LLVM Made Simple: A Beginner's Guide to Building Modern Compilers with LLVM IR, MLIR & Clang

By Hollis Denning

LLVM Made Simple: A Beginner's Guide to Building Modern Compilers with LLVM IR, MLIR & Clang

LLVM Made Simple is a modern, practical, and implementation-focused guide for anyone who wants to build real compilers using today's LLVM ecosystem. Updated for 2025 and aligned with LLVM 18+, MLIR's multi-level IR design, Clang tooling, and ORC JIT, this book shows you exactly how modern compilers work-and how to build one yourself from scratch.

Designed for aspiring compiler engineers, systems programmers, language designers, and advanced software developers, this book removes the complexity traditionally associated with LLVM and MLIR. Instead, it provides a clean, structured, and hands-on path that teaches you how to generate IR, optimize it, lower it through multiple stages, build custom dialects, extend Clang, and produce native executables or JIT-executed code.

You won't just read about compilers-you will build one. Every chapter features step-by-step practice labs that walk you through real implementations using LLVM IR, MLIR transformations, LLVM optimization pipelines, and modern backend workflows. You will write IR manually, generate MLIR programmatically, lower it to LLVM IR, integrate optimization passes, build a functioning code generator, and construct a complete end-to-end compiler pipeline that handles parsing, lowering, codegen, linking, and execution.

This book also gives you hands-on exposure to the tools that matter today: clang, opt, llc, lli, mlir-opt, mlir-translate, mlir-tblgen, CMake build flows, the new Pass Manager, ORC LLJIT, and dialect-based compilation. You'll learn how each tool fits into the multi-stage compiler architecture and how to use them together to produce fast, correct, and maintainable compilers.

By the end of this book, you will have built your own fully functional compiler-from grammar and parser all the way to machine code-using the same principles that underlie Clang, Rust, Swift, IREE, and other modern toolchains.

What You Will Learn

- How modern compilers work in 2025, from lexer to machine code
- How LLVM IR is structured and how to generate, optimize, and execute it
- How MLIR revolutionizes multi-level IR pipelines and custom dialects
- How to build IR manually and programmatically with C++ and Python
- How to write TableGen definitions, dialects, ops, attributes, and rewrite patterns
- How to lower MLIR → LLVM IR → object code → native executables
- How to integrate ORC JIT for real-time execution and REPL design
- How to use LLVM's Pass Manager for optimization and performance tuning
- How to build Clang extensions, AST tools, and custom plugins
- How to construct a complete end-to-end compiler with real-world architecture
- How to debug IR, fix verifier errors, and use FileCheck for automated testing

LLVM Made Simple gives you everything you need to become productive with LLVM and MLIR-without the confusion, outdated examples, or unnecessary theory. Whether you want to design new languages, extend existing ones, or understand the internals of modern compiler stacks, this book gives you the practical foundation to build real systems with confidence.

Perfect for anyone ready to move from "learning compilers" to building them.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G5PXDWSJ
• ISBN13: 9798277936122
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 318 Pages
• Weight: 1.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.5" x 11.0"