CLANG(1)

NAME
clang - the Clang C and Objective-C compiler

SYNOPSIS
clang [-c|-S|-E] -std=standard -g
  [-O0|-O1|-O2|-Os|-O3|-O4]
  -Wwarnings... -pedantic
  -Idir... -Ldir...
  -Dmacro[=defn]
  -ffeature-option...
  -mmachine-option...
  -o output-file
  input-filenames

DESCRIPTION
clang is a C and Objective-C compiler which encompasses preprocessing, parsing, optimization, code generation, assembly, and linking. Depending on which high-level mode setting is passed, Clang will stop before doing a full link. While Clang is highly integrated, it is important to understand the stages of compilation, to understand how to invoke it. These stages are:

Driver
    The clang executable is actually a small driver which controls the overall execution of other tools such as the compiler, assembler and linker. Typically you do not need to interact with the driver, but you transparently use it to run the other tools.

Preprocessing
    This stage handles tokenization of the input source file, macro expansion, #include expansion and handling of other preprocessor directives. The output of this stage is typically called a ".i" (for C) or ".mi" (for Objective-C) file.

Parsing and Semantic Analysis
    This stage parses the input file, translating preprocessor tokens into a parse tree. Once in the form of a parser tree, it applies semantic analysis to compute types for expressions as well and determine whether the code is well formed. This stage is responsible for generating most of the compiler warnings as well as parse errors. The output of this stage is an "Abstract Syntax Tree" (AST).

Code Generation and Optimization
    This stage translates an AST into low-level intermediate code (known as "LLVM IR") and ultimately to machine code. This phase is responsible for optimizing the generated code and handling target-specfic code generation. The output of this stage is typically called a ".s" file or "assembly" file.

    Clang also supports the use of an integrated assembler, in which the code generator produces object files directly. This avoids the overhead of generating the ".s" file and of calling the target assembler.

Assembler
    This stage runs the target assembler to translate the output of the compiler into a target object file. The output of this stage is typically called a ".o" file or "object" file.

Linker
    This stage runs the target linker to merge multiple object files into an executable or dynamic library. The output of this stage is typically called an "a.out", ".dylib" or ".so" file.

The Clang compiler supports a large number of options to control each of these stages. In addition to compilation of code, Clang also supports other tools:

Clang Static Analyzer

The Clang Static Analyzer is a tool that scans source code to try to find bugs though code analysis. This tool uses many parts of Clang and is built into the same driver.

OPTIONS

  Stage Selection Options

-E  Run the preprocessor stage.

-fsyntax-only
    Run the preprocessor, parser and type checking stages.

-S  Run the previous stages as well as LLVM generation and optimization stages and target-specific code generation, producing an assembly file.

-c  Run all of the above, plus the assembler, generating a target ".o" object file.

no stage selection option
    If no stage selection option is specified, all stages above are run, and the linker is run to combine the results into an executable or shared library.

--analyze
    Run the Clang Static Analyzer.

  Language Selection and Mode Options

-x language
    Treat subsequent input files as having type language.

-std=language
    Specify the language standard to compile for.

-ansi
    Same as -std=c89.

-ObjC++
    Treat source input files as Objective-C++ inputs.

-ObjC
    Treat source input files as Objective-C inputs.

-trigraphs
    Enable trigraphs.

-ffreestanding
    Indicate that the file should be compiled for a freestanding, not a hosted, environment.

-fno-builtin
    Disable special handling and optimizations of builtin functions like strlen and malloc.

-fmath-errno
    Indicate that math functions should be treated as updating errno.

-fpascal-strings
    Enable support for Pascal-style strings with "\pfoo".

-fms-extensions
    Enable support for Microsoft extensions.

-fborland-extensions
    Enable support for Borland extensions.

-fwritable-strings
    Make all string literals default to writable. This disables uniquing of strings and other optimizations.

-flax-vector-conversions
    Allow loose type checking rules for implicit vector conversions.

-fblocks
    Enable the "Blocks" language feature.

-fobjc-gc-only
    Indicate that Objective-C code should be compiled in GC-only mode, which only works when Objective-C Garbage Collection is enabled.

-fobjc-gc
    Indicate that Objective-C code should be compiled in hybrid-GC mode, which works with both GC and non-GC mode.

  Target Selection Options
Clang fully supports cross compilation as an inherent part of its design. Depending on how your version of Clang is configured, it may have support for a number of cross compilers, or may only support a native target.

-arch architecture
    Specify the architecture to build for.

-mmacosx-version-min=version
    When building for Mac OS/X, specify the minimum version supported by your application.

-miphoneos-version-min
    When building for iPhone OS, specify the minimum version supported by your application.

-march=cpu
    Specify that Clang should generate code for a specific processor family member and later. For example, if you specify -march=i486, the compiler is allowed to generate instructions that are valid on i486 and later processors, but which may not exist on earlier ones.

