Version 17.0.6-2 is a maintenance release; it fixes the macOS build.

The xPack LLVM clang is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of LLVM clang.

There are separate binaries for Windows (x64), macOS (x64, arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64, arm64 and arm).

Download

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites

  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later

Install

The full details of installing the xPack LLVM clang on various platforms are presented in the separate Install page.

Easy install

The easiest way to install LLVM clang is with xpm by using the binary xPack, available as @xpack-dev-tools/clang from the npmjs.com registry.

With the xpm tool available, installing the latest version of the package and adding it as a development dependency for a project is quite easy:

cd my-project
xpm init # Add a package.json if not already present

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/clang@latest --verbose

ls -l xpacks/.bin

To install this specific version, use:

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/clang@17.0.6-2.1 --verbose

It is also possible to install LLVM clang globally, in the user home folder, but this requires xPack aware tools to automatically identify them and manage paths.

xpm install --global @xpack-dev-tools/clang@latest --verbose

Uninstall

To remove the links created by xpm in the current project:

cd my-project

xpm uninstall @xpack-dev-tools/clang

To completely remove the package from the central xPack store:

xpm uninstall --global @xpack-dev-tools/clang

Compliance

The xPack LLVM clang generally follows the official LLVM clang releases.

The current version is based on:

  • LLVM clang version 17.0.6, from 28 Nov 2023.

For x64 GNU/Linux and Windows, multilib (32/64-bit) libraries are provided.

LLVM libraries

On macOS and Windows the compiler defaults are set to the LLVM libraries (libc++ and compiler-rt).

For historical reasons, on GNU/Linux, the defaults are set to the host system (libstdc++ and glibc).

To use the LLVM libraries, add the following options:

-stdlib=libc++ -rtlib=compiler-rt -lunwind

For LTO builds, also use LLD:

-flto -fuse-ld=lld

-m32 / -m64

For x64 GNU/Linux and Windows, multilib libraries are provided and can be selected using the -m32 / -m64 options.

-print-search-dirs

Since the toolchain can be installed in any location, and the binaries compiled with it need to access the libraries, it is necessary to get the actual path and pass it via LD_LIBRARY_PATH and/or set the -rpath.

This can be achieved by querying the compiler for -print-search-dirs and processing the output.

For example, for the 32-bit libraries:

${CXX} -m32 -print-search-dirs | grep 'libraries: =' | sed -e 's|libraries: =||'

On Windows the DLLs are usually in bin, but for consistency within GCC, they are also copied to lib; it is recommended to ask the compiler for the actual path.

For example, for the 32-bit libraries:

${CXX} -m32 -print-file-name=libc++.dll

Changes

Compared to the upstream, there are no major functional changes.

Since 15.0.7-4, there is a small patch in Driver.cpp that fixes the function that computes InstalledDir when clang is invoked via a link from a different folder.

Bug fixes

  • none

Enhancements

  • none

Known problems

Please see the separate tests results page.

Shared libraries

On all platforms the packages are standalone, and expect only the standard runtime to be present on the host.

All dependencies that are build as shared libraries are copied locally in the libexec folder (or in the same folder as the executable for Windows).

DT_RPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH

On GNU/Linux the binaries are adjusted to use a relative path:

$ readelf -d library.so | grep runpath
 0x000000000000001d (RPATH)            Library rpath: [$ORIGIN]

In the GNU ld.so search strategy, the DT_RPATH has the highest priority, higher than LD_LIBRARY_PATH, so if this later one is set in the environment, it should not interfere with the xPack binaries.

Please note that previous versions, up to mid-2020, used DT_RUNPATH, which has a priority lower than LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and does not tolerate setting it in the environment.

@rpath and @loader_path

Similarly, on macOS, the binaries are adjusted with install_name_tool to use a relative path.

Documentation

The original documentation is available online.

Build

The binaries for all supported platforms (Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux) were built using the xPack Build Box (XBB), a set of build environments based on slightly older distributions, that should be compatible with most recent systems.

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the How to build page.

CI tests

Before publishing, a set of simple tests were performed on an exhaustive set of platforms. The results are available from:

Tests

The binaries were tested on a variety of platforms, but mainly to check the integrity of the build, not the compiler functionality.

Checksums

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

fb4e6880153be89e5614f4b6df151261462b515aa5feaaa715cef8dafbf7a533
xpack-clang-17.0.6-2-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

cb41afc13536acdaf791a23132aad06d040fee5affa0516d98bc8de80a54a759
xpack-clang-17.0.6-2-darwin-x64.tar.gz

5a6563c417cc7c933e41ddafc5fedadfda7746dcf96fbd52c45b8ab3ad67c149
xpack-clang-17.0.6-2-linux-arm.tar.gz

b3cc751926f8be6e77427aab245de2d6de103a4cb3166149b0d40bf9135a0a44
xpack-clang-17.0.6-2-linux-arm64.tar.gz

af5cbe6bb75b9fc32f9526577144d529847afcd64deadc435766cd77397f886e
xpack-clang-17.0.6-2-linux-x64.tar.gz

6e866f3f4463b70bd54fbf743acf3d7027ac005243b57d31cbd4f8408e52e7e3
xpack-clang-17.0.6-2-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices

GNU/Linux minimum requirements

The minimum requirement is GLIBC 2.27, available starting with Ubuntu 18, Debian 10 and RedHat 8. Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022.

32-bit support

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022.

Pre-deprecation notice for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux

Due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems, Support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a little while, but expect it to be dropped by 2025, so it is recommended to consider an upgrade to a RPi 4 or 5 with at least 4 GB (preferably 8 GB) of RAM.

Pre-deprecation notice for Ubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reached the end of the standard five-year maintenance window for Long-Term Support (LTS) release on 31 May 2023.

As a courtesy, the xPack GNU/Linux releases will continue to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 for another year.

From 2025 onwards, the GNU/Linux binaries will be built on Debian 10, (GLIBC 2.28), and are also expected to run on RedHat 8.

Users are urged to update their build and test infrastructure to ensure a smooth transition to the next xPack releases.

Download analytics

Credit to Shields IO for the badges and to Somsubhra/github-release-stats for the individual file counters.