Re: [boost] Interest in an LLVM library?

Subject: Re: [boost] Interest in an LLVM library?
From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-11-19 07:30:46

On 2015-11-19 04:41, Andy Jost wrote:
> Andrey Semashev wrote:
>> I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this library. It seems to build an AST
>
> It builds an intermediate representation of the program.
>
> LLVM is a top-of-the-line compiler infrastructure.  It does many things incredibly well but, unfortunately, does not provide an expressive API for defining programs.  The API it provides is far too low-level.
>
>> Is it just a wrapper for LLVM AST API?
>
> Essentially, yes.  Though it's not really an AST, as discussed above.  Like Boost.Python, this library makes the native API of some popular external library much easier (and more fun!) to use.

Thanks for the clarification. I wouldn't say Boost.Python is a fair 
comparison though as it is a binding to another programming language. 
This includes integrating C++ into Python as well as the other way around.

I think your proposed library is rather incomplete. I mean, tools for 
building the intermediate bitcode are useful, but there has to be a way 
to use that bitcode somehow in terms of the library. You refer to LLVM 
API for that, but that immediately breaks the abstraction you've built 
with your library.

Another question I had is this. Does your library only offer generation 
of the intermediate bitcode or also something else? Does it offer tools 
for traversal, analysis and transformation of the bitcode? Does it 
support reading the (high-level) code from some sort of input? For 
instance, can I build a static analyzer tool for C/C++ with your library?