| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> | 
|  | 2 | <html><head><title>Open LLVM Projects</title></head> | 
|  | 3 |  | 
|  | 4 | <body bgcolor=white> | 
|  | 5 | <center><h1><font size=7>Open LLVM Projects</font></h1></center> | 
|  | 6 |  | 
|  | 7 | <ul> | 
|  | 8 | <li><a href="#what">What is this?</a> | 
|  | 9 | <li><a href="#improving">Improving the current system</a> | 
|  | 10 | <ol> | 
|  | 11 | <li><a href="#glibc">Port glibc to LLVM</a> | 
|  | 12 | <li><a href="#NightlyTest">Improving the Nightly Tester</a> | 
|  | 13 | <li><a href="#programs">Compile programs with the LLVM Compiler</a> | 
|  | 14 | <li><a href="#llvm_ir">Extend the LLVM intermediate representation</a> | 
|  | 15 | <li><a href="#misc_imp">Miscellaneous Improvements</a> | 
|  | 16 | </ol> | 
|  | 17 |  | 
|  | 18 | <li><a href="#new">Adding new capabilities to LLVM</a> | 
|  | 19 | <ol> | 
|  | 20 | <li><a href="#pointeranalysis">Pointer and Alias Analysis</a> | 
|  | 21 | <li><a href="#profileguided">Profile Guided Optimization</a> | 
|  | 22 | <li><a href="#xforms">New Transformations and Analyses</a> | 
|  | 23 | <li><a href="#x86be">X86 Back-end Improvements</a> | 
|  | 24 | <li><a href="#misc_new">Miscellaneous Additions</a> | 
|  | 25 | </ol> | 
|  | 26 | </ul> | 
|  | 27 |  | 
|  | 28 | <br><br> | 
|  | 29 |  | 
|  | 30 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 31 | <table width="100%" bgcolor="#330077" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 32 | <tr><td align=center><font color="#EEEEFF" size=+2 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 33 | <a name="what">What is this? | 
|  | 34 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 35 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 36 |  | 
|  | 37 | This document is meant to be a sort of "big TODO list" for LLVM.  Each project | 
|  | 38 | in this document is something that would be useful for LLVM to have, and would | 
|  | 39 | also be a great way to get familiar with the system.  Some of these projects are | 
|  | 40 | small and self-contained, which may be implemented in a couple of days, others | 
|  | 41 | are larger.  Several of these projects may lead to interesting research projects | 
|  | 42 | in their own right.  In any case, we welcome all contributions.<p> | 
|  | 43 |  | 
|  | 44 | If you are thinking about tackling one of these projects, please send a mail to | 
|  | 45 | the <a href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM | 
|  | 46 | Developer's</a> mailing list, so that we know the project is being worked on. | 
|  | 47 | Additionally this is a good way to get more information about a specific project | 
|  | 48 | or to suggest other projects to add to this page.<p> | 
|  | 49 |  | 
|  | 50 |  | 
|  | 51 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 52 | </ul><table width="100%" bgcolor="#330077" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 53 | <tr><td align=center><font color="#EEEEFF" size=+2 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 54 | <a name="improving">Improving the current system | 
|  | 55 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 56 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 57 |  | 
|  | 58 | Improvements to the current infrastructure are always very welcome and tend to | 
|  | 59 | be fairly straight-forward to implement.  Here are some of the key areas that | 
|  | 60 | can use improvement...<p> | 
|  | 61 |  | 
|  | 62 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 63 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 64 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 65 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 66 | <a name="glibc">Port glibc to LLVM | 
|  | 67 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 68 |  | 
|  | 69 | It would be very useful to <a | 
|  | 70 | href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/porting.html">port</a> <a | 
|  | 71 | href="http://www.gnu.org/software/glibc/">glibc</a> to LLVM.  This would allow a | 
|  | 72 | variety of interprocedural algorithms to be much more effective in the face of | 
|  | 73 | library calls.  The most important pieces to port are things like the string | 
|  | 74 | library and the <tt>stdio</tt> related functions... low-level system calls like | 
|  | 75 | '<tt>read</tt>' should stay unimplemented in LLVM.<p> | 
|  | 76 |  | 
|  | 77 |  | 
|  | 78 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 79 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 80 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 81 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 82 | <a name="NightlyTest">Improving the Nightly Tester | 
|  | 83 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 84 |  | 
|  | 85 | The <a href="/testresults/">Nightly Tester</a> is a simple perl script (located | 
|  | 86 | in utils/NightlyTest.pl) which runs every night to generate a daily report.  It | 
|  | 87 | could use the following improvements:<p> | 
|  | 88 |  | 
|  | 89 | <ol> | 
|  | 90 | <li>Olden timings - Time the compilation and execution times for the Olden | 
|  | 91 | benchmark suite, keeping track of these values over time. | 
|  | 92 |  | 
|  | 93 | <li>Graphs - It would be great to have gnuplot graphs to keep track of how the | 
|  | 94 | tree is changing over time.  We already gather a several statistics, it | 
