
+<div>
<p>This document is just an <b>introduction</b> to how to use LLVM to do
some simple things... there are many more interesting and complicated things
<ul>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
- that Uses LLVM</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401-blue" alt="Valid HTML 4.01"></a>
- <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a><br>
- <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Last modified: $Date$
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