Windows/Android/Mac/RaspberryPi/Linux/ARM/FPGA/ASIC/DSP/uC

[Johan Engelen via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 24 June 2017 at 18:16:46 UTC, FoxyBrown wrote:
>
> Nice to know it's being worked on. I am not really familiar 
> with llvm but it seems like it can be quite useful. I'm I 
> correct that basically llvm is an intermediate 
> representation(sorta like C#/VBS/F#/etc's IR)?
>
> This means that one simply needs a front end that converts the 
> source code to llvm's IR and then a back end that converts the 
> IR to targets binary?

Yes indeed. LDC will output the IR when you use the `-output-ll` 
(human readable) or `-output-bc` (binary representation) compile 
switches.

> For example, a quick search for llvm and 8051 gives this:
>
> https://github.com/AndreaCorallo/llvm-i8051
>
> Since, I assume(since there is no documentation describing what 
> it does) is a backend compiler for llvm's IR to 8051, we can go 
> from LDC to LLVM to 8051? In theory, of course.

In theory, yes indeed. What may be important is that the LLVM 
versions match (the LLVM version used to build LDC, and the LLVM 
version of that 8051 fork). With every new LLVM version, the IR 
may change in subtle ways...

> Is GCC effectively the same(although the IR is skipped?)?

As far as I know, GCC also uses an IR (it's used for LTO).

-Johan