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.</p>
 116
 117   <p>Do not install the LLVM directory tree into a path containing spaces (e.g.
 118   C:\Documents and Settings\...) as the configure step will fail.</p>
 119
 120 </div>
 121
 122 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 123 <div class="doc_section">
 124   <a name="quickstart"><b>Getting Started</b></a>
 125 </div>
 126 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 127
 128 <div class="doc_text">
 129
 130 <p>Here's the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
 131
 132 <ol>
 133   <li>Read the documentation.</li>
 134   <li>Seriously, read the documentation.</li>
 135   <li>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</li>
 136
 137   <li>Get the Source Code
 138   <ul>
 139     <li>With the distributed files:
 140     <ol>
 141       <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt>
 142       <li><tt>gunzip --stdout llvm-<i>version</i>.tar.gz | tar -xvf -</tt>
 143       <i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;or use WinZip</i>
 144       <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
 145     </ol></li>
 146
 147     <li>With anonymous Subversion access:
 148     <ol>
 149       <li><tt>cd <i>where-you-want-llvm-to-live</i></tt></li>
 150       <li><tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm</tt></li>
 151       <li><tt>cd llvm</tt></li>
 152     </ol></li>
 153   </ul></li>
 154
 155   <li> Use <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a> to generate up-to-date
 156     project files:
 157     <ul>
 158       <li>Once CMake is installed then the simplest way is to just start the
 159         CMake GUI, select the directory where you have LLVM extracted to, and the
 160         default options should all be fine.  One option you may really want to
 161         change, regardless of anything else, might be the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
 162         setting to select a directory to INSTALL to once compiling is complete,
 163         although installation is not mandatory for using LLVM.  Another important
 164         option is LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD, which controls the LLVM target
 165         architectures that are included on the build.
 166       <li>See the <a href="CMake.html">LLVM CMake guide</a> for
 167         detailed information about how to configure the LLVM
 168         build.</li>
 169     </ul>
 170   </li>
 171
 172   <li>Start Visual Studio
 173   <ul>
 174     <li>In the directory you created the project files will have
 175     an <tt>llvm.sln</tt> file, just double-click on that to open
 176     Visual Studio.</li>
 177   </ul></li>
 178
 179   <li>Build the LLVM Suite:
 180   <ul>
 181     <li>The projects may still be built individually, but
 182     to build them all do not just select all of them in batch build (as some
 183     are meant as configuration projects), but rather select and build just
 184     the ALL_BUILD project to build everything, or the INSTALL project, which
 185     first builds the ALL_BUILD project, then installs the LLVM headers, libs,
 186     and other useful things to the directory set by the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
 187     setting when you first configured CMake.</li>
 188     <li>The Fibonacci project is a sample program that uses the JIT.
 189     Modify the project's debugging properties to provide a numeric
 190     command line argument or run it from the command line.  The
 191     program will print the corresponding fibonacci value.</li>
 192   </ul></li>
 193
 194   <li>Test LLVM:
 195   <ul>
 196     <li>The LLVM tests can be run by <tt>cd</tt>ing to the llvm source directory
 197         and running:
 198
 199 <div class="doc_code">
 200 <pre>
 201 % llvm-lit test
 202 </pre>
 203 </div>
 204
 205     <p>Note that quite a few of these test will fail.</p>
 206     </li>
 207
 208     <li>A specific test or test directory can be run with:</li>
 209
 210 <div class="doc_code">
 211 <pre>
 212 % llvm-lit test/path/to/test
 213 </pre>
 214 </div>
 215
 216 </ol>
 217
 218 </div>
 219
 220 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 221 <div class="doc_section">
 222   <a name="tutorial">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a>
 223 </div>
 224 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 225
 226 <div class="doc_text">
 227
 228 <ol>
 229   <li><p>First, create a simple C file, name it 'hello.c':</p>
 230
 231 <div class="doc_code">
 232 <pre>
 233 #include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
 234 int main() {
 235   printf("hello world\n");
 236   return 0;
 237 }
 238 </pre></div></li>
 239
 240   <li><p>Next, compile the C file into a LLVM bitcode file:</p>
 241
 242 <div class="doc_code">
 243 <pre>
 244 % clang -c hello.c -emit-llvm -o hello.bc
 245 </pre>
 246 </div>
 247
 248       <p>This will create the result file <tt>hello.bc</tt> which is the LLVM
 249          bitcode that corresponds the the compiled program and the library
 250          facilities that it required.  You can execute this file directly using
 251          <tt>lli</tt> tool, compile it to native assembly with the <tt>llc</tt>,
 252          optimize or analyze it further with the <tt>opt</tt> tool, etc.</p>
 253
 254       <p>Alternatively you can directly output an executable with clang with:
 255       </p>
 256
 257 <div class="doc_code">
 258 <pre>
 259 % clang hello.c -o hello.exe
 260 </pre>
 261 </div>
 262
 263   <p>The <tt>-o hello.exe</tt> is required because clang currently outputs
 264   <tt>a.out</tt> when neither <tt>-o</tt> nor <tt>-c</tt> are given.</p>
 265
 266   <li><p>Run the program using the just-in-time compiler:</p>
 267
 268 <div class="doc_code">
 269 <pre>
 270 % lli hello.bc
 271 </pre>
 272 </div>
 273
 274   <li><p>Use the <tt>llvm-dis</tt> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly
 275       code:</p>
 276
 277 <div class="doc_code">
 278 <pre>
 279 % llvm-dis &lt; hello.bc | more
 280 </pre>
 281 </div></li>
 282
 283   <li><p>Compile the program to object code using the LLC code generator:</p>
 284
 285 <div class="doc_code">
 286 <pre>
 287 % llc -filetype=obj hello.bc
 288 </pre>
 289 </div></li>
 290
 291   <li><p>Link to binary using Microsoft link:</p>
 292
 293 <div class="doc_code">
 294 <pre>
 295 % link hello.obj -defaultlib:libcmt
 296 </pre>
 297 </div>
 298
 299   <li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
 300
 301 <div class="doc_code">
 302 <pre>
 303 % hello.exe
 304 </pre>
 305 </div></li>
 306 </ol>
 307
 308 </div>
 309
 310 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 311 <div class="doc_section">
 312   <a name="problems">Common Problems</a>
 313 </div>
 314 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 315
 316 <div class="doc_text">
 317
 318 <p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
 319 general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a href="FAQ.html">Frequently
 320 Asked Questions</a> page.</p>
 321
 322 </div>
 323
 324 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 325 <div class="doc_section">
 326   <a name="links">Links</a>
 327 </div>
 328 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 329
 330 <div class="doc_text">
 331
 332 <p>This document is just an <b>introduction</b> to how to use LLVM to do
 333 some simple things... there are many more interesting and complicated things
 334 that you can do that aren't documented here (but we'll gladly accept a patch
 335 if you want to write something up!).  For more information about LLVM, check
 336 out:</p>
 337
 338 <ul>
 339   <li><a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM homepage</a></li>
 340   <li><a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM doxygen tree</a></li>
 341   <li><a href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project
 342       that Uses LLVM</a></li>
 343 </ul>
 344
 345 </div>
 346
 347 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
 348
 349 <hr>
 350 <address>
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 355
 356   <a href="mailto:jeffc@jolt-lang.org">Jeff Cohen</a><br>
 357   <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
 358   Last modified: $Date$
 359 </address>
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