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Suppose I have a software and I want to make cross-plataform plugins. You compile the plugin for a virtual machine, and any platform running my software would be able to run this code.
I am wondering if it is possible to use LLVM interpreter and bytecode for this purpose. Also, I am wondering if does make sense using LLVM for this purpose instead of something else, i.e. is it what LLVM was made for?
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LLVM provides an interpreter tool lli which is capable of interpreting LLVM bitcode and JIT compiler using both aforementioned Execution Engine.
LLVM helps build new computer languages and improve existing languages. It automates many of the difficult and unpleasant tasks involved in language creation, such as porting the outputted code to multiple platforms and architectures.
LLVM IR can be cross-platform, with the obvious exceptions others have listed. However, that does not mean Clang generates cross-platform code. As you note, the preprocessor is almost universally used to only pass parts of the code to the C/C++ compiler, depending on the platform.
LLVM isn't a virtual machine. LLVM is not a virtual machine. It's a compiler infrastructure.
There is VMIR (https://github.com/andoma/vmir) which is a LLVM bitcode interpreter / JIT engine that's intended to be embedded into other apps.
Disclaimer: I'm the author of it and it's still work-in-progress but works reasonable well.
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