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| <h1> |
| The LLVM Target-Independent Code Generator |
| </h1> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#required">Required components in the code generator</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#high-level-design">The high-level design of the code |
| generator</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#tablegen">Using TableGen for target description</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li><a href="#targetdesc">Target description classes</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#targetmachine">The <tt>TargetMachine</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetdata">The <tt>TargetData</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetlowering">The <tt>TargetLowering</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetregisterinfo">The <tt>TargetRegisterInfo</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetinstrinfo">The <tt>TargetInstrInfo</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetframeinfo">The <tt>TargetFrameInfo</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetsubtarget">The <tt>TargetSubtarget</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#targetjitinfo">The <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> class</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li><a href="#codegendesc">The "Machine" Code Generator classes</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#machineinstr">The <tt>MachineInstr</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#machinebasicblock">The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> |
| class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#machinefunction">The <tt>MachineFunction</tt> class</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li><a href="#mc">The "MC" Layer</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#mcstreamer">The <tt>MCStreamer</tt> API</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mccontext">The <tt>MCContext</tt> class</a> |
| <li><a href="#mcsymbol">The <tt>MCSymbol</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mcsection">The <tt>MCSection</tt> class</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mcinst">The <tt>MCInst</tt> class</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li><a href="#codegenalgs">Target-independent code generation algorithms</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#instselect">Instruction Selection</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_intro">Introduction to SelectionDAGs</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_process">SelectionDAG Code Generation |
| Process</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_build">Initial SelectionDAG |
| Construction</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_legalize_types">SelectionDAG LegalizeTypes Phase</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_legalize">SelectionDAG Legalize Phase</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">SelectionDAG Optimization |
| Phase: the DAG Combiner</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_select">SelectionDAG Select Phase</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_sched">SelectionDAG Scheduling and Formation |
| Phase</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_future">Future directions for the |
| SelectionDAG</a></li> |
| </ul></li> |
| <li><a href="#liveintervals">Live Intervals</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#livevariable_analysis">Live Variable Analysis</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#liveintervals_analysis">Live Intervals Analysis</a></li> |
| </ul></li> |
| <li><a href="#regalloc">Register Allocation</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#regAlloc_represent">How registers are represented in |
| LLVM</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#regAlloc_howTo">Mapping virtual registers to physical |
| registers</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#regAlloc_twoAddr">Handling two address instructions</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#regAlloc_ssaDecon">The SSA deconstruction phase</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#regAlloc_fold">Instruction folding</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#regAlloc_builtIn">Built in register allocators</a></li> |
| </ul></li> |
| <li><a href="#codeemit">Code Emission</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li><a href="#nativeassembler">Implementing a Native Assembler</a></li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#targetimpls">Target-specific Implementation Notes</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#targetfeatures">Target Feature Matrix</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#tailcallopt">Tail call optimization</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#sibcallopt">Sibling call optimization</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#x86">The X86 backend</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#ppc">The PowerPC backend</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#ppc_abi">LLVM PowerPC ABI</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#ppc_frame">Frame Layout</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#ppc_prolog">Prolog/Epilog</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#ppc_dynamic">Dynamic Allocation</a></li> |
| </ul></li> |
| </ul></li> |
| |
| </ol> |
| |
| <div class="doc_author"> |
| <p>Written by the LLVM Team.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_warning"> |
| <p>Warning: This is a work in progress.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="introduction">Introduction</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The LLVM target-independent code generator is a framework that provides a |
| suite of reusable components for translating the LLVM internal representation |
| to the machine code for a specified target—either in assembly form |
| (suitable for a static compiler) or in binary machine code format (usable for |
| a JIT compiler). The LLVM target-independent code generator consists of six |
| main components:</p> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="#targetdesc">Abstract target description</a> interfaces which |
| capture important properties about various aspects of the machine, |
| independently of how they will be used. These interfaces are defined in |
| <tt>include/llvm/Target/</tt>.</li> |
| |
| <li>Classes used to represent the <a href="#codegendesc">code being |
| generated</a> for a target. These classes are intended to be abstract |
| enough to represent the machine code for <i>any</i> target machine. These |
| classes are defined in <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/</tt>. At this level, |
| concepts like "constant pool entries" and "jump tables" are explicitly |
| exposed.</li> |
| |
| <li>Classes and algorithms used to represent code as the object file level, |
| the <a href="#mc">MC Layer</a>. These classes represent assembly level |
| constructs like labels, sections, and instructions. At this level, |
| concepts like "constant pool entries" and "jump tables" don't exist.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#codegenalgs">Target-independent algorithms</a> used to implement |
| various phases of native code generation (register allocation, scheduling, |
| stack frame representation, etc). This code lives |
| in <tt>lib/CodeGen/</tt>.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#targetimpls">Implementations of the abstract target description |
| interfaces</a> for particular targets. These machine descriptions make |
| use of the components provided by LLVM, and can optionally provide custom |
| target-specific passes, to build complete code generators for a specific |
| target. Target descriptions live in <tt>lib/Target/</tt>.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#jit">The target-independent JIT components</a>. The LLVM JIT is |
| completely target independent (it uses the <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> |
| structure to interface for target-specific issues. The code for the |
| target-independent JIT lives in <tt>lib/ExecutionEngine/JIT</tt>.</li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <p>Depending on which part of the code generator you are interested in working |
| on, different pieces of this will be useful to you. In any case, you should |
| be familiar with the <a href="#targetdesc">target description</a> |
| and <a href="#codegendesc">machine code representation</a> classes. If you |
| want to add a backend for a new target, you will need |
| to <a href="#targetimpls">implement the target description</a> classes for |
| your new target and understand the <a href="LangRef.html">LLVM code |
| representation</a>. If you are interested in implementing a |
| new <a href="#codegenalgs">code generation algorithm</a>, it should only |
| depend on the target-description and machine code representation classes, |
| ensuring that it is portable.</p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="required">Required components in the code generator</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The two pieces of the LLVM code generator are the high-level interface to the |
| code generator and the set of reusable components that can be used to build |
| target-specific backends. The two most important interfaces |
| (<a href="#targetmachine"><tt>TargetMachine</tt></a> |
| and <a href="#targetdata"><tt>TargetData</tt></a>) are the only ones that are |
| required to be defined for a backend to fit into the LLVM system, but the |
| others must be defined if the reusable code generator components are going to |
| be used.</p> |
| |
| <p>This design has two important implications. The first is that LLVM can |
| support completely non-traditional code generation targets. For example, the |
| C backend does not require register allocation, instruction selection, or any |
| of the other standard components provided by the system. As such, it only |
| implements these two interfaces, and does its own thing. Another example of |
| a code generator like this is a (purely hypothetical) backend that converts |
| LLVM to the GCC RTL form and uses GCC to emit machine code for a target.</p> |
| |
| <p>This design also implies that it is possible to design and implement |
| radically different code generators in the LLVM system that do not make use |
| of any of the built-in components. Doing so is not recommended at all, but |
| could be required for radically different targets that do not fit into the |
| LLVM machine description model: FPGAs for example.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="high-level-design">The high-level design of the code generator</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The LLVM target-independent code generator is designed to support efficient |
| and quality code generation for standard register-based microprocessors. |
| Code generation in this model is divided into the following stages:</p> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li><b><a href="#instselect">Instruction Selection</a></b> — This phase |
| determines an efficient way to express the input LLVM code in the target |
| instruction set. This stage produces the initial code for the program in |
| the target instruction set, then makes use of virtual registers in SSA |
| form and physical registers that represent any required register |
| assignments due to target constraints or calling conventions. This step |
| turns the LLVM code into a DAG of target instructions.</li> |
| |
| <li><b><a href="#selectiondag_sched">Scheduling and Formation</a></b> — |
| This phase takes the DAG of target instructions produced by the |
| instruction selection phase, determines an ordering of the instructions, |
| then emits the instructions |
| as <tt><a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a></tt>s with that ordering. |
| Note that we describe this in the <a href="#instselect">instruction |
| selection section</a> because it operates on |
| a <a href="#selectiondag_intro">SelectionDAG</a>.</li> |
| |
| <li><b><a href="#ssamco">SSA-based Machine Code Optimizations</a></b> — |
| This optional stage consists of a series of machine-code optimizations |
| that operate on the SSA-form produced by the instruction selector. |
| Optimizations like modulo-scheduling or peephole optimization work |
| here.</li> |
| |
| <li><b><a href="#regalloc">Register Allocation</a></b> — The target code |
| is transformed from an infinite virtual register file in SSA form to the |
| concrete register file used by the target. This phase introduces spill |
| code and eliminates all virtual register references from the program.</li> |
| |
| <li><b><a href="#proepicode">Prolog/Epilog Code Insertion</a></b> — Once |
| the machine code has been generated for the function and the amount of |
| stack space required is known (used for LLVM alloca's and spill slots), |
| the prolog and epilog code for the function can be inserted and "abstract |
| stack location references" can be eliminated. This stage is responsible |
| for implementing optimizations like frame-pointer elimination and stack |
| packing.</li> |
| |
| <li><b><a href="#latemco">Late Machine Code Optimizations</a></b> — |
| Optimizations that operate on "final" machine code can go here, such as |
| spill code scheduling and peephole optimizations.</li> |
| |
| <li><b><a href="#codeemit">Code Emission</a></b> — The final stage |
| actually puts out the code for the current function, either in the target |
| assembler format or in machine code.</li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <p>The code generator is based on the assumption that the instruction selector |
| will use an optimal pattern matching selector to create high-quality |
| sequences of native instructions. Alternative code generator designs based |
| on pattern expansion and aggressive iterative peephole optimization are much |
| slower. This design permits efficient compilation (important for JIT |
| environments) and aggressive optimization (used when generating code offline) |
| by allowing components of varying levels of sophistication to be used for any |
| step of compilation.</p> |
| |
| <p>In addition to these stages, target implementations can insert arbitrary |
| target-specific passes into the flow. For example, the X86 target uses a |
| special pass to handle the 80x87 floating point stack architecture. Other |
| targets with unusual requirements can be supported with custom passes as |
| needed.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="tablegen">Using TableGen for target description</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The target description classes require a detailed description of the target |