  Code Generation Options

-O0 -O1 -O2 -Os -O3 -O4
    Specify which optimization level to use. -O0 means "no optimization": this level compiles the fastest and generates the most debuggable code. -O2 is a moderate level of optimization which enables most optimizations. -Os is like -O2 with extra optimizations to reduce code size. -O3 is like -O2, except that it enables optimizations that take longer to perform or that may generate larger code (in an attempt to make the program run faster). On supported platforms, -O4 enables link-time optimization; object files are stored in the LLVM bitcode file format and whole program optimization is done at link time. -O1 is somewhere between -O0 and -O2.

-g  Generate debug information. Note that Clang debug information works best at -O0. At higher optimization levels, only line number information is currently available.

-fexceptions
    Enable generation of unwind information, this allows exceptions to be thrown through Clang compiled stack frames. This is on by default in x86-64.

-ftrapv
    Generate code to catch integer overflow errors. Signed integer overflow is undefined in C, with this flag, extra code is generated to detect this and abort when it happens.

-fvisibility
    This flag sets the default visibility level.

-fcommon
    This flag specifies that variables without initializers get common linkage. It can be disabled with -fno-common.

-flto -emit-llvm
    Generate output files in LLVM formats, suitable for link time optimization. When used with -S this generates LLVM intermediate language assembly files, otherwise this generates LLVM bitcode format object files (which may be passed to the linker depending on the stage selection options).

  Driver Options

-###
    Print the commands to run for this compilation.

--help
    Display available options.

-Qunused-arguments
    Don't emit warning for unused driver arguments.

-Wa,args
    Pass the comma separated arguments in args to the assembler.

-Wl,args
    Pass the comma separated arguments in args to the linker.

-Wp,args
    Pass the comma separated arguments in args to the preprocessor.

-Xanalyzer arg
    Pass arg to the static analyzer.

-Xassembler arg
    Pass arg to the assembler.

-Xclang arg
    Pass arg to the clang compiler frontend.

-Xlinker arg
    Pass arg to the linker.

-mllvm arg
    Pass arg to the LLVM backend.

-Xpreprocessor arg
    Pass arg to the preprocessor.

-o file
    Write output to file.

-print-file-name=file
    Print the full library path of file.

-print-libgcc-file-name
    Print the library path for "libgcc.a".

-print-prog-name=name
    Print the full program path of name.

-print-search-dirs
    Print the paths used for finding libraries and programs.

-save-temps
    Save intermediate compilation results.

-integrated-as -no-integrated-as
    Used to enable and disable, respectively, the use of the integrated assembler. Whether the integrated assembler is on by default is target dependent.

-time
    Time individual commands.

-ftime-report
    Print timing summary of each stage of compilation.

-v  Show commands to run and use verbose output.

  Diagnostics Options

-fshow-column -fshow-source-location -fcaret-diagnostics -fdiagnostics-fixit-info -fdiagnostics-parseable-fixits -fdiagnostics-print-source-range-info -fprint-source-range-info -fdiagnostics-show-option -fmessage-length
    These options control how Clang prints out information about diagnostics (errors and warnings). Please see the Clang User's Manual for more information.

  Preprocessor Options

-Dmacroname=value
    Adds an implicit #define into the predefines buffer which is read before the source file is preprocessed.

-Umacroname
    Adds an implicit #undef into the predefines buffer which is read before the source file is preprocessed.

-include filename
    Adds an implicit #include into the predefines buffer which is read before the source file is preprocessed.

-Idirectory
    Add the specified directory to the search path for include files.

-Fdirectory
    Add the specified directory to the search path for framework include files.

-nostdinc
    Do not search the standard system directories for include files.

-nobuiltininc
    Do not search clang's builtin directory for include files.

ENVIRONMENT

TMPDIR, TEMP, TMP
    These environment variables are checked, in order, for the location to write temporary files used during the compilation process.

CPATH
    If this environment variable is present, it is treated as a delimited list of paths to be added to the default system include path list. The delimiter is the platform dependent delimitor, as used in the PATH environment variable.

    Empty components in the environment variable are ignored.

C_INCLUDE_PATH, OBJC_INCLUDE_PATH, CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH, OBJCPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
    These environment variables specify additional paths, as for CPATH, which are only used when processing the appropriate language.

MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET
    If -mmacosx-version-min is unspecified, the default deployment target is read from this environment variable. This option only affects darwin targets.

BUGS
To report bugs, please visit <http://llvm.org/bugs/>. Most bug reports should include preprocessed source files (use the -E option) and the full output of the compiler, along with information to reproduce.

SEE ALSO
 as(1), ld(1)

AUTHOR
Maintained by the Clang / LLVM Team (<http://clang.llvm.org>).