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Using the Python Bindings

If you are mainly interested in using CIRCT from Python scripts, you need to compile both LLVM/MLIR and CIRCT with Python bindings enabled. Furthermore, you must use a unified build, where LLVM/MLIR and CIRCT are compiled together in one step.

CIRCT also includes an experimental, opinionated frontend for CIRCT's Python bindings, called PyCDE.

Installing and Building with Wheels

CIRCT provides a setup.py script that take care of configuring and building LLVM/MLIR, CIRCT, and CIRCT's Python bindings. You can install the CIRCT Python bindings with the pip install command:

$ cd circt
$ pip install lib/Bindings/Python

If you just want to build the wheel, use the pip wheel command:

$ cd circt
$ pip wheel lib/Bindings/Python

This will create a circt_core-<version>-<python version>-<platform>.whl file in the root of the repo.

There are some environment variables you can set to control the script. These should be prefixed to the above command(s), or exported in your shell.

To specify an existing CMake build directory, you can set CIRCT_CMAKE_BUILD_DIR:

export CIRCT_CMAKE_BUILD_DIR=/path/to/your/build/dir

To specify an alternate LLVM directory, you can set CIRCT_LLVM_DIR:

export CIRCT_LLVM_DIR=/path/to/your/llvm

Finally, you can set other environment variables to control CMake. By default, the script uses the same settings as Manual Compilation below. It is recommended to use Ninja and CCache, which can be accomplished with:

export CMAKE_GENERATOR=Ninja CMAKE_C_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache

All other CMake environment variables can also be used.

Manual Compilation

To manually compile LLVM/MLIR, CIRCT, and CIRCT's Python bindings, you can use a single CMake invocation like this:

$ cd circt
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -G Ninja ../llvm/llvm \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
    -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS=mlir \
    -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=ON \
    -DLLVM_EXTERNAL_PROJECTS=circt \
    -DLLVM_EXTERNAL_CIRCT_SOURCE_DIR=.. \
    -DMLIR_ENABLE_BINDINGS_PYTHON=ON \
    -DCIRCT_BINDINGS_PYTHON_ENABLED=ON

Afterwards, use ninja check-circt-integration to ensure that the bindings work. (This will now additionally spin up a couple of Python scripts to test that they are accessible.)

Without Installation

If you want to try the bindings fresh from the compiler without installation, you need to ensure Python can find the generated modules:

export PYTHONPATH="$PWD/llvm/build/tools/circt/python_packages/circt_core"

With Installation

If you are installing CIRCT through ninja install anyway, the libraries and Python modules will be installed into the correct location automatically.

Trying things out

Now you are able to use the CIRCT dialects and infrastructure from a Python interpreter and script:

# silicon.py
import circt
from circt.ir import Context, InsertionPoint, IntegerType, Location, Module
from circt.dialects import hw, comb

with Context() as ctx, Location.unknown():
  circt.register_dialects(ctx)
  i42 = IntegerType.get_signless(42)
  m = Module.create()
  with InsertionPoint(m.body):

    def magic(module):
      xor = comb.XorOp.create(module.a, module.b)
      return {"c": xor}

    hw.HWModuleOp(name="magic",
                  input_ports=[("a", i42), ("b", i42)],
                  output_ports=[("c", i42)],
                  body_builder=magic)
  print(m)

Running this script through python3 silicon.py should print the following MLIR:

module {
  hw.module @magic(%a: i42, %b: i42) -> (c: i42) {
    %0 = comb.xor %a, %b : i42
    hw.output %0 : i42
  }
}

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