docs/GettingStartedVS.html

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   6   <title>Getting Started with LLVM System for Microsoft Visual Studio</title>
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  11 <div class="doc_title">
  12   Getting Started with the LLVM System using Microsoft Visual Studio
  13 </div>
  14
  15 <ul>
  16   <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a>
  17   <li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a>
  18     <ol>
  19       <li><a href="#hardware">Hardware</a>
  20       <li><a href="#software">Software</a>
  21     </ol></li>
  22   <li><a href="#quickstart">Getting Started</a>
  23   <li><a href="#tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
  24   <li><a href="#problems">Common Problems</a>
  25   <li><a href="#links">Links</a>
  26 </ul>
  27
  28 <div class="doc_author">
  29   <p>Written by:
  30     <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a>
  31   </p>
  32 </div>
  33
  34
  35 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
  36 <div class="doc_section">
  37   <a name="overview"><b>Overview</b></a>
  38 </div>
  39 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
  40
  41 <div class="doc_text">
  42
  43   <p>Welcome to LLVM on Windows! This document only covers LLVM on Windows using
  44   Visual Studio, not mingw or cygwin. In order to get started, you first need to
  45   know some basic information.</p>
  46
  47   <p>There are many different projects that compose LLVM. The first is the LLVM
  48   suite. This contains all of the tools, libraries, and header files needed to
  49   use the low level virtual machine. It contains an assembler, disassembler,
  50   bitcode analyzer and bitcode optimizer. It also contains a test suite that can
  51   be used to test the LLVM tools.</p>
  52
  53   <p>Another useful project on Windows is
  54   <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang</a>. Clang is a C family
  55   ([Objective]C/C++) compiler. Clang mostly works on Windows, but does not
  56   currently understand all of the Microsoft extensions to C and C++. Because of
  57   this, clang cannot parse the C++ standard library included with Visual Studio,
  58   nor parts of the Windows Platform SDK. However, most standard C programs do
  59   compile. Clang can be used to emit bitcode, directly emit object files or
  60   even linked executables using Visual Studio's <tt>link.exe</tt></p>
  61
  62   <p>The large LLVM test suite cannot be run on the Visual Studio port at this
  63   time.</p>
  64
  65   <p>Most of the tools build and work.  <tt>bugpoint</tt> does build, but does
  66   not work.</p>
  67
  68   <p>Additional information about the LLVM directory structure and tool chain
  69   can be found on the main <a href="GettingStarted.html">Getting Started</a>
  70   page.</p>
  71
  72 </div>
  73
  74 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
  75 <div class="doc_section">
  76   <a name="requirements"><b>Requirements</b></a>
  77 </div>
  78 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
  79
  80 <div class="doc_text">
  81
  82   <p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given
  83   below.  This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware
  84   and software you will need.</p>
  85
  86 </div>
  87
  88 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
  89 <div class="doc_subsection">
  90   <a name="hardware"><b>Hardware</b></a>
  91 </div>
  92
  93 <div class="doc_text">
  94
  95   <p>Any system that can adequately run Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 is fine.
  96   The LLVM source tree and object files, libraries and executables will consume
  97   approximately 3GB.</p>
  98
  99 </div>
 100
 101 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
 102 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="software"><b>Software</b></a></div>
 103 <div class="doc_text">
 104
 105   <p>You will need Visual Studio .NET 2005 SP1 or higher.  The VS2005 SP1
 106   beta and the normal VS2005 still have bugs that are not completely
 107   compatible.  Earlier versions of Visual Studio do not support the C++ standard
 108   well enough and will not work.</p>
 109
 110   <p>You will also need the <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> build
 111   system since it generates the project files you will use to build with.</p>
 112
 113   <p>If you would like to run the LLVM tests you will need
 114   <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a>. Versions 2.4-2.7 are known to
 115   work. You will need <a href="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/">"GnuWin32"</a>
 116   tools, too.</p>
 117
 118   <p>Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
 119   C:\Documents and Settings\...) as the configure step will fail.</p>
 120
 121 </div>
 122
 123 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 124 <div class="doc_section">
 125   <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started</b></a>
 126 </div>
 127 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 128
 129 <div class="doc_text">
 130
 131 <p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
 132
 133 <ol>
 134   <li>Read the documentation.</li>
 135   <li>Seriously, read the documentation.</li>
 136   <li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
 137
 138   <li>Get the Source Code
 139   <ul>
 140     <li>With the distributed files:
 141     <ol>
 142       <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
 143       <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
 144       <i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;or use WinZip</i>
 145       <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
 146     </ol></li>
 147
 148     <li>With anonymous Subversion access:
 149     <ol>
 150       <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
 151       <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm</tt></li>
 152       <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
 153     </ol></li>
 154   </ul></li>
 155
 156   <li> Use <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> to generate up-to-date
 157     project files:
 158     <ul>
 159       <li>Once CMake is installed then the simplest way is to just start the
 160         CMake GUI, select the directory where you have LLVM extracted to, and the
 161         default options should all be fine.  One option you may really want to
 162         change, regardless of anything else, might be the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
 163         setting to select a directory to INSTALL to once compiling is complete,
 164         although installation is not mandatory for using LLVM.  Another important
 165         option is LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD, which controls the LLVM target
 166         architectures that are included on the build.
