1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Using The LLVM Libraries</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<h1>Using The LLVM Libraries</h1>
<ol>
<li><a href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li>
<li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="#descriptions">Library Descriptions</a></li>
<li><a href="#dependencies">Library Dependencies</a></li>
<li><a href="#rot">Linkage Rules Of Thumb</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#always">Always link LLVMCore, LLVMSupport, LLVMSystem</a>
<li><a href="#onlyone">Never link both archive and re-linked</a>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">
<p>Written by <a href="mailto:rspencer@x10sys.com">Reid Spencer</a></p>
</div>
<p class="doc_warning">Warning: This document is out of date, for more
information please
see <a href="CommandGuide/html/llvm-config.html">llvm-config</a> or,
if you use CMake, <a href="CMake.html#embedding">the CMake LLVM
guide</a>.</p>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2><a name="abstract">Abstract</a></h2>
<div>
<p>Amongst other things, LLVM is a toolkit for building compilers, linkers,
runtime executives, virtual machines, and other program execution related
tools. In addition to the LLVM tool set, the functionality of LLVM is
available through a set of libraries. To use LLVM as a toolkit for
constructing tools, a developer needs to understand what is contained in the
various libraries, what they depend on, and how to use them. Fortunately,
there is a tool, <tt>llvm-config</tt> to aid with this. This document
describes the contents of the libraries and how to use <tt>llvm-config</tt>
to generate command line options.
</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2><a name="introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
<div>
<p>If you're writing a compiler, virtual machine, or any other utility based
on LLVM, you'll need to figure out which of the many libraries files you will
need to link with to be successful. An understanding of the contents of these
libraries will be useful in coming up with an optimal specification for the
libraries to link with. The purpose of this document is to reduce some of
the trial and error that the author experienced in using LLVM.</p>
<p>LLVM produces two types of libraries: archives (ending in <tt>.a</tt>) and
objects (ending in <tt>.o</tt>). However, both are libraries. Libraries ending
in <tt>.o</tt> are known as re-linked libraries because they contain all the
compilation units of the library linked together as a single <tt>.o</tt> file.
Furthermore, several of the libraries have <em>both</em> forms of library. The
re-linked libraries are used whenever you want to include all symbols from the
library. The archive libraries are used whenever you want to only resolve
outstanding symbols at that point in the link without including everything in
the library. </p>
<p>If you're using the LLVM Makefile system to link your tools,you will use
the <tt>LLVMLIBS</tt> make variable.
(see the <a href="MakefileGuide.html#LLVMLIBS">Makefile Guide</a> for
details). This variable specifies which LLVM libraries to link into your tool
and the order in which they will be linked. You specify re-linked libraries by
naming the library without a suffix. You specify archive libraries by naming
the library with a <tt>.a</tt> suffix but without the <tt>lib</tt> prefix. The
order in which the libraries appear in the <tt>LLVMLIBS</tt> variable
definition is the order in which they will be linked. Getting this order
correct for your tool can sometimes be challenging.
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2><a name="descriptions">Library Descriptions</a></h2>
<div>
<p>The table below categorizes each library
<table style="text-align:left">
<tr><th>Library</th><th>Forms</th><th>Description</th></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Core Libraries</th></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMArchive</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>LLVM archive reading and writing</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMAsmParser</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>LLVM assembly parsing</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMBCReader</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>LLVM bitcode reading</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMBCWriter</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>LLVM bitcode writing</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMCore</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>LLVM core intermediate representation</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMDebugger</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Source level debugging support</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMLinker</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Bitcode and archive linking interface</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMSupport</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>General support utilities</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMSystem</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Operating system abstraction layer</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMbzip2</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>BZip2 compression library</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Analysis Libraries</th></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMAnalysis</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Various analysis passes.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMDataStructure</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Data structure analysis passes.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMipa</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Inter-procedural analysis passes.</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Transformation Libraries</th></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMInstrumentation</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Instrumentation passes.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMipo</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>All inter-procedural optimization passes.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMScalarOpts</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>All scalar optimization passes.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMTransformUtils</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Transformation utilities used by many passes.</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Code Generation Libraries </th></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMCodeGen</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Native code generation infrastructure</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMSelectionDAG</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Aggressive instruction selector for directed acyclic graphs</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Target Libraries</th></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMAlpha</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Code generation for Alpha architecture</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMARM</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Code generation for ARM architecture</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMCBackend</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>'C' language code generator.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMPowerPC</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Code generation for PowerPC architecture</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMSparc</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Code generation for Sparc architecture</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMTarget</td><td><tt>.a</tt></td>
<td>Generic code generation utilities.</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMX86</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Code generation for Intel x86 architecture</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Runtime Libraries</th></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMInterpreter</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Bitcode Interpreter</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMJIT</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Bitcode JIT Compiler</td></tr>
<tr><td>LLVMExecutionEngine</td><td><tt>.o</tt></td>
<td>Virtual machine engine</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2><a name="dependencies">Using llvm-config</a></h2>
<div>
<p>The <tt>llvm-config</tt> tool is a perl script that produces on its output
various kinds of information. For example, the source or object directories
used to build LLVM can be accessed by passing options to <tt>llvm-config</tt>.
