#build-in-public
Context
- The Linux kernel
- Building the kernel
- Intermediate Representation
- [Whole Program Bitcode]
- Analysis Tools
- Static Analysis
- Program Representation
- Alias Analysis
- Data-flow Analysis
- Type-based Analysis
Various analysis tools use the LLVM bitcode representation of the source. Compiling a single source file into bitcode is straightforward.
clang -S -emit-llvm <file.c>to get the readable bitcode.clang -c -emit-llvm <file.c>to get the binary bitcode.
However, compiling large projects like the Linux kernel into bitcode is not as straightforward.
At a high level, each *.c source file is compiled into an object file. Object
files .o in a sub-system are linked together to into an intermediate
built-in.a file. Finally, all the built-in.a files are linked together to
get the final kernel image vmlinux.
