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Using the LLVM Compiler?

(9 posts) (4 voices)

Started 4 years ago by robodude666
Latest reply from mbolivar

robodude666
Member

Hey guys,

Maybe I'm just an Apple fanboy and high on WWDC 2011 videos, but the clang LLVM compiler and the clang static analyzer are sooo freaking cool.

What exactly makes the "CodeSourcery GCC compiler tools" used by libmaple so special? I don't recall there being any special header files, as all registers are defined within libmaple.

Apple uses the LLVM compiler to compile their stuff for iOS, and they mentioned it supports Intel and ARM targets. Would it be possible to compile libmaple projects with clang instead of arm-none-eabi?

-robodude666

Posted 4 years ago #
mbolivar
LeafLabs

dude, you are preaching to the choir. i have such a crush on LLVM in general and clang/libclang in particular. i would switch in a minute if i thought it would work.

however, last i checked (which admittedly was a while ago), support for cortex m3 isn't done yet.

Posted 4 years ago #
robodude666
Member
Which instruction set is that?

According to the LLVM 2.6 release notes:
```
- Preliminary support for processors, such as the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9, that
implement version v7-A of the ARM architecture. The ARM backend now supports
both the Thumb2 and Advanced SIMD (Neon) instruction sets.
```
Looking through the source code for llvm 2.9 (latest release), there are a few references to cortex-m3.

Worse comes to worst, you can release an iMaple that uses Apple's A5 processor.

If we could get LLVM/Clang support, that's be very epic. Not only is it much faster, has better error messages, finds bugs for you, but it also supports Objective-C and Objective-C++ which I VERY much love to use.

-robodude666
Posted 4 years ago #
mbolivar
LeafLabs

cortex m3 uses thumb2, so that's very interesting.

the error messages etc. are the main reason why i really like the idea of switching; it would improve the IDE error output tremendously. there's also the tantalizing possibility of using libclang to get easy access to the program AST for preprocessing in the IDE, instead of the current crock of regular expressions, duct tape, and glue.

there's a really interesting presentation libclang in the 2010 llvm developers' meeting:

http://devimages.apple.com/llvm/videos/Libclang.mov

we don't have time to chase after this right now, but we encourage anyone who's interested to give it a shot! the place to start is support/make/build-rules.mk in the libmaple repo.

Posted 4 years ago #
robodude666
Member

Spent some time with llvm and libmaple.

I can tell you that LLVM has some huge issues with files in the ./libmaple/usb directory =D. It also found one "bug" in libmaple =].

Managed to compile the files, but it's having issues linking. I ran across this article that discusses using llvm to generate llvm assembly. The llvm assembly can then be converted to ARM assembly, and then have gcc do the assembly and linking.

Posted 4 years ago #
poslathian
LeafLabs

nerds

Posted 4 years ago #
robodude666
Member

Like you didn't get the hots when you watched that presentation!

Posted 4 years ago #
gbulmer
Moderator

poslathian -

nerds

I agree. Who wants to write IDE's in C/C++ to get at those facilities? Not me.

Posted 4 years ago #
mbolivar
LeafLabs

i've got no desire to write an IDE in C++ either; but there's always the JNI route.

not that i've got time for this anyway, hehe.

Posted 4 years ago #

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