For complete details on this tool, please see the
<a href="CommandGuide/html/llvm-config.html">manual page</a>.</p>
<p>To understand the relationships between libraries, the <tt>llvm-config</tt>
can be very useful. If all you know is that you want certain libraries to
be available, you can generate the complete set of libraries to link with
using one of four options, as below:</p>
<ol>
<li><tt>--ldflags</tt>. This generates the command line options necessary to
be passed to the <tt>ld</tt> tool in order to link with LLVM. Most notably,
the <tt>-L</tt> option is provided to specify a library search directory
that contains the LLVM libraries.</li>
<li><tt>--libs</tt>. This generates command line options suitable for
use with a gcc-style linker. That is, libraries are given with a -l option
and object files are given with a full path.</li>
<li><tt>--libnames</tt>. This generates a list of just the library file
names. If you know the directory in which these files reside (see --ldflags)
then you can find the libraries there.</li>
<li><tt>--libfiles</tt>. This generates the full path names of the
LLVM library files.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you wish to delve further into how <tt>llvm-config</tt> generates the
correct order (based on library dependencies), please see the tool named
<tt>GenLibDeps.pl</tt> in the <tt>utils</tt> source directory of LLVM.</p>
<!-- =======NOTE: =========================================================-->
<!-- === The following graphs and <dl> list are generated automatically ===-->
<!-- === by the util named GenLibDeps.pl in the llvm/utils directory. ===-->
<!-- === This should be updated whenever new libraries are added, ===-->
<!-- === removed, or changed ===-->
<!-- =======NOTE: =========================================================-->
<h3>Dependency Relationships Of Libraries</h3>
<p>This graph shows the dependency of archive libraries on other archive
libraries or objects. Where a library has both archive and object forms, only
the archive form is shown.</p>
<img src="img/libdeps.gif" alt="Library Dependencies">
<h3>Dependency Relationships Of Object Files</h3>
<p>This graph shows the dependency of object files on archive libraries or
other objects. Where a library has both object and archive forms, only the
dependency to the archive form is shown.</p>
<img src="img/objdeps.gif" alt="Object File Dependencies">
<p>The following list shows the dependency relationships between libraries in
textual form. The information is the same as shown on the graphs but arranged
alphabetically.</p>
<dl>
<dt><b>libLLVMAnalysis.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMArchive.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMBCReader.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMAsmParser.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMBCReader.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMBCWriter.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMCodeGen.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMScalarOpts.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMCore.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMDebugger.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMBCReader.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMInstrumentation.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMScalarOpts.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMLinker.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMArchive.a</li>
<li>libLLVMBCReader.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMScalarOpts.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMSelectionDAG.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMSupport.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMbzip2.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMSystem.a</b></dt><dd>
</dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMTarget.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMipa.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMbzip2.a</b></dt><dd>
</dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMipa.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMipo.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</li>
<li>libLLVMipa.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>libLLVMlto.a</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMBCReader.a</li>
<li>libLLVMBCWriter.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMLinker.a</li>
<li>libLLVMScalarOpts.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMipa.a</li>
<li>libLLVMipo.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMARM.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSelectionDAG.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMAlpha.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSelectionDAG.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMCBackend.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMAnalysis.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMScalarOpts.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTransformUtils.a</li>
<li>libLLVMipa.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMExecutionEngine.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMInterpreter.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>LLVMExecutionEngine.o</li>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMJIT.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>LLVMExecutionEngine.o</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMPowerPC.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSelectionDAG.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMSparc.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSelectionDAG.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><b>LLVMX86.o</b></dt><dd><ul>
<li>libLLVMCodeGen.a</li>
<li>libLLVMCore.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSelectionDAG.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSupport.a</li>
<li>libLLVMSystem.a</li>
<li>libLLVMTarget.a</li>
</ul></dd>
</dl>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h2><a name="rot">Linkage Rules Of Thumb</a></h2>
<div>
<p>This section contains various "rules of thumb" about what files you
should link into your programs.</p>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h3>
<a name="always">Always Link LLVMCore, LLVMSupport, and LLVMSystem</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>No matter what you do with LLVM, the last three entries in the value of
your LLVMLIBS make variable should always be:
<tt>LLVMCore LLVMSupport.a LLVMSystem.a</tt>. There are no <tt>LLVM</tt>
programs that don't depend on these three.</p>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<h3>
<a name="onlyone">Never link both archive and re-linked library</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>There is never any point to linking both the re-linked (<tt>.o</tt>) and
the archive (<tt>.a</tt>) versions of a library. Since the re-linked version
includes the entire library, the archive version will not resolve any symbols.
You could even end up with link error if you place the archive version before
the re-linked version on the linker's command line.</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<hr>
<div class="doc_footer">
<address>
<a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"><img
src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss-blue" alt="Valid CSS"></a>
<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:rspencer@x10sys.com">Reid Spencer</a>
</address>
<a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a>
<br>Last modified: $Date: 2011-11-02 23:43:23 -0700 (Wed, 02 Nov 2011) $ </div>
</body>
</html>
<!-- vim: sw=2 ts=2 ai
-->
|