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Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00008 <title>LLVM 2.3 Release Notes</title>
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10<body>
11
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +000012<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.3 Release Notes</div>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000013
14<ol>
15 <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +000016 <li><a href="#changes">Major Changes and Sub-project Status</a></li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000017 <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
18 <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
19 <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
20 <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
21 <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
22</ol>
23
24<div class="doc_author">
25 <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a><p>
26</div>
27
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +000028<!-- Done through Week-of-Mon-20080324.txt -->
29
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000030<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
31<div class="doc_section">
32 <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
33</div>
34<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
35
36<div class="doc_text">
37
38<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +000039infrastructure, release 2.3. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000040major improvements from the previous release and any known problems. All LLVM
41releases may be downloaded from the <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM
42releases web site</a>.</p>
43
44<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
45release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM
46web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a
47href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
48list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
49
50<p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +000051main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the
52current one. To see the release notes for a specific releases, please see the
53<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000054
55</div>
56
57<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
58<div class="doc_section">
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +000059 <a name="changes">Major Changes and Sub-project Status</a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000060</div>
61<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
62
63<div class="doc_text">
64
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +000065<p>This is the fourteenth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +000066It includes a large number of features and refinements from LLVM 2.2.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000067
68</div>
69
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +000070<!-- Unfinished features in 2.3:
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +000071 Machine LICM
72 Machine Sinking
73 LegalizeDAGTypes
74 -->
75
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000076<!--=========================================================================-->
77<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +000078<a name="changes">Major Changes in LLVM 2.3</a>
Chris Lattner41bf8e92008-02-10 07:04:35 +000079</div>
80
81<div class="doc_text">
82
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +000083<p>LLVM 2.3 no longer supports llvm-gcc 4.0, it has been replaced with
84 llvm-gcc 4.2.</p>
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +000085
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +000086<p>LLVM 2.3 no longer includes the <tt>llvm-upgrade</tt> tool. It was useful
87 for upgrading LLVM 1.9 files to LLVM 2.x syntax, but you can always use a
88 previous LLVM release to do this. One nice impact of this is that the LLVM
89 regression test suite no longer depends on llvm-upgrade, which makes it run
90 faster.</p>
91
92<p>The <tt>llvm2cpp</tt> tool has been folded into llc, use
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +000093 <tt>llc -march=cpp</tt> instead of <tt>llvm2cpp</tt>.</p>
94
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +000095<p>LLVM API Changes:</p>
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +000096
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +000097<ul>
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +000098<li>Several core LLVM IR classes have migrated to use the
99 '<tt>FOOCLASS::Create(...)</tt>' pattern instead of '<tt>new
100 FOOCLASS(...)</tt>' (e.g. where FOOCLASS=<tt>BasicBlock</tt>). We hope to
101 standardize on <tt>FOOCLASS::Create</tt> for all IR classes in the future,
102 but not all of them have been moved over yet.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000103<li>LLVM 2.3 renames the LLVMBuilder and LLVMFoldingBuilder classes to
Dan Gohman8f4a6ad2008-06-08 22:57:59 +0000104 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1IRBuilder.html">IRBuilder</a>.
105 </li>
106<li>MRegisterInfo was renamed to
107 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1TargetRegisterInfo.html">
108 TargetRegisterInfo</a>.</li>
109<li>The MappedFile class is gone, please use
110 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1MemoryBuffer.html">
111 MemoryBuffer</a> instead.</li>
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000112<li>The '<tt>-enable-eh</tt>' flag to llc has been removed. Now code should
113 encode whether it is safe to omit unwind information for a function by
114 tagging the Function object with the '<tt>nounwind</tt>' attribute.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000115
116</ul>
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000117</div>
118
119<!--=========================================================================-->
120<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000121<a name="otherprojects">Other LLVM Sub-Projects</a>
122</div>
123
124<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000125<p>
126The core LLVM 2.3 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
127repository (which roughly contains the LLVM optimizer, code generators and
128supporting tools) and the llvm-gcc repository. In addition to this code, the
129LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in development. The two which
130are the most actively developed are the new <a href="#vmkit">vmkit Project</a>
131and the <a href="#clang">Clang Project</a>.