| architecture. These target descriptions often have a large amount of common |
| information (e.g., an <tt>add</tt> instruction is almost identical to a |
| <tt>sub</tt> instruction). In order to allow the maximum amount of |
| commonality to be factored out, the LLVM code generator uses |
| the <a href="TableGenFundamentals.html">TableGen</a> tool to describe big |
| chunks of the target machine, which allows the use of domain-specific and |
| target-specific abstractions to reduce the amount of repetition.</p> |
| |
| <p>As LLVM continues to be developed and refined, we plan to move more and more |
| of the target description to the <tt>.td</tt> form. Doing so gives us a |
| number of advantages. The most important is that it makes it easier to port |
| LLVM because it reduces the amount of C++ code that has to be written, and |
| the surface area of the code generator that needs to be understood before |
| someone can get something working. Second, it makes it easier to change |
| things. In particular, if tables and other things are all emitted |
| by <tt>tblgen</tt>, we only need a change in one place (<tt>tblgen</tt>) to |
| update all of the targets to a new interface.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="targetdesc">Target description classes</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The LLVM target description classes (located in the |
| <tt>include/llvm/Target</tt> directory) provide an abstract description of |
| the target machine independent of any particular client. These classes are |
| designed to capture the <i>abstract</i> properties of the target (such as the |
| instructions and registers it has), and do not incorporate any particular |
| pieces of code generation algorithms.</p> |
| |
| <p>All of the target description classes (except the |
| <tt><a href="#targetdata">TargetData</a></tt> class) are designed to be |
| subclassed by the concrete target implementation, and have virtual methods |
| implemented. To get to these implementations, the |
| <tt><a href="#targetmachine">TargetMachine</a></tt> class provides accessors |
| that should be implemented by the target.</p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetmachine">The <tt>TargetMachine</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetMachine</tt> class provides virtual methods that are used to |
| access the target-specific implementations of the various target description |
| classes via the <tt>get*Info</tt> methods (<tt>getInstrInfo</tt>, |
| <tt>getRegisterInfo</tt>, <tt>getFrameInfo</tt>, etc.). This class is |
| designed to be specialized by a concrete target implementation |
| (e.g., <tt>X86TargetMachine</tt>) which implements the various virtual |
| methods. The only required target description class is |
| the <a href="#targetdata"><tt>TargetData</tt></a> class, but if the code |
| generator components are to be used, the other interfaces should be |
| implemented as well.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetdata">The <tt>TargetData</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetData</tt> class is the only required target description class, |
| and it is the only class that is not extensible (you cannot derived a new |
| class from it). <tt>TargetData</tt> specifies information about how the |
| target lays out memory for structures, the alignment requirements for various |
| data types, the size of pointers in the target, and whether the target is |
| little-endian or big-endian.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetlowering">The <tt>TargetLowering</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetLowering</tt> class is used by SelectionDAG based instruction |
| selectors primarily to describe how LLVM code should be lowered to |
| SelectionDAG operations. Among other things, this class indicates:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>an initial register class to use for various <tt>ValueType</tt>s,</li> |
| |
| <li>which operations are natively supported by the target machine,</li> |
| |
| <li>the return type of <tt>setcc</tt> operations,</li> |
| |
| <li>the type to use for shift amounts, and</li> |
| |
| <li>various high-level characteristics, like whether it is profitable to turn |
| division by a constant into a multiplication sequence</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetregisterinfo">The <tt>TargetRegisterInfo</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetRegisterInfo</tt> class is used to describe the register file |
| of the target and any interactions between the registers.</p> |
| |
| <p>Registers in the code generator are represented in the code generator by |
| unsigned integers. Physical registers (those that actually exist in the |
| target description) are unique small numbers, and virtual registers are |
| generally large. Note that register #0 is reserved as a flag value.</p> |
| |
| <p>Each register in the processor description has an associated |
| <tt>TargetRegisterDesc</tt> entry, which provides a textual name for the |
| register (used for assembly output and debugging dumps) and a set of aliases |
| (used to indicate whether one register overlaps with another).</p> |
| |
| <p>In addition to the per-register description, the <tt>TargetRegisterInfo</tt> |
| class exposes a set of processor specific register classes (instances of the |
| <tt>TargetRegisterClass</tt> class). Each register class contains sets of |
| registers that have the same properties (for example, they are all 32-bit |
| integer registers). Each SSA virtual register created by the instruction |
| selector has an associated register class. When the register allocator runs, |
| it replaces virtual registers with a physical register in the set.</p> |
| |
| <p>The target-specific implementations of these classes is auto-generated from |
| a <a href="TableGenFundamentals.html">TableGen</a> description of the |
| register file.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetinstrinfo">The <tt>TargetInstrInfo</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetInstrInfo</tt> class is used to describe the machine |
| instructions supported by the target. It is essentially an array of |
| <tt>TargetInstrDescriptor</tt> objects, each of which describes one |
| instruction the target supports. Descriptors define things like the mnemonic |
| for the opcode, the number of operands, the list of implicit register uses |
| and defs, whether the instruction has certain target-independent properties |
| (accesses memory, is commutable, etc), and holds any target-specific |
| flags.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetframeinfo">The <tt>TargetFrameInfo</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetFrameInfo</tt> class is used to provide information about the |
| stack frame layout of the target. It holds the direction of stack growth, the |
| known stack alignment on entry to each function, and the offset to the local |
| area. The offset to the local area is the offset from the stack pointer on |
| function entry to the first location where function data (local variables, |
| spill locations) can be stored.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetsubtarget">The <tt>TargetSubtarget</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetSubtarget</tt> class is used to provide information about the |
| specific chip set being targeted. A sub-target informs code generation of |
| which instructions are supported, instruction latencies and instruction |
| execution itinerary; i.e., which processing units are used, in what order, |
| and for how long.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetjitinfo">The <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> class exposes an abstract interface used by the |
| Just-In-Time code generator to perform target-specific activities, such as |
| emitting stubs. If a <tt>TargetMachine</tt> supports JIT code generation, it |
| should provide one of these objects through the <tt>getJITInfo</tt> |
| method.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="codegendesc">Machine code description classes</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>At the high-level, LLVM code is translated to a machine specific |
| representation formed out of |
| <a href="#machinefunction"><tt>MachineFunction</tt></a>, |
| <a href="#machinebasicblock"><tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt></a>, |
| and <a href="#machineinstr"><tt>MachineInstr</tt></a> instances (defined |
| in <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen</tt>). This representation is completely target |
| agnostic, representing instructions in their most abstract form: an opcode |
| and a series of operands. This representation is designed to support both an |
| SSA representation for machine code, as well as a register allocated, non-SSA |
| form.</p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="machineinstr">The <tt>MachineInstr</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Target machine instructions are represented as instances of the |
| <tt>MachineInstr</tt> class. This class is an extremely abstract way of |
| representing machine instructions. In particular, it only keeps track of an |
| opcode number and a set of operands.</p> |
| |
| <p>The opcode number is a simple unsigned integer that only has meaning to a |
| specific backend. All of the instructions for a target should be defined in |
| the <tt>*InstrInfo.td</tt> file for the target. The opcode enum values are |
| auto-generated from this description. The <tt>MachineInstr</tt> class does |
| not have any information about how to interpret the instruction (i.e., what |
| the semantics of the instruction are); for that you must refer to the |
| <tt><a href="#targetinstrinfo">TargetInstrInfo</a></tt> class.</p> |
| |
| <p>The operands of a machine instruction can be of several different types: a |
| register reference, a constant integer, a basic block reference, etc. In |
| addition, a machine operand should be marked as a def or a use of the value |
| (though only registers are allowed to be defs).</p> |
| |
| <p>By convention, the LLVM code generator orders instruction operands so that |
| all register definitions come before the register uses, even on architectures |
| that are normally printed in other orders. For example, the SPARC add |
| instruction: "<tt>add %i1, %i2, %i3</tt>" adds the "%i1", and "%i2" registers |
| and stores the result into the "%i3" register. In the LLVM code generator, |
| the operands should be stored as "<tt>%i3, %i1, %i2</tt>": with the |
| destination first.</p> |
| |
| <p>Keeping destination (definition) operands at the beginning of the operand |
| list has several advantages. In particular, the debugging printer will print |
| the instruction like this:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| %r3 = add %i1, %i2 |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Also if the first operand is a def, it is easier to <a href="#buildmi">create |
| instructions</a> whose only def is the first operand.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="buildmi">Using the <tt>MachineInstrBuilder.h</tt> functions</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Machine instructions are created by using the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions, |
| located in the <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/MachineInstrBuilder.h</tt> file. The |
| <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions make it easy to build arbitrary machine |
| instructions. Usage of the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions look like this:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // Create a 'DestReg = mov 42' (rendered in X86 assembly as 'mov DestReg, 42') |
| // instruction. The '1' specifies how many operands will be added. |
| MachineInstr *MI = BuildMI(X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42); |
| |
| // Create the same instr, but insert it at the end of a basic block. |
| MachineBasicBlock &MBB = ... |
| BuildMI(MBB, X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42); |
| |
| // Create the same instr, but insert it before a specified iterator point. |
| MachineBasicBlock::iterator MBBI = ... |
| BuildMI(MBB, MBBI, X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42); |
| |
| // Create a 'cmp Reg, 0' instruction, no destination reg. |
| MI = BuildMI(X86::CMP32ri, 2).addReg(Reg).addImm(0); |
| // Create an 'sahf' instruction which takes no operands and stores nothing. |
| MI = BuildMI(X86::SAHF, 0); |
| |
| // Create a self looping branch instruction. |
| BuildMI(MBB, X86::JNE, 1).addMBB(&MBB); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>The key thing to remember with the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions is that you |
| have to specify the number of operands that the machine instruction will |
| take. This allows for efficient memory allocation. You also need to specify |
| if operands default to be uses of values, not definitions. If you need to |
| add a definition operand (other than the optional destination register), you |
| must explicitly mark it as such:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| MI.addReg(Reg, RegState::Define); |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="fixedregs">Fixed (preassigned) registers</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>One important issue that the code generator needs to be aware of is the |
| presence of fixed registers. In particular, there are often places in the |
| instruction stream where the register allocator <em>must</em> arrange for a |
| particular value to be in a particular register. This can occur due to |
| limitations of the instruction set (e.g., the X86 can only do a 32-bit divide |
| with the <tt>EAX</tt>/<tt>EDX</tt> registers), or external factors like |
| calling conventions. In any case, the instruction selector should emit code |
| that copies a virtual register into or out of a physical register when |
| needed.</p> |
| |
| <p>For example, consider this simple LLVM example:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| define i32 @test(i32 %X, i32 %Y) { |
| %Z = udiv i32 %X, %Y |
| ret i32 %Z |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>The X86 instruction selector produces this machine code for the <tt>div</tt> |
| and <tt>ret</tt> (use "<tt>llc X.bc -march=x86 -print-machineinstrs</tt>" to |
| get this):</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| ;; Start of div |
| %EAX = mov %reg1024 ;; Copy X (in reg1024) into EAX |
| %reg1027 = sar %reg1024, 31 |
| %EDX = mov %reg1027 ;; Sign extend X into EDX |
| idiv %reg1025 ;; Divide by Y (in reg1025) |
| %reg1026 = mov %EAX ;; Read the result (Z) out of EAX |
