Project Stage 1 

Introduction to Configuring and Building GCC for AArch64

Setting up a local installation of GCC is the first step before delving into the finer points of the GCC codebase. The official installation instructions can be found here, but I've included a condensed version of the steps below.

Copying the Source Code

Clone the GCC source code repository in order to get started. Using an open terminal, type the following command:

git clone git://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git

Setting Up the Build Directory

It's important to create separate directories for different builds to maintain a clean and organized workflow. Execute the following commands to create and navigate to your build directory:

mkdir ./gcc-build-001
cd ./gcc-build-001

Configuring the Local Installation
In your new build directory, configure the build process by specifying a custom installation path. Replace /path/to/install/gcc with your desired installation location:

~/gcc/configure --prefix=$HOME/gcc-build-001

Leveraging Parallel Compilation
To speed up the build process, you can utilize multiple CPU cores. First, check the number of available cores using tools like icpu or btop. Then, compile using the make command with parallel jobs:
I run 9 cores using the command below:
time make -j 9

The results on both system are like this, it took a lot of time to build the code by running the command:





Examining the Codebase for GCC

The vast GCC codebase can be intimidating to navigate. Nonetheless, comprehensive documentation is offered to assist you. 
Though some of the information may be out of date, the GCC online documentation is a useful place to start. 
The basic ideas are still applicable and beneficial.

Knowledge of Compilation Passes

In GCC, several stages of code translation and optimization are managed by compilation passes. 
To get the results you want, you can mix and match these passes. For example, the optimization level is specified by the -O flag:

gcc helloworld.c -O3 -o hello
Locating Important Files
To work with compilation passes and arguments, you need to familiarize yourself with several key files in the GCC source:
Options Definition: gcc/common.opt - This file contains the options that GCC recognizes. It’s where you would add new flags for your project.
Pass Definitions: gcc/passes.def, gcc/passes.c, and gcc/tree-pass.h - These files define and manage the various compilation passes.
In summary

The following phases of this research are built upon this in-depth analysis of the GCC build process and codebase. I look forward to providing additional information and updates as I work on enabling AFMV for AArch64 platforms.