serene/docs/videos.org

How to build a compiler with LLVM and MLIR

• Episode 1 - Introduction
  • What is it all about?
  • The Plan
  • Serene and a bit of history
• Episode 2 - Basic Setup
  • Installing Requirements
    • LLVM and Clang
    • ccache (optional)
  • Building Serene and the builder
  • Source tree structure
  • dev.org resources and TODOs
• Episode 3 - Overview
  • Generic Compiler
    • Common Steps
  • LLVM
    • Watch Introdution to LLVM
    • Quick overview
  • MLIR
  • Serene
    • A Compiler frontend
    • Flow
• Episode 4 - The reader

DONE Episode 1 - Introduction

What is it all about?

• Create a programming lang
• Guide for contributors
• A LLVM/MLIR guide

The Plan

• Git branches
• No live coding
• Feel free to contribute

Serene and a bit of history

• Other Implementations

• Requirements

  • C++ 14
  • CMake
• Repository: https://devheroes.codes/Serene
• Website: lxsameer.com Email: lxsameer@gnu.org

DONE Episode 2 - Basic Setup

CLOSED: [2021-07-10 Sat 09:04]

Installing Requirements

LLVM and Clang

• mlir-tblgen

ccache (optional)

Building Serene and the builder

• git hooks

Source tree structure

dev.org resources and TODOs

Episode 3 - Overview

Generic Compiler

• Modern Compiler Implementation in ML: Basic Techniques
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (The Dragon Book)

Common Steps

• Frontend

  • Lexical analyzer (Lexer)
  • Syntax analyzer (Parser)
  • Semantic analyzer

• Middleend

  • Intermediate code generation
  • Code optimizer

• Backend

  • Target code generation

LLVM

/Serene/serene/src/commit/ab54e7f5befe32e572c7f168adf8b65179cc0077/docs/llvm.org

Watch Introdution to LLVM

Quick overview

Deducted from https://www.aosabook.org/en/llvm.html

• It's a set of libraries to create a compiler.
• Well engineered.
• we can focus only on the fronted of the compiler and what is actually important to us and leave the tricky stuff to LLVM.
• LLVM IR enables us to use multiple languages together.
• It supports many targets.
• We can benefit from already made IR level optimizers.
• ….

MLIR

/Serene/serene/src/commit/ab54e7f5befe32e572c7f168adf8b65179cc0077/docs/mlir.llvm.org

• With MLIR dialects provide higher level semantics than LLVM IR.
• It's easier to reason about higher level IR that is modeled after the AST rather than a low level IR.
• We can use the pass infrastructure to efficiently process and transform the IR.
• With many ready to use dialects we can really focus on our language and us the other dialect when ever necessary.
• …

Serene

A Compiler frontend

Flow

• serenec in parses the command lines args
• reader reads the input file and generates an AST
• semantic analyzer walks the AST and generates a new AST and rewrites the necessary nodes.
• slir generator generates slir dialect code from AST.
• We lower slir to other dialects of the MLIR which we call the result mlir.
• Then, We lower everything to the LLVMIR dialect and call it lir (lowered IR).
• Finally we fully lower lir to LLVM IR and pass it to the object generator to generate object files.
• Call the default c compiler to link the object files and generate the machine code.

Episode 4 - The reader

• We have a hand written parser/lexer since lisp already has a structure.
• O(n)