Warning Clank is still in the alpha stages, and can't reliably parse any subset of C or C++ yet. Work is ongoing to change this as soon as possible, but for now your milage may very.
Clank is a fully stand-alone C++ front-end based on LLVM's clang compiler.
It has been heavily modified and de-coupled from LLVM to be a stand alone library with only the C++ standard libraries as dependencies.
Note Clank is ONLY a language front-end, it does not generate an IL or machine code
The following table
| Front End | Open Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| libclang | ✔️ | Tied to LLVM |
| EDG Front End | ❌ | Proprietary and Non-free |
| clank | ✔️ | Only builds w/ C++17 or newer |
The following are some questions that you may possible have regarding this project.
Mainly for personal reasons, I was never a fan of the API, nor how it dragged a large chunk of LLVM around.
Mainly because a lot of nice things were added in C++17 an it makes de-coupling the code from LLVM easier.
The clang front-end can parse many languages, but clank is mainly focused on C and C++, however work is eventually planned to support most if not all of the languages that clang does as well. The table below shows the status of each language.
There is also the possibility of adding support for D lang and also possibly Fortran but those would be left until after the MVP of supporting C and C++ has been met.
| Language | Standard | Status | Extensions |
|---|---|---|---|
| C++ | 99 | 🚧 In Progress 🚧 | GNU |
| 11 | 🚧 In Progress 🚧 | GNU | |
| 14 | 🚧 In Progress 🚧 | GNU | |
| 17 | 🚧 In Progress 🚧 | GNU | |
| 20 | 🚧 In Progress 🚧 | GNU | |
| 2b | 🚧 In Progress 🚧 | GNU | |
| C | 99 | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | GNU |
| 11 | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | GNU | |
| 14 | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | GNU | |
| 17 | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | GNU | |
| 2x | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | GNU | |
| ObjC | ❔ | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | None |
| ObjC++ | ❔ | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | None |
| OpenCL | ❔ | ⏳ Planned ⏳ | None |
A collection of examples will be put in the examples directory to show how to use Clank to consume C++ code once it is at a point where that is possible.
For more comprehensive documentation, such as usage guides, as well as API documentation, see https://lethalbit.github.io/clank/.
The following steps describe how to build Clank, it should be consistent for Linux, macOS, and Windows, but macOS and Windows remain untested.
NOTE: The minimum C++ standard to build Clank is C++17.
To build Clank, ensure you have the following build time dependencies:
- git
- meson
- ninja
- g++ >= 11 or clang++ >= 11
Optionally, when also building with binding support (which is the default) you also need:
- python >= 3.9
- pybind11 >= 2.7.0
You can build Clank with the default options, all of which can be found in meson_options.txt. You can change these by specifying -D<OPTION_NAME>=<VALUE> at initial meson invocation time, or with meson configure in the build directory post initial configure.
To change the install prefix, which is /usr/local by default ensure to pass --prefix <PREFIX> when running meson for the first time.
In either case, simply running meson build from the root of the repository will be sufficient and place all of the build files in the build subdirectory.
Once you have configured Clank appropriately, to simply build and install simply run the following:
$ ninja -C build
$ ninja -C build test # Optional: Run Tests
$ ninja -C build install
This will build and install Clank into the default prefix which is /usr/local, to change that see the configuration steps above.
If you are building Clank for inclusion in a distributions package system then ensure to set DESTDIR prior to running meson install.
There is also a bugreport_url configuration option that is set to this repositories issues tracker by default, it is recommended to change it to your distributions bug tracking page.
Clank is under the Apache 2.0 license with LLVM exceptions, just like the original clang. The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file.