|  | 95 | just neccesary to add the script-fu to gnuplotize it. | 
|  | 96 |  | 
|  | 97 | <li>Regression tests - We should run the regression tests in addition to the | 
|  | 98 | program tests... | 
|  | 99 | </ol><p> | 
|  | 100 |  | 
| Chris Lattner | 1b36004 | 2003-02-07 19:25:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 101 |  | 
| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 102 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 103 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 104 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 105 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 106 | <a name="programs">Compile programs with the LLVM Compiler | 
|  | 107 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 108 |  | 
|  | 109 | We are always looking for new testcases and benchmarks for use with LLVM.  In | 
|  | 110 | particular, it is useful to try compiling your favorite C source code with LLVM. | 
|  | 111 | If it doesn't compile, try to figure out why or report it to the <a | 
|  | 112 | href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmbugs/">llvm-bugs</a> list.  If you | 
|  | 113 | get the program to compile, it would be extremely useful to convert the build | 
|  | 114 | system to be compatible with the LLVM Programs testsuite so that we can check it | 
| Chris Lattner | 1b36004 | 2003-02-07 19:25:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 115 | into CVS and the automated tester can use it to track progress of the | 
|  | 116 | compiler.<p> | 
|  | 117 |  | 
|  | 118 | When testing a code, try running it with a variety of optimizations, and with | 
|  | 119 | all the back-ends: CBE, llc, and lli.<p> | 
| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 120 |  | 
|  | 121 |  | 
|  | 122 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 123 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 124 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 125 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 126 | <a name="llvm_ir">Extend the LLVM intermediate representation | 
|  | 127 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 128 |  | 
|  | 129 | <ol> | 
|  | 130 | <li>Transform <tt>setjmp</tt> and <tt>longjmp</tt> calls to use the LLVM | 
|  | 131 | <tt>invoke</tt> mechanism. | 
|  | 132 | <li>Add support for a volatile attribute on loads and stores | 
|  | 133 | <li>Support for variable argument functions | 
|  | 134 | <li>Add a new conditional move instruction: <tt>X = select bool Cond, Y, Z</tt> | 
| Misha Brukman | 3d87b42 | 2003-03-08 23:59:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame^] | 135 | <li>Add support for platform independent prefetch support.  The GCC <a | 
| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 136 | href="http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/prefetch.html">prefetch project</a> page | 
|  | 137 | has a good survey of the prefetching capabilities of a variety of modern | 
|  | 138 | processors. | 
|  | 139 | </ol> | 
|  | 140 |  | 
|  | 141 |  | 
|  | 142 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 143 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 144 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 145 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 146 | <a name="misc_imp">Miscellaneous Improvements | 
|  | 147 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 148 |  | 
|  | 149 | <ol> | 
|  | 150 | <li>Improve the efficiency of the bytecode loader/writer, allow streaming lazy | 
|  | 151 | loading of functions from the bytecode (for use by the JIT, for example)<br> | 
|  | 152 | <li>Rework the PassManager | 
|  | 153 | <li>Do not encode zero intializers for large arrays into the bytecode | 
|  | 154 |  | 
|  | 155 | <li>Some transformations and analyses only work on reducible flow graphs.  It | 
|  | 156 | would be nice to have a transformation which could be "required" by these passes | 
|  | 157 | which makes irreducible graphs reducible.  This can easily be accomplished | 
|  | 158 | through code duplication.  See <a | 
|  | 159 | href="http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/janssen97making.html">Making Graphs Reducible | 
|  | 160 | with Controlled Node Splitting</a> and perhaps <a | 
|  | 161 | href="http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/262004.262005">Nesting of Reducible and | 
|  | 162 | Irreducible Loops</a>. | 
|  | 163 | </ol> | 
|  | 164 |  | 
|  | 165 |  | 
|  | 166 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 167 | </ul><table width="100%" bgcolor="#330077" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 168 | <tr><td align=center><font color="#EEEEFF" size=+2 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 169 | <a name="new">Adding new capabilities to LLVM | 
|  | 170 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 171 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 172 |  | 
|  | 173 | Sometimes creating new things is more fun that improving existing things.  These | 
|  | 174 | projects tend to be more involved and perhaps require more work, but can also be | 
|  | 175 | very rewarding.<p> | 
|  | 176 |  | 
|  | 177 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 178 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 179 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 180 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 181 | <a name="pointeranalysis">Pointer and Alias Analysis | 
