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| <title>Kaleidoscope: Extending the Language: Control Flow</title> |
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| <div class="doc_title">Kaleidoscope: Extending the Language: Control Flow</div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_author"> |
| <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a></p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"><a name="intro">Part 5 Introduction</a></div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>Welcome to Part 5 of the "<a href="index.html">Implementing a language with |
| LLVM</a>" tutorial. Parts 1-4 described the implementation of the simple |
| Kaleidoscope language and included support for generating LLVM IR, following by |
| optimizations and a JIT compiler. Unfortunately, as presented, Kaleidoscope is |
| mostly useless: it has no control flow other than call and return. This means |
| that you can't have conditional branches in the code, significantly limiting its |
| power. In this episode of "build that compiler", we'll extend Kaleidoscope to |
| have an if/then/else expression plus a simple looping construct.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"><a name="ifthen">If/Then/Else</a></div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p> |
| Extending Kaleidoscope to support if/then/else is quite straight-forward. It |
| basically requires adding lexer support for this "new" concept to the lexer, |
| parser, AST, and LLVM code emitter. This example is nice, because it shows how |
| easy it is to "grow" a language over time, incrementally extending it as new |
| ideas are discovered.</p> |
| |
| <p>Before we get going on "how" we do this extension, lets talk about what we |
| want. The basic idea is that we want to be able to write this sort of thing: |
| </p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| def fib(x) |
| if x < 3 then |
| 1 |
| else |
| fib(x-1)+fib(x-2); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>In Kaleidoscope, every construct is an expression: there are no statements. |
| As such, the if/then/else expression needs to return a value like any other. |
| Since we're using a mostly functional form, we'll have it evaluate its |
| conditional, then return the 'then' or 'else' value based on how the condition |
| was resolved. This is very similar to the C "?:" expression.</p> |
| |
| <p>The semantics of the if/then/else expression is that it first evaluates the |
| condition to a boolean equality value: 0.0 is false and everything else is true. |
| If the condition is true, the first subexpression is evaluated and returned, if |
| the condition is false, the second subexpression is evaluated and returned. |
| Since Kaleidoscope allows side-effects, this behavior is important to nail down. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>Now that we know what we want, lets break this down into its constituent |
| pieces.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="iflexer">Lexer Extensions for |
| If/Then/Else</a></div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>The lexer extensions are straight-forward. First we add new enum values |
| for the relevant tokens:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // control |
| tok_if = -6, tok_then = -7, tok_else = -8, |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Once we have that, we recognize the new keywords in the lexer, pretty simple |
| stuff:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| ... |
| if (IdentifierStr == "def") return tok_def; |
| if (IdentifierStr == "extern") return tok_extern; |
| <b>if (IdentifierStr == "if") return tok_if; |
| if (IdentifierStr == "then") return tok_then; |
| if (IdentifierStr == "else") return tok_else;</b> |
| return tok_identifier; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="ifast">AST Extensions for |
| If/Then/Else </a></div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>To represent the new expression we add a new AST node for it:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| /// IfExprAST - Expression class for if/then/else. |
| class IfExprAST : public ExprAST { |
| ExprAST *Cond, *Then, *Else; |
| public: |
| IfExprAST(ExprAST *cond, ExprAST *then, ExprAST *_else) |
| : Cond(cond), Then(then), Else(_else) {} |
| virtual Value *Codegen(); |
| }; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>The AST node just has pointers to the various subexpressions.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="ifparser">Parser Extensions for |
| If/Then/Else </a></div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>Now that we have the relevant tokens coming from the lexer and we have the |
| AST node to build, our parsing logic is relatively straight-forward. First we |