| |
| ;; Start of ret |
| %EAX = mov %reg1026 ;; 32-bit return value goes in EAX |
| ret |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>By the end of code generation, the register allocator has coalesced the |
| registers and deleted the resultant identity moves producing the following |
| code:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| ;; X is in EAX, Y is in ECX |
| mov %EAX, %EDX |
| sar %EDX, 31 |
| idiv %ECX |
| ret |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>This approach is extremely general (if it can handle the X86 architecture, it |
| can handle anything!) and allows all of the target specific knowledge about |
| the instruction stream to be isolated in the instruction selector. Note that |
| physical registers should have a short lifetime for good code generation, and |
| all physical registers are assumed dead on entry to and exit from basic |
| blocks (before register allocation). Thus, if you need a value to be live |
| across basic block boundaries, it <em>must</em> live in a virtual |
| register.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="ssa">Machine code in SSA form</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p><tt>MachineInstr</tt>'s are initially selected in SSA-form, and are |
| maintained in SSA-form until register allocation happens. For the most part, |
| this is trivially simple since LLVM is already in SSA form; LLVM PHI nodes |
| become machine code PHI nodes, and virtual registers are only allowed to have |
| a single definition.</p> |
| |
| <p>After register allocation, machine code is no longer in SSA-form because |
| there are no virtual registers left in the code.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="machinebasicblock">The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> class contains a list of machine instructions |
| (<tt><a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a></tt> instances). It roughly |
| corresponds to the LLVM code input to the instruction selector, but there can |
| be a one-to-many mapping (i.e. one LLVM basic block can map to multiple |
| machine basic blocks). The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> class has a |
| "<tt>getBasicBlock</tt>" method, which returns the LLVM basic block that it |
| comes from.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="machinefunction">The <tt>MachineFunction</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>MachineFunction</tt> class contains a list of machine basic blocks |
| (<tt><a href="#machinebasicblock">MachineBasicBlock</a></tt> instances). It |
| corresponds one-to-one with the LLVM function input to the instruction |
| selector. In addition to a list of basic blocks, |
| the <tt>MachineFunction</tt> contains a a <tt>MachineConstantPool</tt>, |
| a <tt>MachineFrameInfo</tt>, a <tt>MachineFunctionInfo</tt>, and a |
| <tt>MachineRegisterInfo</tt>. See |
| <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/MachineFunction.h</tt> for more information.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="mc">The "MC" Layer</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p> |
| The MC Layer is used to represent and process code at the raw machine code |
| level, devoid of "high level" information like "constant pools", "jump tables", |
| "global variables" or anything like that. At this level, LLVM handles things |
| like label names, machine instructions, and sections in the object file. The |
| code in this layer is used for a number of important purposes: the tail end of |
| the code generator uses it to write a .s or .o file, and it is also used by the |
| llvm-mc tool to implement standalone machine code assemblers and disassemblers. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p> |
| This section describes some of the important classes. There are also a number |
| of important subsystems that interact at this layer, they are described later |
| in this manual. |
| </p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="mcstreamer">The <tt>MCStreamer</tt> API</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p> |
| MCStreamer is best thought of as an assembler API. It is an abstract API which |
| is <em>implemented</em> in different ways (e.g. to output a .s file, output an |
| ELF .o file, etc) but whose API correspond directly to what you see in a .s |
| file. MCStreamer has one method per directive, such as EmitLabel, |
| EmitSymbolAttribute, SwitchSection, EmitValue (for .byte, .word), etc, which |
| directly correspond to assembly level directives. It also has an |
| EmitInstruction method, which is used to output an MCInst to the streamer. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p> |
| This API is most important for two clients: the llvm-mc stand-alone assembler is |
| effectively a parser that parses a line, then invokes a method on MCStreamer. In |
| the code generator, the <a href="#codeemit">Code Emission</a> phase of the code |
| generator lowers higher level LLVM IR and Machine* constructs down to the MC |
| layer, emitting directives through MCStreamer.</p> |
| |
| <p> |
| On the implementation side of MCStreamer, there are two major implementations: |
| one for writing out a .s file (MCAsmStreamer), and one for writing out a .o |
| file (MCObjectStreamer). MCAsmStreamer is a straight-forward implementation |
| that prints out a directive for each method (e.g. EmitValue -> .byte), but |
| MCObjectStreamer implements a full assembler. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="mccontext">The <tt>MCContext</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p> |
| The MCContext class is the owner of a variety of uniqued data structures at the |
| MC layer, including symbols, sections, etc. As such, this is the class that you |
| interact with to create symbols and sections. This class can not be subclassed. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="mcsymbol">The <tt>MCSymbol</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p> |
| The MCSymbol class represents a symbol (aka label) in the assembly file. There |
| are two interesting kinds of symbols: assembler temporary symbols, and normal |
| symbols. Assembler temporary symbols are used and processed by the assembler |
| but are discarded when the object file is produced. The distinction is usually |
| represented by adding a prefix to the label, for example "L" labels are |
| assembler temporary labels in MachO. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>MCSymbols are created by MCContext and uniqued there. This means that |
| MCSymbols can be compared for pointer equivalence to find out if they are the |
| same symbol. Note that pointer inequality does not guarantee the labels will |
| end up at different addresses though. It's perfectly legal to output something |
| like this to the .s file:<p> |
| |
| <pre> |
| foo: |
| bar: |
| .byte 4 |
| </pre> |
| |
| <p>In this case, both the foo and bar symbols will have the same address.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="mcsection">The <tt>MCSection</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p> |
| The MCSection class represents an object-file specific section. It is subclassed |
| by object file specific implementations (e.g. <tt>MCSectionMachO</tt>, |
| <tt>MCSectionCOFF</tt>, <tt>MCSectionELF</tt>) and these are created and uniqued |
| by MCContext. The MCStreamer has a notion of the current section, which can be |
| changed with the SwitchToSection method (which corresponds to a ".section" |
| directive in a .s file). |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="mcinst">The <tt>MCInst</tt> class</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p> |
| The MCInst class is a target-independent representation of an instruction. It |
| is a simple class (much more so than <a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a>) |
| that holds a target-specific opcode and a vector of MCOperands. MCOperand, in |
| turn, is a simple discriminated union of three cases: 1) a simple immediate, |
| 2) a target register ID, 3) a symbolic expression (e.g. "Lfoo-Lbar+42") as an |
| MCExpr. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>MCInst is the common currency used to represent machine instructions at the |
| MC layer. It is the type used by the instruction encoder, the instruction |
| printer, and the type generated by the assembly parser and disassembler. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="codegenalgs">Target-independent code generation algorithms</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>This section documents the phases described in the |
| <a href="#high-level-design">high-level design of the code generator</a>. |
| It explains how they work and some of the rationale behind their design.</p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="instselect">Instruction Selection</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Instruction Selection is the process of translating LLVM code presented to |
| the code generator into target-specific machine instructions. There are |
| several well-known ways to do this in the literature. LLVM uses a |
| SelectionDAG based instruction selector.</p> |
| |
| <p>Portions of the DAG instruction selector are generated from the target |
| description (<tt>*.td</tt>) files. Our goal is for the entire instruction |
| selector to be generated from these <tt>.td</tt> files, though currently |
| there are still things that require custom C++ code.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_intro">Introduction to SelectionDAGs</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The SelectionDAG provides an abstraction for code representation in a way |
| that is amenable to instruction selection using automatic techniques |
| (e.g. dynamic-programming based optimal pattern matching selectors). It is |
| also well-suited to other phases of code generation; in particular, |
| instruction scheduling (SelectionDAG's are very close to scheduling DAGs |
| post-selection). Additionally, the SelectionDAG provides a host |
| representation where a large variety of very-low-level (but |
| target-independent) <a href="#selectiondag_optimize">optimizations</a> may be |
| performed; ones which require extensive information about the instructions |
| efficiently supported by the target.</p> |
| |
| <p>The SelectionDAG is a Directed-Acyclic-Graph whose nodes are instances of the |
| <tt>SDNode</tt> class. The primary payload of the <tt>SDNode</tt> is its |
| operation code (Opcode) that indicates what operation the node performs and |
| the operands to the operation. The various operation node types are |
| described at the top of the <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/SelectionDAGNodes.h</tt> |
| file.</p> |
| |
| <p>Although most operations define a single value, each node in the graph may |
| define multiple values. For example, a combined div/rem operation will |
| define both the dividend and the remainder. Many other situations require |
| multiple values as well. Each node also has some number of operands, which |
| are edges to the node defining the used value. Because nodes may define |
| multiple values, edges are represented by instances of the <tt>SDValue</tt> |
| class, which is a <tt><SDNode, unsigned></tt> pair, indicating the node |
| and result value being used, respectively. Each value produced by |
| an <tt>SDNode</tt> has an associated <tt>MVT</tt> (Machine Value Type) |
| indicating what the type of the value is.</p> |
| |
| <p>SelectionDAGs contain two different kinds of values: those that represent |
| data flow and those that represent control flow dependencies. Data values |
| are simple edges with an integer or floating point value type. Control edges |
| are represented as "chain" edges which are of type <tt>MVT::Other</tt>. |
| These edges provide an ordering between nodes that have side effects (such as |
| loads, stores, calls, returns, etc). All nodes that have side effects should |
| take a token chain as input and produce a new one as output. By convention, |
| token chain inputs are always operand #0, and chain results are always the |
| last value produced by an operation.</p> |
| |
| <p>A SelectionDAG has designated "Entry" and "Root" nodes. The Entry node is |
| always a marker node with an Opcode of <tt>ISD::EntryToken</tt>. The Root |
| node is the final side-effecting node in the token chain. For example, in a |
| single basic block function it would be the return node.</p> |
| |
| <p>One important concept for SelectionDAGs is the notion of a "legal" vs. |
| "illegal" DAG. A legal DAG for a target is one that only uses supported |
| operations and supported types. On a 32-bit PowerPC, for example, a DAG with |
| a value of type i1, i8, i16, or i64 would be illegal, as would a DAG that |
| uses a SREM or UREM operation. The |
| <a href="#selectinodag_legalize_types">legalize types</a> and |
| <a href="#selectiondag_legalize">legalize operations</a> phases are |
| responsible for turning an illegal DAG into a legal DAG.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_process">SelectionDAG Instruction Selection Process</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>SelectionDAG-based instruction selection consists of the following steps:</p> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_build">Build initial DAG</a> — This stage |
| performs a simple translation from the input LLVM code to an illegal |
| SelectionDAG.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">Optimize SelectionDAG</a> — This |
| stage performs simple optimizations on the SelectionDAG to simplify it, |
| and recognize meta instructions (like rotates |
| and <tt>div</tt>/<tt>rem</tt> pairs) for targets that support these meta |
| operations. This makes the resultant code more efficient and |
| the <a href="#selectiondag_select">select instructions from DAG</a> phase |
| (below) simpler.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_legalize_types">Legalize SelectionDAG Types</a> |
| — This stage transforms SelectionDAG nodes to eliminate any types |
| that are unsupported on the target.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">Optimize SelectionDAG</a> — The |
| SelectionDAG optimizer is run to clean up redundancies exposed by type |
| legalization.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_legalize">Legalize SelectionDAG Ops</a> — |
| This stage transforms SelectionDAG nodes to eliminate any operations |
| that are unsupported on the target.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">Optimize SelectionDAG</a> — The |
| SelectionDAG optimizer is run to eliminate inefficiencies introduced by |
| operation legalization.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_select">Select instructions from DAG</a> — |
