[LLVMdev] Porting a VM to LLVM

Gabriele Farina
2009-04-04T08:22:48Z

Hi guys,

first of all let me say "hello" to everyone. Its the firt message for
me in this list and I'm pretty happy that I'll be able to finally
start working with LLVM.

I've a question for you all if you can help me: a few years ago I've
implemented a simple VM for a language we're using in my company. The
VM JIT compiles a simple bytecode and executes it. It works quite
well, better then some well know VMs. My idea now is to try to migrate
the VM to LLVM to see if I can gain something in terms of speed and
extensibility.
I'm totally new to LLVM, but as far as I understood thare might be two
ways to add LLVM to my project:

- generate IR from my complier;
- build a VM that converts at runtime my bytecode to IR and executes it;

I largely prefer the second option because it would be great if I can
continue to use to old programs without having to recompile them.

Which approach do you suggest ? are there any alternatives ?

Gabriele