[LLVMdev] rantings about llvm-top

[Reid Spencer]

Hi Holger,

On Thu, 2007-08-16 at 09:02 +0200, Holger Schurig wrote:
> Hi Raid !
> 
> I used llvm-top at home and in the company and I basically I like 
> it. 

Thanks for trying it out! :)

> Here are some comments:
> 
> - the README.txt says that all routines use a common library
>   and therefore accept a common set of arguments. But this
>   is confusing, because things like VERBOSE look like an
>   environment variable.
> 
>   Somehow people are used that arguments are always starting
>   with - and that they are usually lowercase, e.g.
>   "--verbose=2".
> 
> - you don't mention the "option" script. I actually did
>   ./option first, then hand-edited the resulting .options
>   file. I think is way easier then specifying the same
>   PREFIX=blah all the time to ./build.

Yes, the intent of the option script was to make using the other scripts
easier so the arguments don't have to be specified each time. Its
basically a "set it and forget it" strategy.  Looks like I didn't update
the README.txt to include this. The original idea was to use NAME=value
arguments for controlling various llvm-top features while things like -
and -- arguments got passed down to the build/install scripts. But,
perhaps that's just silly. 

Do you think it would be better to locate all the llvm-top options stuff
only in the options script (using --verbose=n and --debug and etc) and
then all options to the other scripts are passed down?

> 
> - it's VERBOSE, not VEROBSE (a typo in the README.txt).

Thanks, will fix.

> 
> - llvm-top can't build cfe. Maybe the BuildCmd would
>   be something like
> 
>   "cd llvm/tools; ln -s ../../cfe; make". Then it should
>   be able to build cfe?

That's an issue for the cfe developer's. Its completely orthogonal to
llvm-top which will just execute whatever they have there. Also, your
suggestion won't work because its not possible to put a group of
commands on BuildCmd line, just one command. So they may need to develop
their own build script like the other modules.  I'm not involved with
cfe so perhaps one of those guys will read this and do something about
it. If not, bug them directly :)

> 
> - many directories are not svn:ignore'd in llvm-top, e.g.
>   cfe, llvm-gcc-4.0, llvm. "svn st" shows you which one.

Yeah, again, that's a module maintainer's issue. I can't be cleaning up
after everyone. People are just going to have to learn how to use
subversion properly. I try to fix things where I find them, but there's
just too much going on to be thorough.

> 
> 
> Other than that, I like it. :-)

Great. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. The
llvm-top stuff is not "official" yet as we're trying to iron out these
kinds of wrinkles first. Eventually it will be the recommended way to
obtain and build llvm software.

Thanks,

Reid.

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