rllvm

Compiler wrappers for building whole-program LLVM bitcode files — a Rust port of gllvm/wllvm.

How It Works

rllvm provides drop-in compiler wrappers (rllvm-cc, rllvm-cxx) that transparently run clang/clang++ and simultaneously generate LLVM bitcode. The bitcode file paths are embedded into a special section of each object file. A separate tool (rllvm-get-bc) then reads those paths and links all the bitcode into a single whole-program .bc file.

source.c ──► rllvm-cc ──► object file (with embedded .bc path)
                              │
                              ▼
executable ◄── linker ◄── object files
                              │
                              ▼
                        rllvm-get-bc ──► whole-program.bc

Installation

Prerequisites

LLVM/Clang must be installed:

# macOS
brew install llvm

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install llvm llvm-dev clang libclang-dev

From crates.io

cargo install rllvm

From source

git clone https://github.com/h1994st/rllvm.git
cd rllvm
cargo install --path .

Usage

Compile a single file

# Compile C code (wraps clang)
rllvm-cc -o hello hello.c

# Compile C++ code (wraps clang++)
rllvm-cxx -o hello hello.cc

No -- separator is needed. Wrapper flags are prefixed --rllvm-; everything else goes to the compiler.

Extract bitcode

# Extract linked bitcode from an executable
rllvm-get-bc hello           # produces hello.bc

# Extract from a static library
rllvm-get-bc libfoo.a        # produces libfoo.a.bc

# Build a bitcode archive instead of linking
rllvm-get-bc -b libfoo.a     # produces libfoo.bca

# Save a manifest of individual bitcode file paths
rllvm-get-bc -m hello        # produces hello.bc.manifest

# Specify output path
rllvm-get-bc -o out.bc hello

Build a real project

Use CC and CXX environment variables to inject rllvm into any build system:

export CC=rllvm-cc
export CXX=rllvm-cxx

# Autotools
./configure && make

# CMake
cmake -B build && cmake --build build

# Extract bitcode from the final binary
rllvm-get-bc build/my_program

CMake toolchain file

rllvm ships a CMake toolchain file for a more integrated approach:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=path/to/rllvm/cmake/rllvm-toolchain.cmake
cmake --build build

# Extract bitcode
rllvm-get-bc build/my_program

See examples/cmake/ for a complete example.

Wrapper flags

rllvm-cc [OPTIONS] <compiler args...>

Usable directly as CC -- no `--` separator required:

    export CC=rllvm-cc && ./configure && make

Wrapper options are long-only and prefixed `--rllvm-`, so they cannot collide
with a compiler flag. Everything else, including `-c`, `-v`, `--help` and
`--version`, is passed straight to the compiler -- build systems identify the
compiler by running `$CC --version`, so the wrapper must not answer it.

Options:
  --rllvm-compiler <PATH>   Override the wrapped compiler path
  --rllvm-verbose[=LEVEL]   Log verbosity; bare flag is level 1, max 4
  --rllvm-help              Print help for the wrapper
  --rllvm-version           Print the wrapper version

`--` is still accepted, so existing shim scripts keep working:

    rllvm-cc --rllvm-verbose=3 -- -o hello hello.c

Configuration

rllvm is configured via a TOML file. On first run, a default config is created with tool paths inferred from llvm-config, at $RLLVM_CONFIG if set, otherwise ~/.rllvm/config.toml.

Config file location

Set the RLLVM_CONFIG environment variable to use a custom path:

export RLLVM_CONFIG=/path/to/config.toml

Config options

Relocatable bitcode paths

By default an object records the absolute path of its bitcode, which pins it to the directory that built it. That breaks if the tree is moved, copied out of a container, replayed from a compiler cache into a different tree, or handed to another CI job.

Set a root to record paths relative to it, then name the root again when extracting:

export RLLVM_BITCODE_ROOT=/path/to/build
make

# later, after the tree has moved:
rllvm-get-bc --bitcode-root /new/path/to/build prog -o prog.bc

RLLVM_BITCODE_ROOT overrides the bitcode_root config key. Objects built without a root keep absolute paths and are unaffected — the extractor tells the two apart by the leading separator, so both forms can appear in the same binary.

Example config

llvm_config_filepath = '/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/llvm-config'
clang_filepath = '/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang'
clangxx_filepath = '/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang++'
llvm_ar_filepath = '/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/llvm-ar'
llvm_link_filepath = '/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/llvm-link'
llvm_objcopy_filepath = '/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/llvm-objcopy'
bitcode_store_path = '/tmp/bitcode_store'
log_level = 3

Why rllvm?

rllvm is a Rust rewrite of gllvm (Go) and wllvm (Python). All three tools solve the same problem — extracting whole-program LLVM bitcode — but rllvm offers:

• Single static binary — no Go or Python runtime needed; cargo install and go.
• Cross-platform — tested on Linux and macOS in CI.
• Drop-in compatible — same workflow as gllvm/wllvm: set CC/CXX, build, extract.
• TOML configuration — auto-generated config file with LLVM tool paths discovered from llvm-config.

If you're already using gllvm or wllvm and they work for you, there's no urgency to switch. rllvm is a good fit if you prefer a self-contained Rust binary or want to integrate with a Rust-based toolchain.

License

GPL-3.0