| Finally, the target instruction selector matches the DAG operations to |
| target instructions. This process translates the target-independent input |
| DAG into another DAG of target instructions.</li> |
| |
| <li><a href="#selectiondag_sched">SelectionDAG Scheduling and Formation</a> |
| — The last phase assigns a linear order to the instructions in the |
| target-instruction DAG and emits them into the MachineFunction being |
| compiled. This step uses traditional prepass scheduling techniques.</li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <p>After all of these steps are complete, the SelectionDAG is destroyed and the |
| rest of the code generation passes are run.</p> |
| |
| <p>One great way to visualize what is going on here is to take advantage of a |
| few LLC command line options. The following options pop up a window |
| displaying the SelectionDAG at specific times (if you only get errors printed |
| to the console while using this, you probably |
| <a href="ProgrammersManual.html#ViewGraph">need to configure your system</a> |
| to add support for it).</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><tt>-view-dag-combine1-dags</tt> displays the DAG after being built, |
| before the first optimization pass.</li> |
| |
| <li><tt>-view-legalize-dags</tt> displays the DAG before Legalization.</li> |
| |
| <li><tt>-view-dag-combine2-dags</tt> displays the DAG before the second |
| optimization pass.</li> |
| |
| <li><tt>-view-isel-dags</tt> displays the DAG before the Select phase.</li> |
| |
| <li><tt>-view-sched-dags</tt> displays the DAG before Scheduling.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>-view-sunit-dags</tt> displays the Scheduler's dependency graph. |
| This graph is based on the final SelectionDAG, with nodes that must be |
| scheduled together bundled into a single scheduling-unit node, and with |
| immediate operands and other nodes that aren't relevant for scheduling |
| omitted.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_build">Initial SelectionDAG Construction</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The initial SelectionDAG is naïvely peephole expanded from the LLVM |
| input by the <tt>SelectionDAGLowering</tt> class in the |
| <tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/SelectionDAGISel.cpp</tt> file. The intent of |
| this pass is to expose as much low-level, target-specific details to the |
| SelectionDAG as possible. This pass is mostly hard-coded (e.g. an |
| LLVM <tt>add</tt> turns into an <tt>SDNode add</tt> while a |
| <tt>getelementptr</tt> is expanded into the obvious arithmetic). This pass |
| requires target-specific hooks to lower calls, returns, varargs, etc. For |
| these features, the <tt><a href="#targetlowering">TargetLowering</a></tt> |
| interface is used.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_legalize_types">SelectionDAG LegalizeTypes Phase</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The Legalize phase is in charge of converting a DAG to only use the types |
| that are natively supported by the target.</p> |
| |
| <p>There are two main ways of converting values of unsupported scalar types to |
| values of supported types: converting small types to larger types |
| ("promoting"), and breaking up large integer types into smaller ones |
| ("expanding"). For example, a target might require that all f32 values are |
| promoted to f64 and that all i1/i8/i16 values are promoted to i32. The same |
| target might require that all i64 values be expanded into pairs of i32 |
| values. These changes can insert sign and zero extensions as needed to make |
| sure that the final code has the same behavior as the input.</p> |
| |
| <p>There are two main ways of converting values of unsupported vector types to |
| value of supported types: splitting vector types, multiple times if |
| necessary, until a legal type is found, and extending vector types by adding |
| elements to the end to round them out to legal types ("widening"). If a |
| vector gets split all the way down to single-element parts with no supported |
| vector type being found, the elements are converted to scalars |
| ("scalarizing").</p> |
| |
| <p>A target implementation tells the legalizer which types are supported (and |
| which register class to use for them) by calling the |
| <tt>addRegisterClass</tt> method in its TargetLowering constructor.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_legalize">SelectionDAG Legalize Phase</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The Legalize phase is in charge of converting a DAG to only use the |
| operations that are natively supported by the target.</p> |
| |
| <p>Targets often have weird constraints, such as not supporting every operation |
| on every supported datatype (e.g. X86 does not support byte conditional moves |
| and PowerPC does not support sign-extending loads from a 16-bit memory |
| location). Legalize takes care of this by open-coding another sequence of |
| operations to emulate the operation ("expansion"), by promoting one type to a |
| larger type that supports the operation ("promotion"), or by using a |
| target-specific hook to implement the legalization ("custom").</p> |
| |
| <p>A target implementation tells the legalizer which operations are not |
| supported (and which of the above three actions to take) by calling the |
| <tt>setOperationAction</tt> method in its <tt>TargetLowering</tt> |
| constructor.</p> |
| |
| <p>Prior to the existence of the Legalize passes, we required that every target |
| <a href="#selectiondag_optimize">selector</a> supported and handled every |
| operator and type even if they are not natively supported. The introduction |
| of the Legalize phases allows all of the canonicalization patterns to be |
| shared across targets, and makes it very easy to optimize the canonicalized |
| code because it is still in the form of a DAG.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_optimize"> |
| SelectionDAG Optimization Phase: the DAG Combiner |
| </a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The SelectionDAG optimization phase is run multiple times for code |
| generation, immediately after the DAG is built and once after each |
| legalization. The first run of the pass allows the initial code to be |
| cleaned up (e.g. performing optimizations that depend on knowing that the |
| operators have restricted type inputs). Subsequent runs of the pass clean up |
| the messy code generated by the Legalize passes, which allows Legalize to be |
| very simple (it can focus on making code legal instead of focusing on |
| generating <em>good</em> and legal code).</p> |
| |
| <p>One important class of optimizations performed is optimizing inserted sign |
| and zero extension instructions. We currently use ad-hoc techniques, but |
| could move to more rigorous techniques in the future. Here are some good |
| papers on the subject:</p> |
| |
| <p>"<a href="http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/pubs/widen-abstract.html">Widening |
| integer arithmetic</a>"<br> |
| Kevin Redwine and Norman Ramsey<br> |
| International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC) 2004</p> |
| |
| <p>"<a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=512529.512552">Effective |
| sign extension elimination</a>"<br> |
| Motohiro Kawahito, Hideaki Komatsu, and Toshio Nakatani<br> |
| Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 2002 Conference on Programming Language Design |
| and Implementation.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_select">SelectionDAG Select Phase</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The Select phase is the bulk of the target-specific code for instruction |
| selection. This phase takes a legal SelectionDAG as input, pattern matches |
| the instructions supported by the target to this DAG, and produces a new DAG |
| of target code. For example, consider the following LLVM fragment:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| %t1 = fadd float %W, %X |
| %t2 = fmul float %t1, %Y |
| %t3 = fadd float %t2, %Z |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>This LLVM code corresponds to a SelectionDAG that looks basically like |
| this:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| (fadd:f32 (fmul:f32 (fadd:f32 W, X), Y), Z) |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>If a target supports floating point multiply-and-add (FMA) operations, one of |
| the adds can be merged with the multiply. On the PowerPC, for example, the |
| output of the instruction selector might look like this DAG:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| (FMADDS (FADDS W, X), Y, Z) |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>FMADDS</tt> instruction is a ternary instruction that multiplies its |
| first two operands and adds the third (as single-precision floating-point |
| numbers). The <tt>FADDS</tt> instruction is a simple binary single-precision |
| add instruction. To perform this pattern match, the PowerPC backend includes |
| the following instruction definitions:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| def FMADDS : AForm_1<59, 29, |
| (ops F4RC:$FRT, F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRC, F4RC:$FRB), |
| "fmadds $FRT, $FRA, $FRC, $FRB", |
| [<b>(set F4RC:$FRT, (fadd (fmul F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRC), |
| F4RC:$FRB))</b>]>; |
| def FADDS : AForm_2<59, 21, |
| (ops F4RC:$FRT, F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRB), |
| "fadds $FRT, $FRA, $FRB", |
| [<b>(set F4RC:$FRT, (fadd F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRB))</b>]>; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>The portion of the instruction definition in bold indicates the pattern used |
| to match the instruction. The DAG operators |
| (like <tt>fmul</tt>/<tt>fadd</tt>) are defined in |
| the <tt>include/llvm/Target/TargetSelectionDAG.td</tt> file. " |
| <tt>F4RC</tt>" is the register class of the input and result values.</p> |
| |
| <p>The TableGen DAG instruction selector generator reads the instruction |
| patterns in the <tt>.td</tt> file and automatically builds parts of the |
| pattern matching code for your target. It has the following strengths:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>At compiler-compiler time, it analyzes your instruction patterns and tells |
| you if your patterns make sense or not.</li> |
| |
| <li>It can handle arbitrary constraints on operands for the pattern match. In |
| particular, it is straight-forward to say things like "match any immediate |
| that is a 13-bit sign-extended value". For examples, see the |
| <tt>immSExt16</tt> and related <tt>tblgen</tt> classes in the PowerPC |
| backend.</li> |
| |
| <li>It knows several important identities for the patterns defined. For |
| example, it knows that addition is commutative, so it allows the |
| <tt>FMADDS</tt> pattern above to match "<tt>(fadd X, (fmul Y, Z))</tt>" as |
| well as "<tt>(fadd (fmul X, Y), Z)</tt>", without the target author having |
| to specially handle this case.</li> |
| |
| <li>It has a full-featured type-inferencing system. In particular, you should |
| rarely have to explicitly tell the system what type parts of your patterns |
| are. In the <tt>FMADDS</tt> case above, we didn't have to tell |
| <tt>tblgen</tt> that all of the nodes in the pattern are of type 'f32'. |
| It was able to infer and propagate this knowledge from the fact that |
| <tt>F4RC</tt> has type 'f32'.</li> |
| |
| <li>Targets can define their own (and rely on built-in) "pattern fragments". |
| Pattern fragments are chunks of reusable patterns that get inlined into |
| your patterns during compiler-compiler time. For example, the integer |
| "<tt>(not x)</tt>" operation is actually defined as a pattern fragment |
| that expands as "<tt>(xor x, -1)</tt>", since the SelectionDAG does not |
| have a native '<tt>not</tt>' operation. Targets can define their own |
| short-hand fragments as they see fit. See the definition of |
| '<tt>not</tt>' and '<tt>ineg</tt>' for examples.</li> |
| |
| <li>In addition to instructions, targets can specify arbitrary patterns that |
| map to one or more instructions using the 'Pat' class. For example, the |
| PowerPC has no way to load an arbitrary integer immediate into a register |
| in one instruction. To tell tblgen how to do this, it defines: |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // Arbitrary immediate support. Implement in terms of LIS/ORI. |
| def : Pat<(i32 imm:$imm), |
| (ORI (LIS (HI16 imm:$imm)), (LO16 imm:$imm))>; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| <br> |
| If none of the single-instruction patterns for loading an immediate into a |
| register match, this will be used. This rule says "match an arbitrary i32 |
| immediate, turning it into an <tt>ORI</tt> ('or a 16-bit immediate') and |
| an <tt>LIS</tt> ('load 16-bit immediate, where the immediate is shifted to |
| the left 16 bits') instruction". To make this work, the |
| <tt>LO16</tt>/<tt>HI16</tt> node transformations are used to manipulate |
| the input immediate (in this case, take the high or low 16-bits of the |
| immediate).</li> |
| |
| <li>While the system does automate a lot, it still allows you to write custom |
| C++ code to match special cases if there is something that is hard to |
| express.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>While it has many strengths, the system currently has some limitations, |
| primarily because it is a work in progress and is not yet finished:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Overall, there is no way to define or match SelectionDAG nodes that define |
| multiple values (e.g. <tt>SMUL_LOHI</tt>, <tt>LOAD</tt>, <tt>CALL</tt>, |
| etc). This is the biggest reason that you currently still <em>have |
| to</em> write custom C++ code for your instruction selector.</li> |
| |
| <li>There is no great way to support matching complex addressing modes yet. |
| In the future, we will extend pattern fragments to allow them to define |
| multiple values (e.g. the four operands of the <a href="#x86_memory">X86 |
| addressing mode</a>, which are currently matched with custom C++ code). |
| In addition, we'll extend fragments so that a fragment can match multiple |
| different patterns.</li> |
| |
| <li>We don't automatically infer flags like isStore/isLoad yet.</li> |
| |
| <li>We don't automatically generate the set of supported registers and |
| operations for the <a href="#selectiondag_legalize">Legalizer</a> |
| yet.</li> |
| |
| <li>We don't have a way of tying in custom legalized nodes yet.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>Despite these limitations, the instruction selector generator is still quite |
