LLVM back-end for the Timber compiler

Abstract

This master's thesis describes the design and implementation of a new backend for the Timber compiler, based on Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) compiler infrastructure. The thesis describes the implementation and gives detailed information about how a Timber program is translated into a LLVM program and how it is represented. Furthermore the thesis compares the existing C based back-end with the new LLVM based back-end in terms of implementation complexity and the performance of programs that were compiled with the respective back-ends. When compared to each other, the LLVM based back-end was found to have a performance that was equal or better than the C based back-end, with the cost of increased complexity of the compiler in the form of an abstract syntax to represent LLVM assembly code and an interface to the abstract syntax. The overall conclusion is that LLVM offers a suitable back-end for the Timber programming language compiler.