1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" 2 "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> 3<!-- Material used from: HTML 4.01 specs: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/ --> 4<html> 5<head> 6 <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> 7 <title>Clang C Language Family Frontend for LLVM</title> 8 <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="menu.css"> 9 <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="content.css"> 10</head> 11<body> 12<!--#include virtual="menu.html.incl"--> 13<div id="content"> 14 <!--*********************************************************************--> 15 <h1>Clang: a C language family frontend for LLVM</h1> 16 <!--*********************************************************************--> 17 18 <p>The Clang project provides a language front-end and tooling infrastructure 19 for languages in the C language family (C, C++, Objective C/C++, OpenCL, 20 CUDA, and RenderScript) for the <a href="https://www.llvm.org/">LLVM</a> 21 project. Both a GCC-compatible compiler driver (<tt>clang</tt>) and an 22 MSVC-compatible compiler driver (<tt>clang-cl.exe</tt>) are provided. You 23 can <a href="get_started.html">get and build</a> the source today.</p> 24 25 <!--=====================================================================--> 26 <h2 id="goals">Features and Goals</h2> 27 <!--=====================================================================--> 28 29 <p>Some of the goals for the project include the following:</p> 30 31 <p><b><a href="features.html#enduser">End-User Features</a></b>:</p> 32 33 <ul> 34 <li>Fast compiles and low memory use</li> 35 <li>Expressive diagnostics (<a href="diagnostics.html">examples</a>)</li> 36 <li>GCC compatibility</li> 37 </ul> 38 39 <p><b><a href="features.html#applications">Utility and 40 Applications</a></b>:</p> 41 42 <ul> 43 <li>Modular library based architecture</li> 44 <li>Support diverse clients (refactoring, static analysis, code generation, 45 etc.)</li> 46 <li>Allow tight integration with IDEs</li> 47 <li>Use the LLVM 'Apache 2' License</li> 48 </ul> 49 50 <p><b><a href="features.html#design">Internal Design and 51 Implementation</a></b>:</p> 52 53 <ul> 54 <li>A real-world, production quality compiler</li> 55 <li>A simple and hackable code base</li> 56 <li>A single unified parser for C, Objective C, C++, and Objective C++</li> 57 <li>Conformance with C/C++/ObjC and their variants</li> 58 </ul> 59 60 <p>Of course this is only a rough outline of the goals and features of 61 Clang. To get a true sense of what it is all about, see the <a 62 href="features.html">Features</a> section, which breaks 63 each of these down and explains them in more detail.</p> 64 65 66 <!--=====================================================================--> 67 <h2>Why?</h2> 68 <!--=====================================================================--> 69 70 <p>Development of the new front-end was started out of a need 71 for a compiler that allows better diagnostics, better integration with 72 IDEs, a license that is compatible with commercial products, and a 73 nimble compiler that is easy to develop and maintain. All of these were 74 motivations for starting work on a new front-end that could 75 meet these needs.</p> 76 77 <p>For a more detailed comparison between Clang and other compilers, please 78 see the <a href="comparison.html">Clang comparison page</a>.</p> 79 80 <!--=====================================================================--> 81 <h2>Current Status</h2> 82 <!--=====================================================================--> 83 84 <p>Clang is considered to 85 be a production quality C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ compiler when 86 targeting X86-32, X86-64, and ARM (other targets may have caveats, but are 87 usually easy to fix). As example, Clang is used in production to build 88 performance-critical software like Chrome or Firefox.<br /> If you are looking 89 for source analysis or source-to-source transformation tools, Clang is probably 90 a great solution for you. Clang supports C++11, C++14 and C++17, please see 91 the <a href="cxx_status.html">C++ status</a> page for more information.</p> 92 93 <!--=====================================================================--> 94 <h2>Get it and get involved!</h2> 95 <!--=====================================================================--> 96 97 <p>Start by <a href="get_started.html">getting the code, building it, and 98 playing with it</a>. This will show you the sorts of things we can do 99 today and will let you have the "Clang experience" first hand: hopefully 100 it will "resonate" with you. :)</p> 101 102 <p>Once you've done that, please consider <a href="get_involved.html">getting 103 involved in the Clang community</a>. The Clang developers include numerous 104 volunteer contributors with a variety of backgrounds. If you're 105 interested in 106 following the development of Clang, signing up for a mailing list is a good 107 way to learn about how the project works.</p> 108</div> 109</body> 110</html> 111