132</p>
133</div>
134
135<!--=========================================================================-->
136<div class="doc_subsubsection">
137<a name="vmkit">vmkit</a>
138</div>
139
140<div class="doc_text">
141<p>
142The "vmkit" project is a new addition to the LLVM family. It is an
143implementation of a JVM and a CLI Virtual Machines (Microsoft .NET is an
144implementation of the CLI) using the Just-In-Time compiler of LLVM.</p>
145
146<p>The JVM, called JnJVM, executes real-world applications such as Apache
147projects (e.g. Felix and Tomcat) and the SpecJVM98 benchmark. It uses the GNU
148Classpath project for the base classes. The CLI implementation, called N3, is
149its in early stages but can execute simple applications and the "pnetmark"
150benchmark. It uses the pnetlib project as its core library.</p>
151
152<p>The 'vmkit' VMs compare in performance with industrial and top open-source
153VMs on scientific applications. Besides the JIT, the VMs use many features of
154the LLVM framework, including the standard set of optimizations, atomic
155operations, custom function provider and memory manager for JITed methods, and
156specific virtual machine optimizations. vmkit is not an official part of LLVM
1572.3 release. It is publicly available under the LLVM license and can be
158downloaded from:
159</p>
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000160
161<p>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000162<tt>svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/vmkit/trunk vmkit</tt>
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000163</p>
164
165</div>
166
167<!--=========================================================================-->
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000168<div class="doc_subsubsection">
169<a name="clang">Clang</a>
170</div>
171
172<div class="doc_text">
173
174<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang project</a> is an effort to build
175a set of new 'LLVM native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
176and code generator. Clang is continuing to make major strides forward in all
177areas. Its C and Objective-C parsing support is very solid, and the code
178generation support is far enough along to build many C applications. While not
179yet production quality, it is progressing very nicely. In addition, C++
180front-end work has started to make significant progress.</p>
181
182<p>At this point, Clang is most useful if you are interested in source-to-source
183transformations (such as refactoring) and other source-level tools for C and
184Objective-C. Clang now also includes tools for turning C code into pretty HTML,
185and includes a new <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/StaticAnalysis.html">static
186analysis tool</a> in development. This tool is automatically focused on finding
187bugs in C and Objective-C code.</p>
188
189</div>
190
191
192<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
193<div class="doc_section">
194 <a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
195</div>
196<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
197
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000198<div class="doc_text">
199
200<p>LLVM 2.3 includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and minor
201improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are listed in
202this section.
203</p>
204</div>
205
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000206<!--=========================================================================-->
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000207<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000208<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
209</div>
210
211<div class="doc_text">
212
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000213<p>LLVM 2.3 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000214
215<ul>
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000216<li><p>The biggest change in LLVM 2.3 is Multiple Return Value (MRV) support.
217 MRVs allow LLVM IR to directly represent functions that return multiple
218 values without having to pass them "by reference" in the LLVM IR. This
219 allows a front-end to generate more efficient code, as MRVs are generally
220 returned in registers if a target supports them. See the <a
221 href="LangRef.html#i_getresult">LLVM IR Reference</a> for more details.</p>
222
223 <p>MRVs are fully supported in the LLVM IR, but are not yet fully supported in
224 on all targets. However, it is generally safe to return up to 2 values from
225 a function: most targets should be able to handle at least that. MRV
226 support is a critical requirement for X86-64 ABI support, as X86-64 requires
227 the ability to return multiple registers from functions, and we use MRVs to
228 accomplish this in a direct way.</p></li>
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000229
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000230<li><p>LLVM 2.3 includes a complete reimplementation of the "<tt>llvmc</tt>"
231 tool. It is designed to overcome several problems with the original
232 <tt>llvmc</tt> and to provide a superset of the features of the
233 '<tt>gcc</tt>' driver.</p>
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000234
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000235<p>The main features of <tt>llvmc2</tt> are:
236 <ul>
237 <li>Extended handling of command line options and smart rules for
238 dispatching them to different tools.</li>