| useful for most of the binary and logical operations in typical instruction |
| sets. If you run into any problems or can't figure out how to do something, |
| please let Chris know!</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_sched">SelectionDAG Scheduling and Formation Phase</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The scheduling phase takes the DAG of target instructions from the selection |
| phase and assigns an order. The scheduler can pick an order depending on |
| various constraints of the machines (i.e. order for minimal register pressure |
| or try to cover instruction latencies). Once an order is established, the |
| DAG is converted to a list |
| of <tt><a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a></tt>s and the SelectionDAG is |
| destroyed.</p> |
| |
| <p>Note that this phase is logically separate from the instruction selection |
| phase, but is tied to it closely in the code because it operates on |
| SelectionDAGs.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="selectiondag_future">Future directions for the SelectionDAG</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li>Optional function-at-a-time selection.</li> |
| |
| <li>Auto-generate entire selector from <tt>.td</tt> file.</li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="ssamco">SSA-based Machine Code Optimizations</a> |
| </h3> |
| <div><p>To Be Written</p></div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="liveintervals">Live Intervals</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Live Intervals are the ranges (intervals) where a variable is <i>live</i>. |
| They are used by some <a href="#regalloc">register allocator</a> passes to |
| determine if two or more virtual registers which require the same physical |
| register are live at the same point in the program (i.e., they conflict). |
| When this situation occurs, one virtual register must be <i>spilled</i>.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="livevariable_analysis">Live Variable Analysis</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The first step in determining the live intervals of variables is to calculate |
| the set of registers that are immediately dead after the instruction (i.e., |
| the instruction calculates the value, but it is never used) and the set of |
| registers that are used by the instruction, but are never used after the |
| instruction (i.e., they are killed). Live variable information is computed |
| for each <i>virtual</i> register and <i>register allocatable</i> physical |
| register in the function. This is done in a very efficient manner because it |
| uses SSA to sparsely compute lifetime information for virtual registers |
| (which are in SSA form) and only has to track physical registers within a |
| block. Before register allocation, LLVM can assume that physical registers |
| are only live within a single basic block. This allows it to do a single, |
| local analysis to resolve physical register lifetimes within each basic |
| block. If a physical register is not register allocatable (e.g., a stack |
| pointer or condition codes), it is not tracked.</p> |
| |
| <p>Physical registers may be live in to or out of a function. Live in values are |
| typically arguments in registers. Live out values are typically return values |
| in registers. Live in values are marked as such, and are given a dummy |
| "defining" instruction during live intervals analysis. If the last basic |
| block of a function is a <tt>return</tt>, then it's marked as using all live |
| out values in the function.</p> |
| |
| <p><tt>PHI</tt> nodes need to be handled specially, because the calculation of |
| the live variable information from a depth first traversal of the CFG of the |
| function won't guarantee that a virtual register used by the <tt>PHI</tt> |
| node is defined before it's used. When a <tt>PHI</tt> node is encountered, |
| only the definition is handled, because the uses will be handled in other |
| basic blocks.</p> |
| |
| <p>For each <tt>PHI</tt> node of the current basic block, we simulate an |
| assignment at the end of the current basic block and traverse the successor |
| basic blocks. If a successor basic block has a <tt>PHI</tt> node and one of |
| the <tt>PHI</tt> node's operands is coming from the current basic block, then |
| the variable is marked as <i>alive</i> within the current basic block and all |
| of its predecessor basic blocks, until the basic block with the defining |
| instruction is encountered.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="liveintervals_analysis">Live Intervals Analysis</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>We now have the information available to perform the live intervals analysis |
| and build the live intervals themselves. We start off by numbering the basic |
| blocks and machine instructions. We then handle the "live-in" values. These |
| are in physical registers, so the physical register is assumed to be killed |
| by the end of the basic block. Live intervals for virtual registers are |
| computed for some ordering of the machine instructions <tt>[1, N]</tt>. A |
| live interval is an interval <tt>[i, j)</tt>, where <tt>1 <= i <= j |
| < N</tt>, for which a variable is live.</p> |
| |
| <p><i><b>More to come...</b></i></p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="regalloc">Register Allocation</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The <i>Register Allocation problem</i> consists in mapping a program |
| <i>P<sub>v</sub></i>, that can use an unbounded number of virtual registers, |
| to a program <i>P<sub>p</sub></i> that contains a finite (possibly small) |
| number of physical registers. Each target architecture has a different number |
| of physical registers. If the number of physical registers is not enough to |
| accommodate all the virtual registers, some of them will have to be mapped |
| into memory. These virtuals are called <i>spilled virtuals</i>.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| |
| <h4> |
| <a name="regAlloc_represent">How registers are represented in LLVM</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>In LLVM, physical registers are denoted by integer numbers that normally |
| range from 1 to 1023. To see how this numbering is defined for a particular |
| architecture, you can read the <tt>GenRegisterNames.inc</tt> file for that |
| architecture. For instance, by |
| inspecting <tt>lib/Target/X86/X86GenRegisterNames.inc</tt> we see that the |
| 32-bit register <tt>EAX</tt> is denoted by 15, and the MMX register |
| <tt>MM0</tt> is mapped to 48.</p> |
| |
| <p>Some architectures contain registers that share the same physical location. A |
| notable example is the X86 platform. For instance, in the X86 architecture, |
| the registers <tt>EAX</tt>, <tt>AX</tt> and <tt>AL</tt> share the first eight |
| bits. These physical registers are marked as <i>aliased</i> in LLVM. Given a |
| particular architecture, you can check which registers are aliased by |
| inspecting its <tt>RegisterInfo.td</tt> file. Moreover, the method |
| <tt>TargetRegisterInfo::getAliasSet(p_reg)</tt> returns an array containing |
| all the physical registers aliased to the register <tt>p_reg</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <p>Physical registers, in LLVM, are grouped in <i>Register Classes</i>. |
| Elements in the same register class are functionally equivalent, and can be |
| interchangeably used. Each virtual register can only be mapped to physical |
| registers of a particular class. For instance, in the X86 architecture, some |
| virtuals can only be allocated to 8 bit registers. A register class is |
| described by <tt>TargetRegisterClass</tt> objects. To discover if a virtual |
| register is compatible with a given physical, this code can be used:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| bool RegMapping_Fer::compatible_class(MachineFunction &mf, |
| unsigned v_reg, |
| unsigned p_reg) { |
| assert(TargetRegisterInfo::isPhysicalRegister(p_reg) && |
| "Target register must be physical"); |
| const TargetRegisterClass *trc = mf.getRegInfo().getRegClass(v_reg); |
| return trc->contains(p_reg); |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Sometimes, mostly for debugging purposes, it is useful to change the number |
| of physical registers available in the target architecture. This must be done |
| statically, inside the <tt>TargetRegsterInfo.td</tt> file. Just <tt>grep</tt> |
| for <tt>RegisterClass</tt>, the last parameter of which is a list of |
| registers. Just commenting some out is one simple way to avoid them being |
| used. A more polite way is to explicitly exclude some registers from |
| the <i>allocation order</i>. See the definition of the <tt>GR8</tt> register |
| class in <tt>lib/Target/X86/X86RegisterInfo.td</tt> for an example of this. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>Virtual registers are also denoted by integer numbers. Contrary to physical |
| registers, different virtual registers never share the same number. Whereas |
| physical registers are statically defined in a <tt>TargetRegisterInfo.td</tt> |
| file and cannot be created by the application developer, that is not the case |
| with virtual registers. In order to create new virtual registers, use the |
| method <tt>MachineRegisterInfo::createVirtualRegister()</tt>. This method |
| will return a new virtual register. Use an <tt>IndexedMap<Foo, |
| VirtReg2IndexFunctor></tt> to hold information per virtual register. If you |
| need to enumerate all virtual registers, use the function |
| <tt>TargetRegisterInfo::index2VirtReg()</tt> to find the virtual register |
| numbers:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| for (unsigned i = 0, e = MRI->getNumVirtRegs(); i != e; ++i) { |
| unsigned VirtReg = TargetRegisterInfo::index2VirtReg(i); |
| stuff(VirtReg); |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Before register allocation, the operands of an instruction are mostly virtual |
| registers, although physical registers may also be used. In order to check if |
| a given machine operand is a register, use the boolean |
| function <tt>MachineOperand::isRegister()</tt>. To obtain the integer code of |
| a register, use <tt>MachineOperand::getReg()</tt>. An instruction may define |
| or use a register. For instance, <tt>ADD reg:1026 := reg:1025 reg:1024</tt> |
| defines the registers 1024, and uses registers 1025 and 1026. Given a |
| register operand, the method <tt>MachineOperand::isUse()</tt> informs if that |
| register is being used by the instruction. The |
| method <tt>MachineOperand::isDef()</tt> informs if that registers is being |
| defined.</p> |
| |
| <p>We will call physical registers present in the LLVM bitcode before register |
| allocation <i>pre-colored registers</i>. Pre-colored registers are used in |
| many different situations, for instance, to pass parameters of functions |
| calls, and to store results of particular instructions. There are two types |
| of pre-colored registers: the ones <i>implicitly</i> defined, and |
| those <i>explicitly</i> defined. Explicitly defined registers are normal |
| operands, and can be accessed |
| with <tt>MachineInstr::getOperand(int)::getReg()</tt>. In order to check |
| which registers are implicitly defined by an instruction, use |
| the <tt>TargetInstrInfo::get(opcode)::ImplicitDefs</tt>, |
| where <tt>opcode</tt> is the opcode of the target instruction. One important |
| difference between explicit and implicit physical registers is that the |
| latter are defined statically for each instruction, whereas the former may |
| vary depending on the program being compiled. For example, an instruction |
| that represents a function call will always implicitly define or use the same |
| set of physical registers. To read the registers implicitly used by an |
| instruction, |
| use <tt>TargetInstrInfo::get(opcode)::ImplicitUses</tt>. Pre-colored |
| registers impose constraints on any register allocation algorithm. The |
| register allocator must make sure that none of them are overwritten by |
| the values of virtual registers while still alive.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| |
| <h4> |
| <a name="regAlloc_howTo">Mapping virtual registers to physical registers</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>There are two ways to map virtual registers to physical registers (or to |
| memory slots). The first way, that we will call <i>direct mapping</i>, is |
| based on the use of methods of the classes <tt>TargetRegisterInfo</tt>, |
| and <tt>MachineOperand</tt>. The second way, that we will call <i>indirect |
| mapping</i>, relies on the <tt>VirtRegMap</tt> class in order to insert loads |
| and stores sending and getting values to and from memory.</p> |
| |
| <p>The direct mapping provides more flexibility to the developer of the register |
| allocator; however, it is more error prone, and demands more implementation |
| work. Basically, the programmer will have to specify where load and store |
| instructions should be inserted in the target function being compiled in |
| order to get and store values in memory. To assign a physical register to a |
| virtual register present in a given operand, |
| use <tt>MachineOperand::setReg(p_reg)</tt>. To insert a store instruction, |
| use <tt>TargetInstrInfo::storeRegToStackSlot(...)</tt>, and to insert a |
| load instruction, use <tt>TargetInstrInfo::loadRegFromStackSlot</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <p>The indirect mapping shields the application developer from the complexities |
| of inserting load and store instructions. In order to map a virtual register |
| to a physical one, use <tt>VirtRegMap::assignVirt2Phys(vreg, preg)</tt>. In |
| order to map a certain virtual register to memory, |
| use <tt>VirtRegMap::assignVirt2StackSlot(vreg)</tt>. This method will return |
| the stack slot where <tt>vreg</tt>'s value will be located. If it is |
| necessary to map another virtual register to the same stack slot, |
| use <tt>VirtRegMap::assignVirt2StackSlot(vreg, stack_location)</tt>. One |
| important point to consider when using the indirect mapping, is that even if |
| a virtual register is mapped to memory, it still needs to be mapped to a |
| physical register. This physical register is the location where the virtual |
| register is supposed to be found before being stored or after being |
| reloaded.</p> |
| |
| <p>If the indirect strategy is used, after all the virtual registers have been |
| mapped to physical registers or stack slots, it is necessary to use a spiller |
| object to place load and store instructions in the code. Every virtual that |
| has been mapped to a stack slot will be stored to memory after been defined |
| and will be loaded before being used. The implementation of the spiller tries |
