[LLVMdev] c-like language implementation using llvm

[Ali Javadi]

Hi,

I have a project where I am creating a language which is very similar to C, but has some extensions. Among the most important are:
1) A new 1-bit data-type
2) Some gates: NOT, AND, etc.. that act on arrays of this 1-bit type. (Think like a hardware description language.) These are like external function calls, which don't have an implementation for now.

I don't have a particular target, and would like to translate to the LLVM IR format for now. I want to leverage the power of LLVM SSA transformation/optimization framework. I would like to know your opinion about my approach:

1) I have already added a new type to clang's lexer/parser for my high-level language. Do I need to add a new type to LLVM IR as well? I read some warnings about this being difficult to implement. As far as I understand, there is structural typing in LLVM. Can I just utilize the i1 type? Is the i1 type already used for something, and thus might create a conflict?

2) Can I use LLVM's intrinsic functions for my gates, something like @llvm.NOT(i1 %val)? Would the fact that the implementation of these external functions is not defined, create a problem in translation down to IR? I have used Clang's "built-ins" in the front-end and that seems to do the job at the parser level.


Thanks,
Ali

PS. Just to clarify again, this is not intended as an addition to LLVM's codebase. It's solely for my own purpose.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20130203/34a6a917/attachment.html>