| define a new parsing function:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| /// ifexpr ::= 'if' expression 'then' expression 'else' expression |
| static ExprAST *ParseIfExpr() { |
| getNextToken(); // eat the if. |
| |
| // condition. |
| ExprAST *Cond = ParseExpression(); |
| if (!Cond) return 0; |
| |
| if (CurTok != tok_then) |
| return Error("expected then"); |
| getNextToken(); // eat the then |
| |
| ExprAST *Then = ParseExpression(); |
| if (Then == 0) return 0; |
| |
| if (CurTok != tok_else) |
| return Error("expected else"); |
| |
| getNextToken(); |
| |
| ExprAST *Else = ParseExpression(); |
| if (!Else) return 0; |
| |
| return new IfExprAST(Cond, Then, Else); |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Next we hook it up as a primary expression:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| static ExprAST *ParsePrimary() { |
| switch (CurTok) { |
| default: return Error("unknown token when expecting an expression"); |
| case tok_identifier: return ParseIdentifierExpr(); |
| case tok_number: return ParseNumberExpr(); |
| case '(': return ParseParenExpr(); |
| <b>case tok_if: return ParseIfExpr();</b> |
| } |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="ifir">LLVM IR for If/Then/Else</a></div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>Now that we have it parsing and building the AST, the final piece is adding |
| LLVM code generation support. This is the most interesting part of the |
| if/then/else example, because this is where it starts to introduce new concepts. |
| All of the code above has been described in previous chapters fairly thoroughly. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>To motivate the code we want to produce, lets take a look at a simple |
| example. Consider:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| extern foo(); |
| extern bar(); |
| def baz(x) if x then foo() else bar(); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>If you disable optimizations, the code you'll (soon) get from Kaleidoscope |
| looks like this:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| declare double @foo() |
| |
| declare double @bar() |
| |
| define double @baz(double %x) { |
| entry: |
| %ifcond = fcmp one double %x, 0.000000e+00 |
| br i1 %ifcond, label %then, label %else |
| |
| then: ; preds = %entry |
| %calltmp = call double @foo() |
| br label %ifcont |
| |
| else: ; preds = %entry |
| %calltmp1 = call double @bar() |
| br label %ifcont |
| |
| ifcont: ; preds = %else, %then |
| %iftmp = phi double [ %calltmp, %then ], [ %calltmp1, %else ] |
| ret double %iftmp |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>To visualize the control flow graph, you can use a nifty feature of the LLVM |
| '<a href="http://llvm.org/cmds/opt.html">opt</a>' tool. If you put this LLVM IR |
| into "t.ll" and run "<tt>llvm-as < t.ll | opt -analyze -view-cfg</tt>", <a |
| href="../ProgrammersManual.html#ViewGraph">a window will pop up</a> and you'll |
| see this graph:</p> |
| |
| <center><img src="LangImpl5-cfg.png" alt="Example CFG" width="423" |
| height="315"></center> |
| |
| <p>Another way to get this is to call "<tt>F->viewCFG()</tt>" or |
| "<tt>F->viewCFGOnly()</tt>" (where F is a "<tt>Function*</tt>") either by |
| inserting actual calls into the code and recompiling or by calling these in the |
| debugger. LLVM has many nice features for visualizing various graphs.</p> |
| |
| <p>Coming back to the generated code, it is fairly simple: the entry block |
| evaluates the conditional expression ("x" in our case here) and compares the |
| result to 0.0 with the "<tt><a href="../LangRef.html#i_fcmp">fcmp</a> one</tt>" |
| instruction ('one' is "ordered and not equal"). Based on the result of this |
| expression, the code jumps to either the "then" or "else" blocks, which contain |
| the expressions for the true/false case.</p> |
| |
| <p>Once the then/else blocks is finished executing, they both branch back to the |
| else block to execute the code that happens after the if/then/else. In this |
| case the only thing left to do is to return to the caller of the function. The |
| question then becomes: how does the code know which expression to return?</p> |
| |
| <p>The answer to this question involves an important SSA operation: the |
| <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single_assignment_form">Phi |
| operation</a>. If you're not familiar with SSA, <a |
| href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single_assignment_form">the wikipedia |
| article</a> is a good introduction and there are various other introductions to |
| it available on your favorite search engine. The short version is that |
| "execution" of the Phi operation requires "remembering" which block control came |