|  | 182 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 183 |  | 
|  | 184 | We have a strong base for development of both pointer analysis based | 
|  | 185 | optimizations as well as pointer analyses themselves.  It seems natural to want | 
|  | 186 | to take advantage of this...<p> | 
|  | 187 |  | 
|  | 188 | <ol> | 
|  | 189 | <li>Implement a flow-sensitive context-sensitive alias analysis algorithm<br> | 
|  | 190 | - Pick one of the somewhat efficient algorithms, but strive for maximum | 
|  | 191 | precision | 
|  | 192 | <li>Implement a flow-sensitive context-insensitive alias anlaysis algorithm<br> | 
|  | 193 | - Just an efficient local algorithm perhaps? | 
|  | 194 |  | 
|  | 195 | <li>Implement an interface to update analyses in response to common code motion | 
|  | 196 | transformations | 
|  | 197 | <li>Implement alias analysis based optimizations: | 
|  | 198 | <ul> | 
|  | 199 | <li>Dead store elimination | 
| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 200 | <li>Store+Reload or "store forwarding" elimination:<p> | 
|  | 201 | Change: | 
|  | 202 | <pre> | 
|  | 203 | store int X, int* P | 
|  | 204 | Y = load int* P</pre> | 
|  | 205 | into: | 
|  | 206 | <pre> | 
|  | 207 | store int X, int *P | 
|  | 208 | Y = X</pre> | 
| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 209 | </ul> | 
|  | 210 | </ol> | 
|  | 211 |  | 
|  | 212 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 213 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 214 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 215 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 216 | <a name="profileguided">Profile Guided Optimization | 
|  | 217 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 218 |  | 
|  | 219 | We are getting to the point where we really need a unified infrastructure for | 
|  | 220 | profile guided optimizations.  It would be wonderful to be able to write profile | 
|  | 221 | guided transformations which can be performed either at static compile time | 
|  | 222 | (compile time or offline optimization time) or at runtime in a JIT type setup. | 
|  | 223 | The LLVM transformation itself shouldn't need to know how it is being used.<p> | 
|  | 224 |  | 
|  | 225 | Ideas for profile guided transformations:<p> | 
|  | 226 |  | 
|  | 227 | <ol> | 
|  | 228 | <li>Superblock formation (with many optimizations) | 
|  | 229 | <li>Loop unrolling/peeling | 
|  | 230 | <li>Profile directed inlining | 
|  | 231 | <li>Code layout | 
|  | 232 | <li>... | 
|  | 233 | </ol><p> | 
|  | 234 |  | 
|  | 235 |  | 
|  | 236 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 237 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 238 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 239 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 240 | <a name="xforms">New Transformations and Analyses | 
|  | 241 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 242 |  | 
|  | 243 | <ol> | 
|  | 244 | <li>Implement a Dependence Analysis Infrastructure<br> | 
|  | 245 | - Design some way to represent and query dep analysis | 
|  | 246 | <li>Implement a faster Dominator Set Construction Algorithm<br> | 
|  | 247 | - A linear time or nearly so algorithm | 
|  | 248 | <li>Implement a strength reduction pass | 
|  | 249 | <li>Value range propagation pass | 
|  | 250 | <li>Implement a tail recursion elimination pass | 
|  | 251 | <li>Implement an unswitching pass | 
|  | 252 | </ol> | 
|  | 253 |  | 
|  | 254 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 255 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 256 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 257 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 258 | <a name="x86be">X86 Back-end Improvements | 
|  | 259 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 260 |  | 
|  | 261 | <ol> | 
|  | 262 | <li>Implement a global register allocator | 
|  | 263 | <li>Implement a better instruction selector | 
|  | 264 | <li>Implement a static compiler in addition to the JIT (easy project) | 
|  | 265 | </ol> | 
|  | 266 |  | 
|  | 267 | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | 268 | </ul><table width="50%" bgcolor="#441188" border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0> | 
|  | 269 | <tr><td> </td><td width=100%>  | 
|  | 270 | <font color="#EEEEFF" size=+1 face="Georgia,Palatino"><b> | 
|  | 271 | <a name="misc_new">Miscellaneous Additions | 
|  | 272 | </b></font></td></tr></table><ul> | 
|  | 273 |  | 
|  | 274 | <ol> | 
|  | 275 | <li>Write a new frontend for some language (Java? OCaml? Forth?) | 
|  | 276 | <li>Write a new backend for a target (IA64? MIPS? MMIX?) | 
|  | 277 | </ol> | 
|  | 278 |  | 
|  | 279 |  | 
|  | 280 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 281 | </ul> | 
|  | 282 | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | 283 |  | 
|  | 284 | <hr><font size-1> | 
|  | 285 | <address><a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a></address> | 
|  | 286 | <!-- Created: Tue Aug  6 15:00:33 CDT 2002 --> | 
|  | 287 | <!-- hhmts start --> | 
| Chris Lattner | dcc0ac9 | 2003-02-26 16:38:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 288 | Last modified: Wed Feb 26 10:37:31 CST 2003 | 
| Chris Lattner | b713109 | 2003-02-06 19:39:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 289 | <!-- hhmts end --> | 
|  | 290 | </font></body></html> |