CLANG(1)                             Clang                            CLANG(1)

NAME
       clang - the Clang C, C++, and Objective-C compiler

SYNOPSIS
       clang [options] filename ...

DESCRIPTION
       clang is a C, 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), ".ii" (for C++), ".mi" (for Objective-C), or ".mii"
              (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 parse 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-specific 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.

       Clang Static Analyzer

       The Clang Static Analyzer is a tool that scans source code to try to
       find bugs through code analysis.  This tool uses many parts of Clang
       and is built into the same driver.  Please see
       <https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org> for more details on how to use the
       static analyzer.

OPTIONS
   Stage Selection Options

       -E     Run the preprocessor stage.

       -fsyntax-only
              Run the preprocessor, parser and semantic analysis 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.

   Language Selection and Mode Options

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

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

              Supported values for the C language are:
                 c89
                 c90
                 iso9899:1990

                    ISO C 1990
                 iso9899:199409

                    ISO C 1990 with amendment 1
                 gnu89
                 gnu90

                    ISO C 1990 with GNU extensions
                 c99
                 iso9899:1999

                    ISO C 1999
                 gnu99

                    ISO C 1999 with GNU extensions
                 c11
                 iso9899:2011

                    ISO C 2011
                 gnu11

                    ISO C 2011 with GNU extensions
                 c17
                 iso9899:2017

                    ISO C 2017
                 gnu17

                    ISO C 2017 with GNU extensions

              The default C language standard is gnu17, except on PS4, where
              it is gnu99.

              Supported values for the C++ language are:
                 c++98
                 c++03

                    ISO C++ 1998 with amendments
                 gnu++98
                 gnu++03

                    ISO C++ 1998 with amendments and GNU extensions
                 c++11

                    ISO C++ 2011 with amendments
                 gnu++11

                    ISO C++ 2011 with amendments and GNU extensions
                 c++14

                    ISO C++ 2014 with amendments
                 gnu++14

                    ISO C++ 2014 with amendments and GNU extensions
                 c++17

                    ISO C++ 2017 with amendments
                 gnu++17

                    ISO C++ 2017 with amendments and GNU extensions
                 c++20

                    ISO C++ 2020 with amendments
                 gnu++20

                    ISO C++ 2020 with amendments and GNU extensions
                 c++23

                    ISO C++ 2023 with amendments
                 gnu++23

                    ISO C++ 2023 with amendments and GNU extensions
                 c++2c

                    Working draft for C++2c
                 gnu++2c

                    Working draft for C++2c with GNU extensions

              The default C++ language standard is gnu++98.

              Supported values for the OpenCL language are:
                 cl1.0

                    OpenCL 1.0
                 cl1.1

                    OpenCL 1.1
                 cl1.2

                    OpenCL 1.2
                 cl2.0

                    OpenCL 2.0

              The default OpenCL language standard is cl1.0.

              Supported values for the CUDA language are:
                 cuda

                    NVIDIA CUDA(tm)

       -stdlib=<library>
              Specify the C++ standard library to use; supported options are
              libstdc++ and libc++. If not specified, platform default will be
              used.

       -rtlib=<library>
              Specify the compiler runtime library to use; supported options
              are libgcc and compiler-rt. If not specified, platform default
              will be used.

       -ansi  Same as -std=c89.

       -ObjC, -ObjC++
              Treat source input files as Objective-C and Object-C++ inputs
              respectively.

       -trigraphs
              Enable trigraphs.

       -ffreestanding
              Indicate that the file should be compiled for a freestanding,
              not a hosted, environment. Note that it is assumed that a
              freestanding environment will additionally provide memcpy,
              memmove, memset and memcmp implementations, as these are needed
              for efficient codegen for many programs.

       -fno-builtin
              Disable special handling and optimizations of well-known library
              functions, like strlen() and malloc().

       -fno-builtin-<function>
              Disable special handling and optimizations for the specific
              library function.  For example, -fno-builtin-strlen removes any
              special handling for the strlen() library function.