| from. The Phi operation takes on the value corresponding to the input control |
| block. In this case, if control comes in from the "then" block, it gets the |
| value of "calltmp". If control comes from the "else" block, it gets the value |
| of "calltmp1".</p> |
| |
| <p>At this point, you are probably starting to think "on no! this means my |
| simple and elegant front-end will have to start generating SSA form in order to |
| use LLVM!". Fortunately, this is not the case, and we strongly advise |
| <em>not</em> implementing an SSA construction algorithm in your front-end |
| unless there is an amazingly good reason to do so. In practice, there are two |
| sorts of values that float around in code written in your average imperative |
| programming language that might need Phi nodes:</p> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li>Code that involves user variables: <tt>x = 1; x = x + 1; </tt></li> |
| <li>Values that are implicit in the structure of your AST, such as the phi node |
| in this case.</li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <p>At a future point in this tutorial ("mutable variables"), we'll talk about #1 |
| in depth. For now, just believe me that you don't need SSA construction to |
| handle them. For #2, you have the choice of using the techniques that we will |
| describe for #1, or you can insert Phi nodes directly if convenient. In this |
| case, it is really really easy to generate the Phi node, so we choose to do it |
| directly.</p> |
| |
| <p>Okay, enough of the motivation and overview, lets generate code!</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="ifcodegen">Code Generation for |
| If/Then/Else</a></div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>In order to generate code for this, we implement the <tt>Codegen</tt> method |
| for <tt>IfExprAST</tt>:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| Value *IfExprAST::Codegen() { |
| Value *CondV = Cond->Codegen(); |
| if (CondV == 0) return 0; |
| |
| // Convert condition to a bool by comparing equal to 0.0. |
| CondV = Builder.CreateFCmpONE(CondV, |
| ConstantFP::get(Type::DoubleTy, APFloat(0.0)), |
| "ifcond"); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>This code is straight-forward and similar to what we saw before. We emit the |
| expression for the condition, then compare that value to zero to get a truth |
| value as a 1-bit (bool) value.</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| Function *TheFunction = Builder.GetInsertBlock()->getParent(); |
| |
| // Create blocks for the then and else cases. Insert the 'then' block at the |
| // end of the function. |
| BasicBlock *ThenBB = new BasicBlock("then", TheFunction); |
| BasicBlock *ElseBB = new BasicBlock("else"); |
| BasicBlock *MergeBB = new BasicBlock("ifcont"); |
| |
| Builder.CreateCondBr(CondV, ThenBB, ElseBB); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>This code creates the basic blocks that are related to the if/then/else |
| statement, and correspond directly to the blocks in the example above. The |
| first line of this gets the current Function object that is being built. It |
| gets this by asking the builder for the current BasicBlock, and asking that |
| block for its "parent" (the function it is currently embedded into).</p> |
| |
| <p>Once it has that, it creates three blocks. Note that it passes "TheFunction" |
| into the constructor for the "then" block. This causes the constructor to |
| automatically insert the new block onto the end of the specified function. The |
| other two blocks are created, but aren't yet inserted into the function.</p> |
| |
| <p>Once the blocks are created, we can emit the conditional branch that chooses |
| between them. Note that creating new blocks does not implicitly affect the |
| LLVMBuilder, so it is still inserting into the block that the condition |
| went into. Also note that it is creating a branch to the "then" block and the |
| "else" block, even though the "else" block isn't inserted into the function yet. |
| This is all ok: it is the standard way that LLVM supports forward |
| references.</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // Emit then value. |
| Builder.SetInsertPoint(ThenBB); |
| |
| Value *ThenV = Then->Codegen(); |
| if (ThenV == 0) return 0; |
| |
| Builder.CreateBr(MergeBB); |
| // Codegen of 'Then' can change the current block, update ThenBB for the PHI. |
| ThenBB = Builder.GetInsertBlock(); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>After the conditional branch is inserted, we move the builder to start |
| inserting into the "then" block. Strictly speaking, this call moves the |
| insertion point to be at the end of the specified block. However, since the |
| "then" block is empty, it also starts out by inserting at the beginning of the |