 167       <li>See the <a href="CMake.html">LLVM CMake guide</a> for
 168         detailed information about how to configure the LLVM
 169         build.</li>
 170     </ul>
 171   </li>
 172
 173   <li>Start Visual Studio
 174   <ul>
 175     <li>In the directory you created the project files will have
 176     an <tt>llvm.sln</tt> file, just double-click on that to open
 177     Visual Studio.</li>
 178   </ul></li>
 179
 180   <li>Build the LLVM Suite:
 181   <ul>
 182     <li>The projects may still be built individually, but
 183     to build them all do not just select all of them in batch build (as some
 184     are meant as configuration projects), but rather select and build just
 185     the ALL_BUILD project to build everything, or the INSTALL project, which
 186     first builds the ALL_BUILD project, then installs the LLVM headers, libs,
 187     and other useful things to the directory set by the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
 188     setting when you first configured CMake.</li>
 189     <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT.
 190     Modify the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric
 191     command line argument or run it from the command line.  The
 192     program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
 193   </ul></li>
 194
 195   <li>Test LLVM on Visual Studio:
 196   <ul>
 197     <li>If %PATH% does not contain GnuWin32, you may specify LLVM_LIT_TOOLS_DIR
 198     on CMake for the path to GnuWin32.</li>
 199     <li>You can run LLVM tests to build the project "check".</li>
 200   </ul>
 201   </li>
 202
 203   <!-- FIXME: Is it up-to-date? -->
 204   <li>Test LLVM:
 205   <ul>
 206     <li>The LLVM tests can be run by <tt>cd</tt>ing to the llvm source directory
 207         and running:
 208
 209 <div class="doc_code">
 210 <pre>
 211 % llvm-lit test
 212 </pre>
 213 </div>
 214
 215     <p>Note that quite a few of these test will fail.</p>
 216     </li>
 217
 218     <li>A specific test or test directory can be run with:</li>
 219
 220 <div class="doc_code">
 221 <pre>
 222 % llvm-lit test/path/to/test
 223 </pre>
 224 </div>
 225
 226 </ol>
 227
 228 </div>
 229
 230 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 231 <div class="doc_section">
 232   <a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
 233 </div>
 234 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 235
 236 <div class="doc_text">
 237
 238 <ol>
 239   <li><p>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':</p>
 240
 241 <div class="doc_code">
 242 <pre>
 243 #include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
 244 int main() {
 245   printf("hello world\n");
 246   return 0;
 247 }
 248 </pre></div></li>
 249
 250   <li><p>Next, compile the C file into a LLVM bitcode file:</p>
 251
 252 <div class="doc_code">
 253 <pre>
 254 % clang -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc
 255 </pre>
 256 </div>
 257
 258       <p>This will create the result file <tt>hello.bc</tt> which is the LLVM
 259          bitcode that corresponds the the compiled program and the library
 260          facilities that it required.  You can execute this file directly using
 261          <tt>lli</tt> tool, compile it to native assembly with the <tt>llc</tt>,
 262          optimize or analyze it further with the <tt>opt</tt> tool, etc.</p>
 263
 264       <p>Alternatively you can directly output an executable with clang with:
 265       </p>
 266
 267 <div class="doc_code">
 268 <pre>
 269 % clang hello.c -o hello.exe
 270 </pre>
 271 </div>
 272
 273   <p>The <tt>-o hello.exe</tt> is required because clang currently outputs
 274   <tt>a.out</tt> when neither <tt>-o</tt> nor <tt>-c</tt> are given.</p>
 275
 276   <li><p>Run the program using the just-in-time compiler:</p>
 277
 278 <div class="doc_code">
 279 <pre>
 280 % lli hello.bc
 281 </pre>
 282 </div>
 283
 284   <li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
 285       code:</p>
 286
 287 <div class="doc_code">
 288 <pre>
 289 % llvm-dis &lt; hello.bc | more
 290 </pre>
 291 </div></li>
 292
 293   <li><p>Compile the program to object code using the LLC code generator:</p>
 294
 295 <div class="doc_code">
 296 <pre>
 297 % llc -filetype=obj hello.bc
 298 </pre>
 299 </div></li>
 300
 301   <li><p>Link to binary using Microsoft link:</p>
 302
 303 <div class="doc_code">
 304 <pre>
 305 % link hello.obj -defaultlib:libcmt
 306 </pre>
 307 </div>
 308
 309   <li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
 310
 311 <div class="doc_code">
 312 <pre>
 313 % hello.exe
 314 </pre>
 315 </div></li>
 316 </ol>
 317
 318 </div>
 319
 320 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 321 <div class="doc_section">
 322   <a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
 323 </div>
 324 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 325
 326 <div class="doc_text">
 327
 328 <p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
 329 general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a href="FAQ.html">Frequently
 330 Asked Questions</a> page.</p>
 331
 332 </div>
 333
 334 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 335 <div class="doc_section">
 336   <a name="links">Links</a>
 337 </div>
 338 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 339
 340 <div class="doc_text">
 341
 342 <p>This document is just an <b>introduction</b> to how to use LLVM to do
 343 some simple things... there are many more interesting and complicated things
 344 that you can do that aren't documented here (but we'll gladly accept a patch
 345 if you want to write something up!).  For more information about LLVM, check
 346 out:</p>
 347
 348 <ul>
 349   <li><a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
 350   <li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
 351   <li><a href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
 352       that Uses LLVM</a></li>
 353 </ul>
 354
 355 </div>
 356
 357 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 358
 359 <hr>
 360 <address>
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 365
 366   <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a><br>
 367   <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
 368   Last modified: $Date$
 369 </address>
 370 </body>
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