239 <li>Flexible (and extensible) rules for defining different tools.</li>
240 <li>The different intermediate steps performed by tools are represented
241 as edges in the abstract graph.</li>
242 <li>The 'language' for driver behavior definition is tablegen and thus
243 it's relatively easy to add new features.</li>
244 <li>The definition of driver is transformed into set of C++ classes, thus
245 no runtime interpretation is needed.</li>
246 </ul></p>
247 </li>
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000248
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000249<li><p>LLVM 2.3 includes a completely rewritten interface for <a
250 href="LinkTimeOptimization.html">Link Time Optimization</a>. This interface
251 is written in C, which allows for easier integration with C code bases, and
252 incorporates improvements we learned about from the first incarnation of the
253 interface.</p></li>
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000254
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000255<li><p>The <a href="tutorial/LangImpl1.html">Kaleidoscope tutorial</a> now
256 includes a "port" of the tutorial that <a
257 href="tutorial/OCamlLangImpl1.html">uses the Ocaml bindings</a> to implement
258 the Kaleidoscope language.</p></li>
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000259
Chris Lattner5ba16862008-02-10 08:18:42 +0000260</ul>
261
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000262</div>
263
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000264
265<!--=========================================================================-->
266<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000267<a name="llvm-gcc">llvm-gcc 4.2 Improvements</a>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000268</div>
269
270<div class="doc_text">
271
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000272<p>LLVM 2.3 fully supports the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end, and includes support
273for the C, C++, Objective-C, Ada, and Fortran front-ends.</p>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000274
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000275<p>
276<ul>
277<li>llvm-gcc 4.2 includes numerous fixes to better support the Objective-C
278front-end. Objective-C now works very well on Mac OS/X.</li>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000279
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000280<li>Fortran EQUIVALENCEs are now supported by the gfortran front-end.</li>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000281
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000282<li>llvm-gcc 4.2 includes many other fixes which improve conformance with the
283relevant parts of the GCC testsuite.</li>
284
285</ul></p>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000286
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000287</div>
288
289
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000290<!--=========================================================================-->
291<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000292<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
293</div>
294
295<div class="doc_text">
296<p>New features include:
297</p>
298
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000299<ul>
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000300<li>LLVM IR now directly represents "common" linkage, instead of representing it
301as a form of weak linkage.</li>
302
303<li>LLVM IR now has support for atomic operations, and this functionality can
304be accessed through the llvm-gcc "__sync_synchronize",
305"__sync_val_compare_and_swap", and related builtins. Support for atomics are
306available in the Alpha, X86, X86-64, and PowerPC backends.</li>
307
308<li>The C and Ocaml bindings have extended to cover pass managers, several
309transformation passes, iteration over the LLVM IR, target data, and parameter
310attribute lists.</li>
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000311</ul>
312
313</div>
314
315<!--=========================================================================-->
316<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000317<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
318</div>
319
320<div class="doc_text">
321
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000322<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, the
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000323LLVM 2.3 optimizers support a few major enhancements:</p>
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000324
325<ul>
326
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000327<li><p>Loop index set splitting on by default.
328This transformation hoists conditions from loop bodies and reduces a loop's
329iteration space to improve performance. For example,</p>
330
Devang Patel67e46712008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000331<pre>
Chris Lattnerabc3b352008-06-08 20:25:30 +0000332for (i = LB; i &lt; UB; ++i)
333 if (i &lt;= NV)
Devang Patel67e46712008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000334 LOOP_BODY
335</pre>
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000336
337<p>is transformed into:</p>
338
Devang Patel67e46712008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000339<pre>
340NUB = min(NV+1, UB)
Chris Lattnerabc3b352008-06-08 20:25:30 +0000341for (i = LB; i &lt; NUB; ++i)
Devang Patel67e46712008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000342 LOOP_BODY
343</pre>
344</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000345