| to recycle load/store instructions, avoiding unnecessary instructions. For an |
| example of how to invoke the spiller, |
| see <tt>RegAllocLinearScan::runOnMachineFunction</tt> |
| in <tt>lib/CodeGen/RegAllocLinearScan.cpp</tt>.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="regAlloc_twoAddr">Handling two address instructions</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>With very rare exceptions (e.g., function calls), the LLVM machine code |
| instructions are three address instructions. That is, each instruction is |
| expected to define at most one register, and to use at most two registers. |
| However, some architectures use two address instructions. In this case, the |
| defined register is also one of the used register. For instance, an |
| instruction such as <tt>ADD %EAX, %EBX</tt>, in X86 is actually equivalent |
| to <tt>%EAX = %EAX + %EBX</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <p>In order to produce correct code, LLVM must convert three address |
| instructions that represent two address instructions into true two address |
| instructions. LLVM provides the pass <tt>TwoAddressInstructionPass</tt> for |
| this specific purpose. It must be run before register allocation takes |
| place. After its execution, the resulting code may no longer be in SSA |
| form. This happens, for instance, in situations where an instruction such |
| as <tt>%a = ADD %b %c</tt> is converted to two instructions such as:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| %a = MOVE %b |
| %a = ADD %a %c |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Notice that, internally, the second instruction is represented as |
| <tt>ADD %a[def/use] %c</tt>. I.e., the register operand <tt>%a</tt> is both |
| used and defined by the instruction.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="regAlloc_ssaDecon">The SSA deconstruction phase</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>An important transformation that happens during register allocation is called |
| the <i>SSA Deconstruction Phase</i>. The SSA form simplifies many analyses |
| that are performed on the control flow graph of programs. However, |
| traditional instruction sets do not implement PHI instructions. Thus, in |
| order to generate executable code, compilers must replace PHI instructions |
| with other instructions that preserve their semantics.</p> |
| |
| <p>There are many ways in which PHI instructions can safely be removed from the |
| target code. The most traditional PHI deconstruction algorithm replaces PHI |
| instructions with copy instructions. That is the strategy adopted by |
| LLVM. The SSA deconstruction algorithm is implemented |
| in <tt>lib/CodeGen/PHIElimination.cpp</tt>. In order to invoke this pass, the |
| identifier <tt>PHIEliminationID</tt> must be marked as required in the code |
| of the register allocator.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="regAlloc_fold">Instruction folding</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p><i>Instruction folding</i> is an optimization performed during register |
| allocation that removes unnecessary copy instructions. For instance, a |
| sequence of instructions such as:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| %EBX = LOAD %mem_address |
| %EAX = COPY %EBX |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>can be safely substituted by the single instruction:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| %EAX = LOAD %mem_address |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Instructions can be folded with |
| the <tt>TargetRegisterInfo::foldMemoryOperand(...)</tt> method. Care must be |
| taken when folding instructions; a folded instruction can be quite different |
| from the original |
| instruction. See <tt>LiveIntervals::addIntervalsForSpills</tt> |
| in <tt>lib/CodeGen/LiveIntervalAnalysis.cpp</tt> for an example of its |
| use.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| |
| <h4> |
| <a name="regAlloc_builtIn">Built in register allocators</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The LLVM infrastructure provides the application developer with three |
| different register allocators:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><i>Fast</i> — This register allocator is the default for debug |
| builds. It allocates registers on a basic block level, attempting to keep |
| values in registers and reusing registers as appropriate.</li> |
| |
| <li><i>Basic</i> — This is an incremental approach to register |
| allocation. Live ranges are assigned to registers one at a time in |
| an order that is driven by heuristics. Since code can be rewritten |
| on-the-fly during allocation, this framework allows interesting |
| allocators to be developed as extensions. It is not itself a |
| production register allocator but is a potentially useful |
| stand-alone mode for triaging bugs and as a performance baseline. |
| |
| <li><i>Greedy</i> — <i>The default allocator</i>. This is a |
| highly tuned implementation of the <i>Basic</i> allocator that |
| incorporates global live range splitting. This allocator works hard |
| to minimize the cost of spill code. |
| |
| <li><i>PBQP</i> — A Partitioned Boolean Quadratic Programming (PBQP) |
| based register allocator. This allocator works by constructing a PBQP |
| problem representing the register allocation problem under consideration, |
| solving this using a PBQP solver, and mapping the solution back to a |
| register assignment.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>The type of register allocator used in <tt>llc</tt> can be chosen with the |
| command line option <tt>-regalloc=...</tt>:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| $ llc -regalloc=linearscan file.bc -o ln.s; |
| $ llc -regalloc=fast file.bc -o fa.s; |
| $ llc -regalloc=pbqp file.bc -o pbqp.s; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="proepicode">Prolog/Epilog Code Insertion</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="compact_unwind">Compact Unwind</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Throwing an exception requires <em>unwinding</em> out of a function. The |
| information on how to unwind a given function is traditionally expressed in |
| DWARF unwind (a.k.a. frame) info. But that format was originally developed |
| for debuggers to backtrace, and each Frame Description Entry (FDE) requires |
| ~20-30 bytes per function. There is also the cost of mapping from an address |
| in a function to the corresponding FDE at runtime. An alternative unwind |
| encoding is called <em>compact unwind</em> and requires just 4-bytes per |
| function.</p> |
| |
| <p>The compact unwind encoding is a 32-bit value, which is encoded in an |
| architecture-specific way. It specifies which registers to restore and from |
| where, and how to unwind out of the funciton. When the linker creates a final |
| linked image, it will create a <code>__TEXT,__unwind_info</code> |
| section. This section is a small and fast way for the runtime to access |
| unwind info for any given function. If we emit compact unwind info for the |
| function, that compact unwind info will be encoded in |
| the <code>__TEXT,__unwind_info</code> section. If we emit DWARF unwind info, |
| the <code>__TEXT,__unwind_info</code> section will contain the offset of the |
| FDE in the <code>__TEXT,__eh_frame</code> section in the final linked |
| image.</p> |
| |
| <p>For X86, there are three modes for the compact unwind encoding:</p> |
| |
| <dl> |
| <dt><i>Function with a Frame Pointer (<code>EBP</code> or <code>RBP</code>)</i></dt> |
| <dd><p><code>EBP/RBP</code>-based frame, where <code>EBP/RBP</code> is pushed |
| onto the stack immediately after the return address, |
| then <code>ESP/RSP</code> is moved to <code>EBP/RBP</code>. Thus to |
| unwind, <code>ESP/RSP</code> is restored with the |
| current <code>EBP/RBP</code> value, then <code>EBP/RBP</code> is restored |
| by popping the stack, and the return is done by popping the stack once |
| more into the PC. All non-volatile registers that need to be restored must |
| have been saved in a small range on the stack that |
| starts <code>EBP-4</code> to <code>EBP-1020</code> (<code>RBP-8</code> |
| to <code>RBP-1020</code>). The offset (divided by 4 in 32-bit mode and 8 |
| in 64-bit mode) is encoded in bits 16-23 (mask: <code>0x00FF0000</code>). |
| The registers saved are encoded in bits 0-14 |
| (mask: <code>0x00007FFF</code>) as five 3-bit entries from the following |
| table:</p> |
| <table border="1" cellspacing="0"> |
| <tr> |
| <th>Compact Number</th> |
| <th>i386 Register</th> |
| <th>x86-64 Regiser</th> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>1</td> |
| <td><code>EBX</code></td> |
| <td><code>RBX</code></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>2</td> |
| <td><code>ECX</code></td> |
| <td><code>R12</code></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>3</td> |
| <td><code>EDX</code></td> |
| <td><code>R13</code></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>4</td> |
| <td><code>EDI</code></td> |
| <td><code>R14</code></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>5</td> |
| <td><code>ESI</code></td> |
| <td><code>R15</code></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>6</td> |
| <td><code>EBP</code></td> |
| <td><code>RBP</code></td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| </dd> |
| |
| <dt><i>Frameless with a Small Constant Stack Size (<code>EBP</code> |
| or <code>RBP</code> is not used as a frame pointer)</i></dt> |
| <dd><p>To return, a constant (encoded in the compact unwind encoding) is added |
| to the <code>ESP/RSP</code>. Then the return is done by popping the stack |
| into the PC. All non-volatile registers that need to be restored must have |
| been saved on the stack immediately after the return address. The stack |
| size (divided by 4 in 32-bit mode and 8 in 64-bit mode) is encoded in bits |
| 16-23 (mask: <code>0x00FF0000</code>). There is a maximum stack size of |
| 1024 bytes in 32-bit mode and 2048 in 64-bit mode. The number of registers |
| saved is encoded in bits 9-12 (mask: <code>0x00001C00</code>). Bits 0-9 |
| (mask: <code>0x000003FF</code>) contain which registers were saved and |
| their order. (See |
| the <code>encodeCompactUnwindRegistersWithoutFrame()</code> function |
| in <code>lib/Target/X86FrameLowering.cpp</code> for the encoding |
| algorithm.)</p></dd> |
| |
| <dt><i>Frameless with a Large Constant Stack Size (<code>EBP</code> |
| or <code>RBP</code> is not used as a frame pointer)</i></dt> |
| <dd><p>This case is like the "Frameless with a Small Constant Stack Size" |
| case, but the stack size is too large to encode in the compact unwind |
| encoding. Instead it requires that the function contains "<code>subl |
| $nnnnnn, %esp</code>" in its prolog. The compact encoding contains the |
| offset to the <code>$nnnnnn</code> value in the function in bits 9-12 |
| (mask: <code>0x00001C00</code>).</p></dd> |
| </dl> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="latemco">Late Machine Code Optimizations</a> |
| </h3> |
| <div><p>To Be Written</p></div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="codeemit">Code Emission</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The code emission step of code generation is responsible for lowering from |
| the code generator abstractions (like <a |
| href="#machinefunction">MachineFunction</a>, <a |
| href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a>, etc) down |
| to the abstractions used by the MC layer (<a href="#mcinst">MCInst</a>, |
| <a href="#mcstreamer">MCStreamer</a>, etc). This is |
| done with a combination of several different classes: the (misnamed) |
| target-independent AsmPrinter class, target-specific subclasses of AsmPrinter |
| (such as SparcAsmPrinter), and the TargetLoweringObjectFile class.</p> |
| |
| <p>Since the MC layer works at the level of abstraction of object files, it |
| doesn't have a notion of functions, global variables etc. Instead, it thinks |
| about labels, directives, and instructions. A key class used at this time is |
| the MCStreamer class. This is an abstract API that is implemented in different |
| ways (e.g. to output a .s file, output an ELF .o file, etc) that is effectively |
| an "assembler API". MCStreamer has one method per directive, such as EmitLabel, |
| EmitSymbolAttribute, SwitchSection, etc, which directly correspond to assembly |
| level directives. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>If you are interested in implementing a code generator for a target, there |
| are three important things that you have to implement for your target:</p> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li>First, you need a subclass of AsmPrinter for your target. This class |
| implements the general lowering process converting MachineFunction's into MC |
| label constructs. The AsmPrinter base class provides a number of useful methods |
| and routines, and also allows you to override the lowering process in some |
| important ways. You should get much of the lowering for free if you are |
| implementing an ELF, COFF, or MachO target, because the TargetLoweringObjectFile |
| class implements much of the common logic.</li> |
| |
| <li>Second, you need to implement an instruction printer for your target. The |
| instruction printer takes an <a href="#mcinst">MCInst</a> and renders it to a |
| raw_ostream as text. Most of this is automatically generated from the .td file |
| (when you specify something like "<tt>add $dst, $src1, $src2</tt>" in the |
| instructions), but you need to implement routines to print operands.</li> |
| |
| <li>Third, you need to implement code that lowers a <a |
| href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a> to an MCInst, usually implemented in |
| "<target>MCInstLower.cpp". This lowering process is often target |
| specific, and is responsible for turning jump table entries, constant pool |
| indices, global variable addresses, etc into MCLabels as appropriate. This |
| translation layer is also responsible for expanding pseudo ops used by the code |
| generator into the actual machine instructions they correspond to. The MCInsts |
| that are generated by this are fed into the instruction printer or the encoder. |
| </li> |
| |
| </ol> |
| |
| <p>Finally, at your choosing, you can also implement an subclass of |
| MCCodeEmitter which lowers MCInst's into machine code bytes and relocations. |
| This is important if you want to support direct .o file emission, or would like |
| to implement an assembler for your target.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="nativeassembler">Implementing a Native Assembler</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Though you're probably reading this because you want to write or maintain a |
