Chapter 4. The Frontend
The compiler frontend converts source code into the compiler's intermediate representation prior to target-specific code generation. Since programming languages have distinct syntax and semantic domains, frontends usually handle either a single language or a group of similar ones. Clang, for instance, handles C, C++, and objective-C source code inputs. In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- How to link programs with Clang libraries and use
libclang
- Clang diagnostics and the Clang frontend stages
- Lexical, syntactical, and semantic analyses with
libclang
examples - How to write a simplified compiler driver that uses the C++ Clang libraries