[LLVMdev] Virtual "components" for llvm-config

[Eric Kidd]

On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:22 PM, Reid Spencer wrote:
> In looking at tools, we should also look at the example programs  
> and the
> projects such as Stacker. For example, it would be nice to have a
> virtual component that includes the libraries necessary for an LLVM
> front end translator (source -> llvm bytecode).  It would also be nice
> to have a virtual component that includes the libraries necessary  
> for an
> LLVM back end target library (LLVM IR -> machine code).

What would you include in each set?

> There are
> probably a few other categories, for example utilities that only mess
> with passes (e.g. opt, LLVM bc -> LLVM bc).

In many of these cases, you can just ask for the components you need:

   $ llvm-config --libs bcreader bcwriter scalaropts

I think this is pretty reasonable. Do you think we need to provide  
short aliases for all these combinations, or can we just let the user  
specify them manually?

"Virtual" components are quite useful, though, when (a) the exact set  
of libraries needed varies by platform or (b) novice users will  
typically link against a given set. So we need to cover both regular  
compiler backends and the ExecutionEngine (because the right set of  
libraries varies between machines) and possibly a few convenience  
packages.

Cheers,
Eric