| compiler backend, LLVM also fully supports building a native assemblers too. |
| We've tried hard to automate the generation of the assembler from the .td files |
| (in particular the instruction syntax and encodings), which means that a large |
| part of the manual and repetitive data entry can be factored and shared with the |
| compiler.</p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3 id="na_instparsing">Instruction Parsing</h3> |
| |
| <div><p>To Be Written</p></div> |
| |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3 id="na_instaliases"> |
| Instruction Alias Processing |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| <p>Once the instruction is parsed, it enters the MatchInstructionImpl function. |
| The MatchInstructionImpl function performs alias processing and then does |
| actual matching.</p> |
| |
| <p>Alias processing is the phase that canonicalizes different lexical forms of |
| the same instructions down to one representation. There are several different |
| kinds of alias that are possible to implement and they are listed below in the |
| order that they are processed (which is in order from simplest/weakest to most |
| complex/powerful). Generally you want to use the first alias mechanism that |
| meets the needs of your instruction, because it will allow a more concise |
| description.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4>Mnemonic Aliases</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The first phase of alias processing is simple instruction mnemonic |
| remapping for classes of instructions which are allowed with two different |
| mnemonics. This phase is a simple and unconditionally remapping from one input |
| mnemonic to one output mnemonic. It isn't possible for this form of alias to |
| look at the operands at all, so the remapping must apply for all forms of a |
| given mnemonic. Mnemonic aliases are defined simply, for example X86 has: |
| </p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"cbw", "cbtw">; |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"smovq", "movsq">; |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"fldcww", "fldcw">; |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"fucompi", "fucomip">; |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"ud2a", "ud2">; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>... and many others. With a MnemonicAlias definition, the mnemonic is |
| remapped simply and directly. Though MnemonicAlias's can't look at any aspect |
| of the instruction (such as the operands) they can depend on global modes (the |
| same ones supported by the matcher), through a Requires clause:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"pushf", "pushfq">, Requires<[In64BitMode]>; |
| def : MnemonicAlias<"pushf", "pushfl">, Requires<[In32BitMode]>; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>In this example, the mnemonic gets mapped into different a new one depending |
| on the current instruction set.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4>Instruction Aliases</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The most general phase of alias processing occurs while matching is |
| happening: it provides new forms for the matcher to match along with a specific |
| instruction to generate. An instruction alias has two parts: the string to |
| match and the instruction to generate. For example: |
| </p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX16rr8W GR16:$dst, GR8 :$src)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX16rm8W GR16:$dst, i8mem:$src)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX32rr8 GR32:$dst, GR8 :$src)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX32rr16 GR32:$dst, GR16 :$src)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX64rr8 GR64:$dst, GR8 :$src)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX64rr16 GR64:$dst, GR16 :$src)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"movsx $src, $dst", (MOVSX64rr32 GR64:$dst, GR32 :$src)>; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>This shows a powerful example of the instruction aliases, matching the |
| same mnemonic in multiple different ways depending on what operands are present |
| in the assembly. The result of instruction aliases can include operands in a |
| different order than the destination instruction, and can use an input |
| multiple times, for example:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| def : InstAlias<"clrb $reg", (XOR8rr GR8 :$reg, GR8 :$reg)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"clrw $reg", (XOR16rr GR16:$reg, GR16:$reg)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"clrl $reg", (XOR32rr GR32:$reg, GR32:$reg)>; |
| def : InstAlias<"clrq $reg", (XOR64rr GR64:$reg, GR64:$reg)>; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>This example also shows that tied operands are only listed once. In the X86 |
| backend, XOR8rr has two input GR8's and one output GR8 (where an input is tied |
| to the output). InstAliases take a flattened operand list without duplicates |
| for tied operands. The result of an instruction alias can also use immediates |
| and fixed physical registers which are added as simple immediate operands in the |
| result, for example:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| // Fixed Immediate operand. |
| def : InstAlias<"aad", (AAD8i8 10)>; |
| |
| // Fixed register operand. |
| def : InstAlias<"fcomi", (COM_FIr ST1)>; |
| |
| // Simple alias. |
| def : InstAlias<"fcomi $reg", (COM_FIr RST:$reg)>; |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <p>Instruction aliases can also have a Requires clause to make them |
| subtarget specific.</p> |
| |
| <p>If the back-end supports it, the instruction printer can automatically emit |
| the alias rather than what's being aliased. It typically leads to better, |
| more readable code. If it's better to print out what's being aliased, then |
| pass a '0' as the third parameter to the InstAlias definition.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3 id="na_matching">Instruction Matching</h3> |
| |
| <div><p>To Be Written</p></div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <h2> |
| <a name="targetimpls">Target-specific Implementation Notes</a> |
| </h2> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>This section of the document explains features or design decisions that are |
| specific to the code generator for a particular target. First we start |
| with a table that summarizes what features are supported by each target.</p> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="targetfeatures">Target Feature Matrix</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Note that this table does not include the C backend or Cpp backends, since |
| they do not use the target independent code generator infrastructure. It also |
| doesn't list features that are not supported fully by any target yet. It |
| considers a feature to be supported if at least one subtarget supports it. A |
| feature being supported means that it is useful and works for most cases, it |
| does not indicate that there are zero known bugs in the implementation. Here |
| is the key:</p> |
| |
| |
| <table border="1" cellspacing="0"> |
| <tr> |
| <th>Unknown</th> |
| <th>No support</th> |
| <th>Partial Support</th> |
| <th>Complete Support</th> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> |
| <td class="no"></td> |
| <td class="partial"></td> |
| <td class="yes"></td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| <p>Here is the table:</p> |
| |
| <table width="689" border="1" cellspacing="0"> |
| <tr><td></td> |
| <td colspan="13" align="center" style="background-color:#ffc">Target</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <th>Feature</th> |
| <th>ARM</th> |
| <th>Alpha</th> |
| <th>Blackfin</th> |
| <th>CellSPU</th> |
| <th>MBlaze</th> |
| <th>MSP430</th> |
| <th>Mips</th> |
| <th>PTX</th> |
| <th>PowerPC</th> |
| <th>Sparc</th> |
| <th>SystemZ</th> |
| <th>X86</th> |
| <th>XCore</th> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_reliable">is generally reliable</a></td> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_asmparser">assembly parser</a></td> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_disassembler">disassembler</a></td> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_inlineasm">inline asm</a></td> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"><a href="#feat_inlineasm_x86">*</a></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_jit">jit</a></td> |
| <td class="partial"><a href="#feat_jit_arm">*</a></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_objectwrite">.o file writing</a></td> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td><a href="#feat_tailcall">tail calls</a></td> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- ARM --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- Alpha --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Blackfin --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- CellSPU --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- MBlaze --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- MSP430 --> |
| <td class="no"></td> <!-- Mips --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- PTX --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- PowerPC --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- Sparc --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- SystemZ --> |
| <td class="yes"></td> <!-- X86 --> |
| <td class="unknown"></td> <!-- XCore --> |
| </tr> |
| |
| |
| </table> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_reliable">Is Generally Reliable</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target is considered to be production quality. |
| This indicates that the target has been used as a static compiler to |
| compile large amounts of code by a variety of different people and is in |
| continuous use.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_asmparser">Assembly Parser</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target supports parsing target specific .s |
| files by implementing the MCAsmParser interface. This is required for llvm-mc |
| to be able to act as a native assembler and is required for inline assembly |
| support in the native .o file writer.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_disassembler">Disassembler</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target supports the MCDisassembler API for |
| disassembling machine opcode bytes into MCInst's.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_inlineasm">Inline Asm</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target supports most popular inline assembly |
| constraints and modifiers.</p> |
| |
| <p id="feat_inlineasm_x86">X86 lacks reliable support for inline assembly |
| constraints relating to the X86 floating point stack.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_jit">JIT Support</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target supports the JIT compiler through |
| the ExecutionEngine interface.</p> |
| |
| <p id="feat_jit_arm">The ARM backend has basic support for integer code |
| in ARM codegen mode, but lacks NEON and full Thumb support.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_objectwrite">.o File Writing</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target supports writing .o files (e.g. MachO, |
| ELF, and/or COFF) files directly from the target. Note that the target also |
| must include an assembly parser and general inline assembly support for full |
| inline assembly support in the .o writer.</p> |
| |
| <p>Targets that don't support this feature can obviously still write out .o |
| files, they just rely on having an external assembler to translate from a .s |
| file to a .o file (as is the case for many C compilers).</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4 id="feat_tailcall">Tail Calls</h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>This box indicates whether the target supports guaranteed tail calls. These |
| are calls marked "<a href="LangRef.html#i_call">tail</a>" and use the fastcc |
| calling convention. Please see the <a href="#tailcallopt">tail call section |
| more more details</a>.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="tailcallopt">Tail call optimization</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Tail call optimization, callee reusing the stack of the caller, is currently |
| supported on x86/x86-64 and PowerPC. It is performed if:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Caller and callee have the calling convention <tt>fastcc</tt> or |
| <tt>cc 10</tt> (GHC call convention).</li> |
| |
| <li>The call is a tail call - in tail position (ret immediately follows call |
| and ret uses value of call or is void).</li> |
| |
| <li>Option <tt>-tailcallopt</tt> is enabled.</li> |
| |
| <li>Platform specific constraints are met.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>x86/x86-64 constraints:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>No variable argument lists are used.</li> |
| |
| <li>On x86-64 when generating GOT/PIC code only module-local calls (visibility |
| = hidden or protected) are supported.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>PowerPC constraints:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>No variable argument lists are used.</li> |
| |
| <li>No byval parameters are used.</li> |
| |
| <li>On ppc32/64 GOT/PIC only module-local calls (visibility = hidden or protected) are supported.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>Example:</p> |
| |
| <p>Call as <tt>llc -tailcallopt test.ll</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| declare fastcc i32 @tailcallee(i32 inreg %a1, i32 inreg %a2, i32 %a3, i32 %a4) |
| |
| define fastcc i32 @tailcaller(i32 %in1, i32 %in2) { |
| %l1 = add i32 %in1, %in2 |
| %tmp = tail call fastcc i32 @tailcallee(i32 %in1 inreg, i32 %in2 inreg, i32 %in1, i32 %l1) |
| ret i32 %tmp |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Implications of <tt>-tailcallopt</tt>:</p> |
| |
| <p>To support tail call optimization in situations where the callee has more |
| arguments than the caller a 'callee pops arguments' convention is used. This |
| currently causes each <tt>fastcc</tt> call that is not tail call optimized |
| (because one or more of above constraints are not met) to be followed by a |
| readjustment of the stack. So performance might be worse in such cases.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="sibcallopt">Sibling call optimization</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>Sibling call optimization is a restricted form of tail call optimization. |