| block. :)</p> |
| |
| <p>Once the insertion point is set, we recursively codegen the "then" expression |
| from the AST. To finish off the then block, we create an unconditional branch |
| to the merge block. One interesting (and very important) aspect of the LLVM IR |
| is that it <a href="../LangRef.html#functionstructure">requires all basic blocks |
| to be "terminated"</a> with a <a href="../LangRef.html#terminators">control flow |
| instruction</a> such as return or branch. This means that all control flow, |
| <em>including fall throughs</em> must be made explicit in the LLVM IR. If you |
| violate this rule, the verifier will emit an error.</p> |
| |
| <p>The final line here is quite subtle, but is very important. The basic issue |
| is that when we create the Phi node in the merge block, we need to set up the |
| block/value pairs that indicate how the Phi will work. Importantly, the Phi |
| node expects to have an extry for each predecessor of the block in the CFG. Why |
| then are we getting the current block when we just set it to ThenBB 5 lines |
| above? The problem is that the "Then" expression may actually itself change the |
| block that the Builder is emitting into if, for example, it contains a nested |
| "if/then/else" expression. Because calling Codegen recursively could |
| arbitrarily change the notion of the current block, we are required to get an |
| up-to-date value for code that will set up the Phi node.</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // Emit else block. |
| TheFunction->getBasicBlockList().push_back(ElseBB); |
| Builder.SetInsertPoint(ElseBB); |
| |
| Value *ElseV = Else->Codegen(); |
| if (ElseV == 0) return 0; |
| |
| Builder.CreateBr(MergeBB); |
| // Codegen of 'Else' can change the current block, update ElseBB for the PHI. |
| ElseBB = Builder.GetInsertBlock(); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Code generation for the 'else' block is basically identical to codegen for |
| the 'then' block. The only significant difference is the first line, which adds |
| the 'else' block to the function. Recall previously that the 'else' block was |
| created, but not added to the function. Now that the 'then' and 'else' blocks |
| are emitted, we can finish up with the merge code:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // Emit merge block. |
| TheFunction->getBasicBlockList().push_back(MergeBB); |
| Builder.SetInsertPoint(MergeBB); |
| PHINode *PN = Builder.CreatePHI(Type::DoubleTy, "iftmp"); |
| |
| PN->addIncoming(ThenV, ThenBB); |
| PN->addIncoming(ElseV, ElseBB); |
| return PN; |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>The first two lines here are now familiar: the first adds the "merge" block |
| to the Function object (it was previously floating, like the else block above). |
| The second block changes the insertion point so that newly created code will go |
| into the "merge" block. Once that is done, we need to create the PHI node and |
| set up the block/value pairs for the PHI.</p> |
| |
| <p>Finally, the CodeGen function returns the phi node as the value computed by |
| the if/then/else expression. In our example above, this returned value will |
| feed into the code for the top-level function, which will create the return |
| instruction.</p> |
| |
| <p>Overall, we now have the ability to execution conditional code in |
| Kaleidoscope. With this extension, Kaleidoscope is a fairly complete language |
| that can calculate a wide variety of numeric functions. Next up we'll add |
| another useful expression that is familiar from non-functional languages...</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"><a name="for">'for' Loop Expression</a></div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>...</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"><a name="code">Full Code Listing</a></div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p> |
| Here is the complete code listing for our running example, enhanced with the |
| if/then/else and for expressions.. To build this example, use: |
| </p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| # Compile |
| g++ -g toy.cpp `llvm-config --cppflags --ldflags --libs core jit native` -O3 -o toy |
| # Run |
| ./toy |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Here is the code:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| ... |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <hr> |
| <address> |
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| <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a><br> |
| <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br> |
| Last modified: $Date: 2007-10-17 11:05:13 -0700 (Wed, 17 Oct 2007) $ |
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