LLVM 2.5 Released, Receives Numerous Improvements

The LLVM (Low-Level Virtual Machine) still isn't a big competitor to GCC since the Clang compiler front-end remains unfinished, but the LLVM folks have issued a version 2.5 release. LLVM 2.5 is made up of a bunch of bug fixes, a new XCore back-end, performance improvements (in the compiler and its generated code), new development documentation, and plenty more new work.

The announcement of LLVM 2.5 can be found on llvm-announce. The 2.5 release notes share more information on the changes and the status of this open-source project.

While Clang (the C compiler front-end to LLVM that can be used instead of a GCC front-end) isn't yet included in LLVM by default, it too has reached some new heights with this release. Clang with LLVM 2.5 has a new driver with a GCC-compatible interface, support for the x86_64 ABI, pre-compiled header support, Objective-C support is significantly improved, and many bugs have been fixed. For those in need of C compiler support now, LLVM has a GCC 4.2 compiler front-end available.

The LLVM project is also being used by open-source developers with the new Gallium3D architecture for graphics card drivers in order to compile and optimize GPU shaders.