[LLVMbugs] [Bug 792] NEW: Factor AsmWriter out of lib/VMCore

[bugzilla-daemon at cs.uiuc.edu]

http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=792

           Summary: Factor AsmWriter out of lib/VMCore
           Product: libraries
           Version: trunk
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P2
         Component: Core LLVM classes
        AssignedTo: unassignedbugs at nondot.org
        ReportedBy: rspencer at x10sys.com


Not every program that wants to use LLVM wants to generate LLVM assembly.
Unfortunately, the LLVMCore library has this functionality integrated into it.
The AsmWriter code should be factored out so that those that want to use it can
but those that don't can link their programs without it.

Here are the steps that I see need to be done to resolve this:

1. Make Assembly reading and writing analagous to Bytecode reading and writing.
   There should be a lib/Assembly directory that contains a "Parser" (or perhaps
   Reader) and "Writer" directories. 

2. Move lib/VMCore/AsmWriter.cpp to lib/Assembly/Writer/AsmWriter.cpp

3. Factor out all the "print" and "dump" methods of the various LLVM IR classes
   to global functions in the llvm namespace. This would change the usage model
   of these functions from obj->dump() to llvm::dump(obj) and obj->print() to
   llvm::print(obj).

4. Make any adjustments needed to the implementations in VMCore resulting from
   the above changes.

This is the first in a series of bugs that aim at reducing the size of the
LLVMCore.o file so that tools built on LLVM can reduce their size and link times
can be improved.

This bug is provided for discussion as a possible enhancement. Reid will sign up
to do the work, but he wants to explore any issues with doing this first and
determine if others would find it useful.



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