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000346<li>LLVM now includes a new <tt>memcpy</tt> optimization pass which removes
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000347dead <tt>memcpy</tt> calls, unneeded copies of aggregates, and performs
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000348return slot optimization. The LLVM optimizer now notices long sequences of
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000349consecutive stores and merges them into <tt>memcpy</tt>'s where profitable.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000350
Gabor Greif5e75e652008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000351<li>Alignment detection for vector memory references and for <tt>memcpy</tt> and
352<tt>memset</tt> is now more aggressive.</li>
Owen Anderson7f8ea062008-06-06 16:23:15 +0000353
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000354<li>The Aggressive Dead Code Elimination (ADCE) optimization has been rewritten
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000355to make it both faster and safer in the presence of code containing infinite
356loops. Some of its prior functionality has been factored out into the loop
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000357deletion pass, which <em>is</em> safe for infinite loops. The new ADCE pass is
358no longer based on control dependence, making it run faster.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000359
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000360<li>The 'SimplifyLibCalls' pass, which optimizes calls to libc and libm
361 functions for C-based languages, has been rewritten to be a FunctionPass
362 instead a ModulePass. This allows it to be run more often and to be
363 included at -O1 in llvm-gcc. It was also extended to include more
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000364 optimizations and several corner case bugs were fixed.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000365
Duncan Sands8b4f3772008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000366<li>LLVM now includes a simple 'Jump Threading' pass, which attempts to simplify
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000367 conditional branches using information about predecessor blocks, simplifying
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000368 the control flow graph. This pass is pretty basic at this point, but
369 catches some important cases and provides a foundation to build on.</li>
370
371<li>Several corner case bugs which could lead to deleting volatile memory
372 accesses have been fixed.</li>
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000373
374<li>Several optimizations have been sped up, leading to faster code generation
375 with the same code quality.</li>
376
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000377</ul>
378
379</div>
380
381<!--=========================================================================-->
382<div class="doc_subsection">
383<a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
384</div>
385
386<div class="doc_text">
387
388<p>We put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
389which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make it run
390faster:</p>
391
392<ul>
Dan Gohman1c0030e2008-06-08 22:49:27 +0000393<li>The code generator now has support for carrying information about memory
394 references throughout the entire code generation process, via the
395 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1MachineMemOperand.html">
396 MachineMemOperand</a> class. In the future this will be used to improve
397 both pre-pass and post-pass scheduling, and to improve compiler-debugging
398 output.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000399
Dan Gohman8f4a6ad2008-06-08 22:57:59 +0000400<li>The target-independent code generator infrastructure now uses LLVM's
401 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1APInt.html">APInt</a>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000402 class to handle integer values, which allows it to support integer types
403 larger than 64 bits. Note that support for such types is also dependent on
404 target-specific support. Use of APInt is also a step toward support for
405 non-power-of-2 integer sizes.</li>
406
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000407<li>LLVM 2.3 includes several compile time speedups for code with large basic
Dan Gohmanf3d8f8d2008-06-08 22:44:43 +0000408 blocks, particularly in the instruction selection phase, register
409 allocation, scheduling, and tail merging/jump threading.</li>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000410
411<li>Several improvements which make llc's <tt>--view-sunit-dags</tt>
412 visualization of scheduling dependency graphs easier to understand.</li>
413
414<li>The code generator allows targets to write patterns that generate subreg
415 references directly in .td files now.</li>
416
417<li><tt>memcpy</tt> lowering in the backend is more aggressive, particularly for
418 <tt>memcpy</tt> calls introduced by the code generator when handling
419 pass-by-value structure argument copies.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000420
421<li>Inline assembly with multiple register results now returns those results
422 directly in the appropriate registers, rather than going through memory.
423 Inline assembly that uses constraints like "ir" with immediates now use the
424 'i' form when possible instead of always loading the value in a register.
