[LLVMdev] Re: LLVMdev Digest, Vol 16, Issue 24

[Jeff Cohen]

Matthew Bromberg wrote:

> Fair enough.  I probably will attempt that very thing over the next 
> couple of months.  I'm looking for a backend to target my little 
> scripting language to and llvm seems like a good choice.  I wish I had 
> more time to put into llvm.  There are a couple of other compilers 
> that might be interesting to target as well such as the Digital Mars 
> C++ compiler, which also has a less restrictive license and can be 
> obtained freely.  Are the backend tools more complete now for the MS 
> visual C++ compiler?  Perhaps that's the way to go for Windows.  The 
> commercial version of that compiler has gotten pretty pricey however.
>
> -Matt
>
No recent progress has been made on the backend tools for MS VC++.  I 
did just eliminate the need for any GNU tools in building LLVM with 
VC++, but that only eliminates an annoyance rather than add new 
functionality.

It is the goal to generate OBJ files directly, though that is not likely 
to happen in the near future.  But there are other options that do work 
today.  The JIT does work, so you can execute programs compiled via LLVM 
right now.  Additionally, you can generate C code that you can then 
compile with VC++, which provides an alternate route to stand-alone 
executables.