I am not that familiar with LLVM, if anything it complicates matters,
rather than making things easier.
"The llvm-ld program has limited support for native code generation,
when using the -native or -native-cbe options. Native code generation is
performed by converting the linked bitcode into native assembly (.s) or
C code and running the system compiler (typically gcc) on the result."
so it seems that the gcc support infrastructure that is currently
integrated into ghc will still be required. Then the question arises
what library formats will ghc use under the circumstances ?(.bc, .a) and
how will the two be integrated?
On windows, most c/c++ public domain libraries are either compiled with
ms-c or gcc which have their standard library formats. which in many
cases come pre-compiled with the libraries. Becuase of this I would
assume retention of the .a format, but perhaps compiling haskell to .bc
would offer opportunities for link time optimisation?
In fact I would like a lot more information on what is being proposed
with respect of a LLVM backend and any changes to the compiler tool chain.
Since GHC 6.14 will (hopefully) be use LLVM as a default backend, an
idea has occured to me
Should GHC also use the clang (C/C++->LLVM compiler) on external C
library sources which are used with certain Haskell packages (such as
gtk) when LLVM does become a default backend for GHC. The consensus is
that since Clang will also produce LLVM 'assembler', it can be very
easily linked with the LLVM 'assembler' produced by GHC's LLVM backend,
making the process of using external C sources a lot easier. Parts of
Clang required could even be integrated into GHC (although this may be
tricky since its coded in C++). It should also hopefully make using
Haskell packages on windows that use C sources less painful
Clang could also make using FFI with C++ much easier (for reasons stated
above)
Thoughts?
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