EVM LLVM Compiler in Go

A high-performance EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) bytecode compiler that translates EVM bytecode to LLVM IR and native machine code using Go and LLVM.

Note: The code is in an experimental stage!

Features

• Complete EVM Bytecode Parser: Supports all standard EVM opcodes, including arithmetic, bitwise, comparison, stack, memory, storage, and control flow operations
• LLVM IR Generation: Translates EVM bytecode to optimized LLVM intermediate representation
• Stack Management: Efficient EVM stack simulation using LLVM uint256 and Go uint256 exchangeably
• Memory Operations: Full support for EVM memory operations (MLOAD, MSTORE, MSTORE8)
• Control Flow: Proper handling of jumps, conditional jumps, and jump destinations
• Optimization Passes: Built-in LLVM optimization pipeline
• Multiple Output Formats: Generate LLVM IR (.ll), object files (.o), and assembly (.asm)

Usage

Running Tests

# Run all tests
go test -v

# Run benchmarks (use taskset to enhance reproducibility)
taskset -c 0 go test -bench=.

# Test specific functionality
go test -run TestEVMCompilerBasic

Implementation Details

Stack Management

The EVM stack is implemented as an LLVM array of 256-bit integers, which has the same memory layout as uint256 in Golang (on a little-endian machine). Stack operations are compiled to efficient LLVM load/store instructions with bounds checking. This is also fully compatible with the Geth opcode interpreter with slight changes.

Memory Model

EVM memory is represented as a byte array with dynamic expansion using pure host functions. Enhanced execution with native memory code is under development.

Control Flow

Jump instructions are compiled to LLVM branch instructions. The compiler will analyze the target of a jump during compile time. If the static jump target is unknown, it maintains a dispatch loop that handles dynamic jumps efficiently.

Optimization

The compiler applies standard LLVM optimizations, including:

• Dead code elimination
• Constant propagation
• Control flow simplification
• Instruction combining

Dependencies

• Go 1.23.1+ with CGO
• LLVM14+ (via tinygo.org/x/go-llvm)

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Add tests for new functionality
4. Ensure all tests pass
5. Submit a pull request

Future Enhancements

• Advanced optimization passes
• Debugger integration
• Profiling and tracing support
• Formal verification capabilities
• Gas metering integration
• Precompiled contracts support
• Dynamic memory growth
• Missing OPCODEs
  • SHL, SHR, SAR support
  • SDIV, SMOD support
  • ADDMOD, MULMOD support
  • SIGNEXTEND supoort
  • EXP support
  • MSTORE8/MLOAD8 support
  • SLOAD/SSTORE support
  • CALL/CREATE support
    • RETURNDATASIZE/RETURNDATACOPY
  • CODESIZE/CODECOPY/EXTCODESIZE/EXCCODECOPY
  • BLOCKHASH/COINBASSE/TIMESTAMP/NUMBER/PREVRANDAO/GASLIMIT/CHAINID/SELFBALANCE/BASEFEE
  • LOG0/LOG1/LOG2/LOG3/LOG4
  • ALLDATALOAD/CALLDATASIZE/CALLDATACOPY
  • ADDRESS/BALANCE/ORIGIN/CALLER/CALLVALUE/GASPRICE
• Fork support