       -fno-builtin-std-<function>
              Disable special handling and optimizations for the specific C++
              standard library function in namespace std. For example,
              -fno-builtin-std-move_if_noexcept removes any special handling
              for the std::move_if_noexcept() library function.

              For C standard library functions that the C++ standard library
              also provides in namespace std, use -fno-builtin-<function>
              instead.

       -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.

       -fmsc-version=
              Set _MSC_VER. When on Windows, this defaults to either the same
              value as the currently installed version of cl.exe, or 1920. Not
              set otherwise.

       -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, -flax-vector-conversions=<kind>,
       -fno-lax-vector-conversions
              Allow loose type checking rules for implicit vector conversions.
              Possible values of <kind>:

              • none: allow no implicit conversions between vectors

              • integer: allow implicit bitcasts between integer vectors of
                the same overall bit-width

              • all: allow implicit bitcasts between any vectors of the same
                overall bit-width

              <kind> defaults to integer if unspecified.

       -fblocks
              Enable the "Blocks" language feature.

       -fobjc-abi-version=version
              Select the Objective-C ABI version to use. Available versions
              are 1 (legacy "fragile" ABI), 2 (non-fragile ABI 1), and 3
              (non-fragile ABI 2).

       -fobjc-nonfragile-abi-version=<version>
              Select the Objective-C non-fragile ABI version to use by
              default. This will only be used as the Objective-C ABI when the
              non-fragile ABI is enabled (either via -fobjc-nonfragile-abi, or
              because it is the platform default).

       -fobjc-nonfragile-abi, -fno-objc-nonfragile-abi
              Enable use of the Objective-C non-fragile ABI. On platforms for
              which this is the default ABI, it can be disabled with
              -fno-objc-nonfragile-abi.

   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 (Mac OS X specific).

       -target <architecture>
              Specify the architecture to build for (all platforms).

       -mmacosx-version-min=<version>
              When building for macOS, specify the minimum version supported
              by your application.

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

       --print-supported-cpus
              Print out a list of supported processors for the given target
              (specified through --target=<architecture> or -arch
              <architecture>). If no target is specified, the system default
              target will be used.

       -mcpu=?, -mtune=?
              Acts as an alias for --print-supported-cpus.

       -mcpu=help, -mtune=help
              Acts as an alias for --print-supported-cpus.

       -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, -O3, -Ofast, -Os, -Oz, -Og, -O, -O4
              Specify which optimization level to use:
                 -O0 Means "no optimization": this level compiles the fastest
                 and generates the most debuggable code.

                 -O1 Somewhere between -O0 and -O2.

                 -O2 Moderate level of optimization which enables most
                 optimizations.

                 -O3 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).

                 -Ofast Enables all the optimizations from -O3 along with
                 other aggressive optimizations that may violate strict
                 compliance with language standards.

                 -Os Like -O2 with extra optimizations to reduce code size.

                 -Oz Like -Os (and thus -O2), but reduces code size further.

                 -Og Like -O1. In future versions, this option might disable
                 different optimizations in order to improve debuggability.

                 -O Equivalent to -O1.

                 -O4 and higher
                    Currently equivalent to -O3

       -g, -gline-tables-only, -gmodules
              Control debug information output.  Note that Clang debug
              information works best at -O0.  When more than one option
              starting with -g is specified, the last one wins:
                 -g Generate debug information.

                 -gline-tables-only Generate only line table debug
                 information. This allows for symbolicated backtraces with
                 inlining information, but does not include any information
                 about variables, their locations or types.

                 -gmodules Generate debug information that contains external
                 references to types defined in Clang modules or precompiled
                 headers instead of emitting redundant debug type information
                 into every object file.  This option transparently switches
                 the Clang module format to object file containers that hold
                 the Clang module together with the debug information.  When
                 compiling a program that uses Clang modules or precompiled
                 headers, this option produces complete debug information with
                 faster compile times and much smaller object files.