| Unlike tail call optimization described in the previous section, it can be |
| performed automatically on any tail calls when <tt>-tailcallopt</tt> option |
| is not specified.</p> |
| |
| <p>Sibling call optimization is currently performed on x86/x86-64 when the |
| following constraints are met:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Caller and callee have the same calling convention. It can be either |
| <tt>c</tt> or <tt>fastcc</tt>. |
| |
| <li>The call is a tail call - in tail position (ret immediately follows call |
| and ret uses value of call or is void).</li> |
| |
| <li>Caller and callee have matching return type or the callee result is not |
| used. |
| |
| <li>If any of the callee arguments are being passed in stack, they must be |
| available in caller's own incoming argument stack and the frame offsets |
| must be the same. |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>Example:</p> |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| declare i32 @bar(i32, i32) |
| |
| define i32 @foo(i32 %a, i32 %b, i32 %c) { |
| entry: |
| %0 = tail call i32 @bar(i32 %a, i32 %b) |
| ret i32 %0 |
| } |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="x86">The X86 backend</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The X86 code generator lives in the <tt>lib/Target/X86</tt> directory. This |
| code generator is capable of targeting a variety of x86-32 and x86-64 |
| processors, and includes support for ISA extensions such as MMX and SSE.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="x86_tt">X86 Target Triples supported</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The following are the known target triples that are supported by the X86 |
| backend. This is not an exhaustive list, and it would be useful to add those |
| that people test.</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><b>i686-pc-linux-gnu</b> — Linux</li> |
| |
| <li><b>i386-unknown-freebsd5.3</b> — FreeBSD 5.3</li> |
| |
| <li><b>i686-pc-cygwin</b> — Cygwin on Win32</li> |
| |
| <li><b>i686-pc-mingw32</b> — MingW on Win32</li> |
| |
| <li><b>i386-pc-mingw32msvc</b> — MingW crosscompiler on Linux</li> |
| |
| <li><b>i686-apple-darwin*</b> — Apple Darwin on X86</li> |
| |
| <li><b>x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu</b> — Linux</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="x86_cc">X86 Calling Conventions supported</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The following target-specific calling conventions are known to backend:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><b>x86_StdCall</b> — stdcall calling convention seen on Microsoft |
| Windows platform (CC ID = 64).</li> |
| <li><b>x86_FastCall</b> — fastcall calling convention seen on Microsoft |
| Windows platform (CC ID = 65).</li> |
| <li><b>x86_ThisCall</b> — Similar to X86_StdCall. Passes first argument |
| in ECX, others via stack. Callee is responsible for stack cleaning. This |
| convention is used by MSVC by default for methods in its ABI |
| (CC ID = 70).</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="x86_memory">Representing X86 addressing modes in MachineInstrs</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The x86 has a very flexible way of accessing memory. It is capable of |
| forming memory addresses of the following expression directly in integer |
| instructions (which use ModR/M addressing):</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| SegmentReg: Base + [1,2,4,8] * IndexReg + Disp32 |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>In order to represent this, LLVM tracks no less than 5 operands for each |
| memory operand of this form. This means that the "load" form of |
| '<tt>mov</tt>' has the following <tt>MachineOperand</tt>s in this order:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| Index: 0 | 1 2 3 4 5 |
| Meaning: DestReg, | BaseReg, Scale, IndexReg, Displacement Segment |
| OperandTy: VirtReg, | VirtReg, UnsImm, VirtReg, SignExtImm PhysReg |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>Stores, and all other instructions, treat the four memory operands in the |
| same way and in the same order. If the segment register is unspecified |
| (regno = 0), then no segment override is generated. "Lea" operations do not |
| have a segment register specified, so they only have 4 operands for their |
| memory reference.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="x86_memory">X86 address spaces supported</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>x86 has a feature which provides |
| the ability to perform loads and stores to different address spaces |
| via the x86 segment registers. A segment override prefix byte on an |
| instruction causes the instruction's memory access to go to the specified |
| segment. LLVM address space 0 is the default address space, which includes |
| the stack, and any unqualified memory accesses in a program. Address spaces |
| 1-255 are currently reserved for user-defined code. The GS-segment is |
| represented by address space 256, while the FS-segment is represented by |
| address space 257. Other x86 segments have yet to be allocated address space |
| numbers.</p> |
| |
| <p>While these address spaces may seem similar to TLS via the |
| <tt>thread_local</tt> keyword, and often use the same underlying hardware, |
| there are some fundamental differences.</p> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>thread_local</tt> keyword applies to global variables and |
| specifies that they are to be allocated in thread-local memory. There are |
| no type qualifiers involved, and these variables can be pointed to with |
| normal pointers and accessed with normal loads and stores. |
| The <tt>thread_local</tt> keyword is target-independent at the LLVM IR |
| level (though LLVM doesn't yet have implementations of it for some |
| configurations).<p> |
| |
| <p>Special address spaces, in contrast, apply to static types. Every |
| load and store has a particular address space in its address operand type, |
| and this is what determines which address space is accessed. |
| LLVM ignores these special address space qualifiers on global variables, |
| and does not provide a way to directly allocate storage in them. |
| At the LLVM IR level, the behavior of these special address spaces depends |
| in part on the underlying OS or runtime environment, and they are specific |
| to x86 (and LLVM doesn't yet handle them correctly in some cases).</p> |
| |
| <p>Some operating systems and runtime environments use (or may in the future |
| use) the FS/GS-segment registers for various low-level purposes, so care |
| should be taken when considering them.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="x86_names">Instruction naming</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>An instruction name consists of the base name, a default operand size, and a |
| a character per operand with an optional special size. For example:</p> |
| |
| <div class="doc_code"> |
| <pre> |
| ADD8rr -> add, 8-bit register, 8-bit register |
| IMUL16rmi -> imul, 16-bit register, 16-bit memory, 16-bit immediate |
| IMUL16rmi8 -> imul, 16-bit register, 16-bit memory, 8-bit immediate |
| MOVSX32rm16 -> movsx, 32-bit register, 16-bit memory |
| </pre> |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <h3> |
| <a name="ppc">The PowerPC backend</a> |
| </h3> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The PowerPC code generator lives in the lib/Target/PowerPC directory. The |
| code generation is retargetable to several variations or <i>subtargets</i> of |
| the PowerPC ISA; including ppc32, ppc64 and altivec.</p> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="ppc_abi">LLVM PowerPC ABI</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>LLVM follows the AIX PowerPC ABI, with two deviations. LLVM uses a PC |
| relative (PIC) or static addressing for accessing global values, so no TOC |
| (r2) is used. Second, r31 is used as a frame pointer to allow dynamic growth |
| of a stack frame. LLVM takes advantage of having no TOC to provide space to |
| save the frame pointer in the PowerPC linkage area of the caller frame. |
| Other details of PowerPC ABI can be found at <a href= |
| "http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/LowLevelABI/Articles/32bitPowerPC.html" |
| >PowerPC ABI.</a> Note: This link describes the 32 bit ABI. The 64 bit ABI |
| is similar except space for GPRs are 8 bytes wide (not 4) and r13 is reserved |
| for system use.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="ppc_frame">Frame Layout</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The size of a PowerPC frame is usually fixed for the duration of a |
| function's invocation. Since the frame is fixed size, all references |
| into the frame can be accessed via fixed offsets from the stack pointer. The |
| exception to this is when dynamic alloca or variable sized arrays are |
| present, then a base pointer (r31) is used as a proxy for the stack pointer |
| and stack pointer is free to grow or shrink. A base pointer is also used if |
| llvm-gcc is not passed the -fomit-frame-pointer flag. The stack pointer is |
| always aligned to 16 bytes, so that space allocated for altivec vectors will |
| be properly aligned.</p> |
| |
| <p>An invocation frame is laid out as follows (low memory at top);</p> |
| |
| <table class="layout"> |
| <tr> |
| <td>Linkage<br><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>Parameter area<br><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>Dynamic area<br><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>Locals area<br><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>Saved registers area<br><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr style="border-style: none hidden none hidden;"> |
| <td><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>Previous Frame<br><br></td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| <p>The <i>linkage</i> area is used by a callee to save special registers prior |
| to allocating its own frame. Only three entries are relevant to LLVM. The |
| first entry is the previous stack pointer (sp), aka link. This allows |
| probing tools like gdb or exception handlers to quickly scan the frames in |
| the stack. A function epilog can also use the link to pop the frame from the |
| stack. The third entry in the linkage area is used to save the return |
| address from the lr register. Finally, as mentioned above, the last entry is |
| used to save the previous frame pointer (r31.) The entries in the linkage |
| area are the size of a GPR, thus the linkage area is 24 bytes long in 32 bit |
| mode and 48 bytes in 64 bit mode.</p> |
| |
| <p>32 bit linkage area</p> |
| |
| <table class="layout"> |
| <tr> |
| <td>0</td> |
| <td>Saved SP (r1)</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>4</td> |
| <td>Saved CR</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>8</td> |
| <td>Saved LR</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>12</td> |
| <td>Reserved</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>16</td> |
| <td>Reserved</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>20</td> |
| <td>Saved FP (r31)</td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| <p>64 bit linkage area</p> |
| |
| <table class="layout"> |
| <tr> |
| <td>0</td> |
| <td>Saved SP (r1)</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>8</td> |
| <td>Saved CR</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>16</td> |
| <td>Saved LR</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>24</td> |
| <td>Reserved</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>32</td> |
| <td>Reserved</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>40</td> |
| <td>Saved FP (r31)</td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| <p>The <i>parameter area</i> is used to store arguments being passed to a callee |
| function. Following the PowerPC ABI, the first few arguments are actually |
| passed in registers, with the space in the parameter area unused. However, |
| if there are not enough registers or the callee is a thunk or vararg |
| function, these register arguments can be spilled into the parameter area. |
| Thus, the parameter area must be large enough to store all the parameters for |
| the largest call sequence made by the caller. The size must also be |
| minimally large enough to spill registers r3-r10. This allows callees blind |
| to the call signature, such as thunks and vararg functions, enough space to |
| cache the argument registers. Therefore, the parameter area is minimally 32 |
| bytes (64 bytes in 64 bit mode.) Also note that since the parameter area is |
| a fixed offset from the top of the frame, that a callee can access its spilt |
| arguments using fixed offsets from the stack pointer (or base pointer.)</p> |
| |
| <p>Combining the information about the linkage, parameter areas and alignment. A |
| stack frame is minimally 64 bytes in 32 bit mode and 128 bytes in 64 bit |
| mode.</p> |
| |
| <p>The <i>dynamic area</i> starts out as size zero. If a function uses dynamic |
| alloca then space is added to the stack, the linkage and parameter areas are |
| shifted to top of stack, and the new space is available immediately below the |
| linkage and parameter areas. The cost of shifting the linkage and parameter |
| areas is minor since only the link value needs to be copied. The link value |
| can be easily fetched by adding the original frame size to the base pointer. |
| Note that allocations in the dynamic space need to observe 16 byte |
| alignment.</p> |
| |
| <p>The <i>locals area</i> is where the llvm compiler reserves space for local |
| variables.</p> |
| |
| <p>The <i>saved registers area</i> is where the llvm compiler spills callee |
| saved registers on entry to the callee.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="ppc_prolog">Prolog/Epilog</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p>The llvm prolog and epilog are the same as described in the PowerPC ABI, with |
| the following exceptions. Callee saved registers are spilled after the frame |
| is created. This allows the llvm epilog/prolog support to be common with |
| other targets. The base pointer callee saved register r31 is saved in the |
| TOC slot of linkage area. This simplifies allocation of space for the base |
| pointer and makes it convenient to locate programatically and during |
| debugging.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> |
| <h4> |
| <a name="ppc_dynamic">Dynamic Allocation</a> |
| </h4> |
| |
| <div> |
| |
| <p><i>TODO - More to come.</i></p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| </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: $Date$ |
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| |
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