Clang Compiler Frontend: Get to grips with the internals of a C/C++ compiler frontend and create your own tools

Clang’s frontend is more than the part of a compiler that reports errors: it exposes the structure and meaning of C++ code in ways developers can put to work. In Clang Compiler Frontend, Ivan Murashko takes experienced C++ programmers inside that machinery, then shows how to build practical tools with it.

The book moves from LLVM and Clang fundamentals to the AST, code analysis, linting, and refactoring. Its emphasis is on understanding how the pieces fit together—and using that understanding to create tools of your own.

Start with LLVM, then follow Clang’s workflow

The opening chapters introduce the LLVM project, environment setup, and compiler architecture. From there, the discussion follows Clang’s driver and frontend and explores how source code is represented as an abstract syntax tree. That groundwork helps make the later tool-building material easier to follow.

Make the AST useful

Murashko covers AST traversal, recursive visitors, AST matchers, and clang-query. These topics offer different ways to inspect C++ programs, giving readers a foundation for finding patterns in source code and responding to them in their own tools.

Build checks and refactoring tools

The practical focus continues with LLVM and Clang libraries, a Clang plugin project, custom Clang-Tidy checks, and static analysis using control-flow graphs. The book also explores code modification and refactoring tools, connecting compiler internals to tasks developers may want to automate in a codebase.

For C++ engineers exploring compiler internals

This book is intended for experienced C++ software engineers who want to learn how Clang works without first having a background in compiler design. It is especially relevant to developers curious about static analysis, custom lint checks, AST-based tooling, and refactoring with Clang and LLVM.