425 This saves an instruction and reduces register use.</li>
426
427<li>Added support for PIC/GOT style tail calls on x86/32 and initial support
428 for tail calls on PowerPC 32 (it may also work on ppc64 but not
429 thoroughly tested).</li>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000430</ul>
431
432</div>
433
434
435<!--=========================================================================-->
436<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000437<a name="x86specific">X86/X86-64 Specific Improvements</a>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000438</div>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000439
440<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000441<p>New target-specific features include:
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000442</p>
443
444<ul>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000445<li>llvm-gcc's X86-64 ABI conformance is far improved, particularly in the
Gabor Greif5e75e652008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000446 area of passing and returning structures by value. llvm-gcc compiled code
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000447 now interoperates very well on X86-64 systems with other compilers.</li>
448
Duncan Sands8b4f3772008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000449<li>Support for Win64 was added. This includes code generation itself, JIT
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000450 support and necessary changes to llvm-gcc.</li>
451
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000452<li>The LLVM X86 backend now supports the support SSE 4.1 instruction set, and
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000453 the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end supports the SSE 4.1 compiler builtins. Various
454 generic vector operations (insert/extract/shuffle) are much more efficient
455 when SSE 4.1 is enabled. The JIT automatically takes advantage of these
456 instructions, but llvm-gcc must be explicitly told to use them, e.g. with
457 <tt>-march=penryn</tt>.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000458
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000459<li>The X86 backend now does a number of optimizations that aim to avoid
460 converting numbers back and forth from SSE registers to the X87 floating
461 point stack.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000462
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000463<li>The X86 backend supports stack realignment, which is particularly useful for
464 vector code on OS's without 16-byte aligned stacks.</li>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000465
466<li>The X86 backend now supports the "sseregparm" options in GCC, which allow
467 functions to be tagged as passing floating point values in SSE
468 registers.</li>
469
470<li>Trampolines (taking the address of a nested function) now work on
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000471 Linux/X86-64.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000472
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000473<li><tt>__builtin_prefetch</tt> is now compiled into the appropriate prefetch
474 instructions instead of being ignored.</li>
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000475
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000476<li>128-bit integers are now supported on X86-64 targets.</li>
Dan Gohman74e1ff52008-06-05 16:15:39 +0000477
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000478<li>The register allocator can now rematerialize PIC-base computations.</li>
479
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000480<li>The "t" and "f" inline assembly constraints for the X87 floating point stack
481 now work. However, the "u" constraint is still not fully supported.</li>
482
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000483</ul>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000484
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000485</div>
486
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000487<!--=========================================================================-->
488<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000489<a name="targetspecific">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
490</div>
491
492<div class="doc_text">
493<p>New target-specific features include:
494</p>
495
496<ul>
Gabor Greif5e75e652008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000497<li>The LLVM C backend now supports vector code.</li>
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000498</ul>
499
500</div>
501
502
503
504<!--=========================================================================-->
505<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000506<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
507</div>
508
509<div class="doc_text">
510<p>New features include:
511</p>
512
513<ul>
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000514<li>LLVM now builds with GCC 4.3.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000515<li>Bugpoint now supports running custom scripts (with the <tt>-run-custom</tt>
516 option) to determine how to execute the command and whether it is making
517 forward process.</li>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000518</ul>
519
520</div>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000521
522<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
523<div class="doc_section">
524 <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
525</div>
526<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
527
528<div class="doc_text">
529
530<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
531
532<ul>
Gabor Greif5e75e652008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000533<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32) running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000534 (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
Chris Lattnerbd633de92008-02-06 06:30:34 +0000535<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit and
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000536 64-bit modes.</li>
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000537<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000538<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
539 support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
Gabor Greif5e75e652008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000540<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 10.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000541<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
Gabor Greif5e75e652008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000542<li>Itanium-based (IA64) machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000543</ul>
544
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000545<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses GNU autoconf to adapt itself
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000546to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
547porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
548portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
549
550</div>
551
552<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
553<div class="doc_section">
554 <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
555</div>
556<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
557
558<div class="doc_text">
559
560<p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
561component. As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
562sections. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
563href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
564there isn't already one.</p>
565
566</div>
567
568<!-- ======================================================================= -->
569<div class="doc_subsection">
570 <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
571</div>
572
573<div class="doc_text">
574
575<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
576be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
577not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
578useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000579components, please contact us on the <a
580href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000581
582<ul>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000583<li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, SPU, and MIPS backends are experimental.</li>
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000584<li>The llc "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported
Chris Lattnerbd633de92008-02-06 06:30:34 +0000585 value for this option.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000586</ul>
587
588</div>
589
590<!-- ======================================================================= -->
591<div class="doc_subsection">
592 <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
593</div>
594
595<div class="doc_text">
596
597<ul>
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000598 <li>The X86 backend does not yet support
599 all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86
600 floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not
601 'u'.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000602 <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured
603 to generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
Duncan Sands8b4f3772008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000604 <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000605 expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build mingw64 runtime
606 currently due
607 to <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2255">several</a>
608 <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2257">bugs</a> in FP stackifier
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000609</ul>
610
611</div>
612
613<!-- ======================================================================= -->
614<div class="doc_subsection">
615 <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
616</div>
617
618<div class="doc_text">
619
620<ul>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000621<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
622compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
623</ul>
624
625</div>
626
627<!-- ======================================================================= -->
628<div class="doc_subsection">
629 <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
630</div>
631
632<div class="doc_text">
633
634<ul>
635<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
Duncan Sands1827fa62007-09-26 15:59:54 +0000636processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000637results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
638<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported, but not fully tested.