                 This option should not be used when building static libraries
                 for distribution to other machines because the debug info
                 will contain references to the module cache on the machine
                 the object files in the library were built on.

       -fstandalone-debug -fno-standalone-debug
              Clang supports a number of optimizations to reduce the size of
              debug information in the binary. They work based on the
              assumption that the debug type information can be spread out
              over multiple compilation units.  For instance, Clang will not
              emit type definitions for types that are not needed by a module
              and could be replaced with a forward declaration.  Further,
              Clang will only emit type info for a dynamic C++ class in the
              module that contains the vtable for the class.

              The -fstandalone-debug option turns off these optimizations.
              This is useful when working with 3rd-party libraries that don't
              come with debug information.  This is the default on Darwin.
              Note that Clang will never emit type information for types that
              are not referenced at all by the program.

       -feliminate-unused-debug-types
              By default, Clang does not emit type information for types that
              are defined but not used in a program. To retain the debug info
              for these unused types, the negation
              -fno-eliminate-unused-debug-types can be used.

       -fexceptions
              Allow exceptions to be thrown through Clang compiled stack
              frames (on many targets, this will enable unwind information for
              functions that might have an exception thrown through them). For
              most targets, this is enabled by default for C++.

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

       -ftls-model=<model>
              Set the default thread-local storage (TLS) model to use for
              thread-local variables. Valid values are: "global-dynamic",
              "local-dynamic", "initial-exec" and "local-exec". The default is
              "global-dynamic". The default model can be overridden with the
              tls_model attribute. The compiler will try to choose a more
              efficient model if possible.

       -flto, -flto=full, -flto=thin, -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).

              The default for -flto is "full", in which the LLVM bitcode is
              suitable for monolithic Link Time Optimization (LTO), where the
              linker merges all such modules into a single combined module for
              optimization. With "thin", ThinLTO compilation is invoked
              instead.

              NOTE:
                 On Darwin, when using -flto along with -g and compiling and
                 linking in separate steps, you also need to pass
                 -Wl,-object_path_lto,<lto-filename>.o at the linking step to
                 instruct the ld64 linker not to delete the temporary object
                 file generated during Link Time Optimization (this flag is
                 automatically passed to the linker by Clang if compilation
                 and linking are done in a single step). This allows debugging
                 the executable as well as generating the .dSYM bundle using
                 dsymutil(1).

   Driver Options

       -###   Print (but do not run) the commands to run for this compilation.

       --help Display available options.

       -Qunused-arguments
              Do not emit any warnings 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.

       -Xlinker <arg>
              Pass arg to the linker.

       -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 the currently used compiler runtime
              library ("libgcc.a" or "libclang_rt.builtins.*.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.

       -save-stats, -save-stats=cwd, -save-stats=obj
              Save internal code generation (LLVM) statistics to a file in the
              current directory (-save-stats/"-save-stats=cwd") or the
              directory of the output file ("-save-state=obj").

              You can also use environment variables to control the statistics
              reporting.  Setting CC_PRINT_INTERNAL_STAT to 1 enables the
              feature, the report goes to stdout in JSON format.

              Setting CC_PRINT_INTERNAL_STAT_FILE to a file path makes it
              report statistics to the given file in the JSON format.

              Note that -save-stats take precedence over
              CC_PRINT_INTERNAL_STAT and CC_PRINT_INTERNAL_STAT_FILE.

       -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

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

       -U<macroname>
              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.

       -I<directory>
              Add the specified directory to the search path for include
              files.

       -F<directory>
              Add the specified directory to the search path for framework
              include files.

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

       -nostdlibinc
              Do not search the standard system directories for include files,
              but do search compiler builtin include directories.

       -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
              delimiter, 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
       <https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/>.  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>)

COPYRIGHT
       2007-2024, The Clang Team

11                              August 1, 2024                        CLANG(1)