r/ProgrammingLanguages • u/naharashu • 14d ago

Help How to make a compiler backend?

Hell everyone, i have an question. Im for long trying to make a cool, powerful "kinda" low level language similar to zig and rust, but im struggling to choice llvm as backend, sure i can generate C, but its makes compiler dependent on gcc or clang or other c compiler. LLVM seems hard to me, sure project like QBE exist, but QBE doesnt have C/C++ api like llvm's IRbuilder. So are there other ways? I tried thinking about using GCC infrastructure but GCC has poor api and not very documented api. Maybe just stick to generating C?

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u/koflerdavid 14d ago edited 14d ago

For a production grade compiler it's probably best to use LLVM or GCC as a backend. But writing a backend targeting assembly [edit:] is very educational. Best target a simpler architecture like RISC-V instead of x86, unless you are already familiar with x86 assembly.

Targeting C is also fine. There are C compilers for just about any architecture. You can also target Tiny C Compiler, which can be embedded into your compiler.

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u/naharashu 14d ago

I wanted to embed libtcc into compiler but tcc is targeting C99, i need some of C11 features like _Thread_local

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u/koflerdavid 14d ago

Ah, too bad. It's not a total roadblock though; you'd simply have to call native APIs then. That's surely more performant and less buggy than implementing your own thread locals.

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u/naharashu 14d ago

What about libgccjit

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u/koflerdavid 13d ago

That could be a solid option as well. But I know only that GNU Emacs uses it for JIT compilation.