639</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000640<li>There is a bug in QEMU-ARM (&lt;= 0.9.0) which causes it to incorrectly
641 execute
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000642programs compiled with LLVM. Please use more recent versions of QEMU.</li>
643</ul>
644
645</div>
646
647<!-- ======================================================================= -->
648<div class="doc_subsection">
649 <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
650</div>
651
652<div class="doc_text">
653
654<ul>
655<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
656 support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
657</ul>
658
659</div>
660
661<!-- ======================================================================= -->
662<div class="doc_subsection">
663 <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
664</div>
665
666<div class="doc_text">
667
668<ul>
669
670<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
671appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
672
673</ul>
674</div>
675
676<!-- ======================================================================= -->
677<div class="doc_subsection">
678 <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
679</div>
680
681<div class="doc_text">
682
683<ul>
684
685<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
686made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
687speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
688when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
689
690<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
691ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
692pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
693mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
694compilers.</li>
695
696<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
697output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
698programs.</li>
699
Duncan Sands8b4f3772008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000700<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is OK).</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000701
702<li>The Itanium backend has bitrotted somewhat.</li>
703</ul>
704
705</div>
706
707<!-- ======================================================================= -->
708<div class="doc_subsection">
709 <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
710</div>
711
712<div class="doc_text">
713
714<ul>
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000715<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend has only basic support for
716 inline assembly code</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnere0194462007-09-26 06:01:35 +0000717<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
718 C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000719 C++ code compiled with llc or native compilers.</li>
Duncan Sandsbd0ad6e2008-02-10 13:40:55 +0000720<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000721</ul>
722
723</div>
724
725
726<!-- ======================================================================= -->
727<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000728 <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C front-end</a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000729</div>
730
731<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
732<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
733
734<div class="doc_text">
735
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000736<p>llvm-gcc does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
737Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000738llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
739
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000740<p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is
741 the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
742 are only supported on some targets. For example, trampolines are only
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000743 supported on some targets (these are used when you take the address of a
744 nested function).</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000745
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000746<p>If you run into GCC extensions which are not supported, please let us know.
747</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000748
749</div>
750
751<!-- ======================================================================= -->
752<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000753 <a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C++ front-end</a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000754</div>
755
756<div class="doc_text">
757
758<p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully
759tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
760itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p>
761
762<ul>
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000763<li>Exception handling works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets, including
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000764X86-64 darwin. This works when linking to a libstdc++ compiled by GCC. It is
765supported on X86-64 linux, but that is disabled by default in this release.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000766</ul>
767
768</div>
769
770
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000771<!-- ======================================================================= -->
772<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000773 <a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Ada front-end</a>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000774</div>
775
776<div class="doc_text">
777The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well, however this is not a mature
778technology and problems should be expected.
779<ul>
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000780<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000781to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms,
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000782however it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000783which does support trampolines.</li>
784<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
785Workaround: configure with --disable-bootstrap.</li>
786<li>The c380004 and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> ACATS tests
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000787fail (c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline). When built at -O3, the
788<a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS test also fails.</li>
789<li>Some gcc specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler. The testsuite
790reports most tests as having failed even though they pass.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000791<li>The -E binder option (exception backtraces)
792<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
793crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use -E.</li>
794<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
795or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
796or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
797starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000798<li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers
799'main' as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
800Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and
801<tt>envp</tt> rather than integers.</li>
802<li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is
803ignored</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000804</ul>
805</div>
806
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000807<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
808<div class="doc_section">
809 <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
810</div>
811<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
812
813<div class="doc_text">
814
815<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
816href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
817href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
818contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
819Subversion version of the source code.
820You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
821into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
822
823<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
824us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
825lists</a>.</p>
826
827</div>
828
829<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
830
831<hr>
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