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Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +00007 <title>LLVM 2.7 Release Notes</title>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00008</head>
9<body>
10
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +000011<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.7 Release Notes</div>
Mikhail Glushenkov808cd3e2008-10-13 02:08:34 +000012
Chris Lattnere5236102010-03-17 04:02:39 +000013<img align=right src="http://llvm.org/img/DragonSmall.png"
Gabor Greif92d28ea2010-04-22 10:21:43 +000014 width="136" height="136" alt="LLVM Dragon Logo">
Chris Lattnere5236102010-03-17 04:02:39 +000015
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000016<ol>
17 <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +000018 <li><a href="#subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a></li>
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +000019 <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 2.7</a></li>
20 <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.7?</a></li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000021 <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
22 <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
Dan Gohman0de549c2008-10-14 16:23:02 +000023 <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a></li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000024 <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
25</ol>
26
27<div class="doc_author">
Dan Gohman0de549c2008-10-14 16:23:02 +000028 <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a></p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000029</div>
30
Chris Lattner6ba1be32010-04-13 06:37:00 +000031<!--
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +000032<h1 style="color:red">These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 2.8
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +000033release.<br>
34You may prefer the
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +000035<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/2.6/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 2.7
Chris Lattner6ba1be32010-04-13 06:37:00 +000036Release Notes</a>.</h1>-->
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +000037
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000038<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
39<div class="doc_section">
40 <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
41</div>
42<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
43
44<div class="doc_text">
45
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +000046<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +000047Infrastructure, release 2.7. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +000048major improvements from the previous release and significant known problems.
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +000049All LLVM releases may be downloaded from the <a
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +000050href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM releases web site</a>.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000051
52<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
53release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM
54web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a
Chris Lattner58b1d0f2010-03-17 04:41:49 +000055href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM Developer's
56Mailing List</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000057
Mikhail Glushenkov808cd3e2008-10-13 02:08:34 +000058<p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +000059main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the
Gabor Greif7c65c4f2008-10-14 11:00:32 +000060current one. To see the release notes for a specific release, please see the
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +000061<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000062
63</div>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +000064
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +000065
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +000066<!--
67Almost dead code.
68 include/llvm/Analysis/LiveValues.h => Dan
69 lib/Transforms/IPO/MergeFunctions.cpp => consider for 2.8.
70 llvm/Analysis/PointerTracking.h => Edwin wants this, consider for 2.8.
Chris Lattner6ba1be32010-04-13 06:37:00 +000071 ABCD, GEPSplitterPass
Chris Lattner2bd5e652010-01-16 21:25:13 +000072 MSIL backend?
Chris Lattner2b656342010-03-17 06:41:58 +000073 lib/Transforms/Utils/SSI.cpp -> ABCD depends on it.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +000074-->
75
76
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +000077<!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 2.7:
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +000078 combiner-aa?
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +000079 strong phi elim
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +000080 llvm.dbg.value: variable debug info for optimized code
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +000081 loop dependence analysis
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +000082 -->
Mikhail Glushenkov808cd3e2008-10-13 02:08:34 +000083
Chris Lattner4f076402008-10-12 19:47:48 +000084 <!-- for announcement email:
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +000085 Logo web page.
86 llvm devmtg
87 compiler_rt
88 KLEE web page at klee.llvm.org
89 Many new papers added to /pubs/
Chris Lattner2b656342010-03-17 06:41:58 +000090 Mention gcc plugin.
Chris Lattnera53f4972009-02-25 06:34:50 +000091 -->
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +000092
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +000093<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
94<div class="doc_section">
95 <a name="subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a>
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +000096</div>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +000097<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +000098
99<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000100<p>
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000101The LLVM 2.7 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000102repository (which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators
103and supporting tools), the Clang repository and the llvm-gcc repository. In
104addition to this code, the LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in
105development. Here we include updates on these subprojects.
Bill Wendlingdde41b82009-03-02 04:28:57 +0000106</p>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000107
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000108</div>
109
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000110
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000111<!--=========================================================================-->
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000112<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera3c683b2008-10-13 18:11:54 +0000113<a name="clang">Clang: C/C++/Objective-C Frontend Toolkit</a>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000114</div>
115
116<div class="doc_text">
117
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000118<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang project</a> is ...</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000119
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000120<p>In the LLVM 2.7 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements:</p>
Bill Wendling385b0d32008-10-27 09:27:33 +0000121
Daniel Dunbarf3e35782008-10-14 23:25:09 +0000122<ul>
Daniel Dunbar29f1e722010-03-25 16:09:18 +0000123<li>FIXME: C++! Include a link to cxx_compatibility.html</li>
124
Daniel Dunbar29f1e722010-03-25 16:09:18 +0000125<li>CIndex API and Python bindings: Clang now includes a C API as part of the
126CIndex library. Although we make make some changes to the API in the future, it
127is intended to be stable and has been designed for use by external projects. See
128the Clang
129doxygen <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen/group__CINDEX.html">CIndex</a>
130documentation for more details. The CIndex API also includings an preliminary
131set of Python bindings.</li>
132
133<li>ARM Support: Clang now has ABI support for both the Darwin and Linux ARM
134ABIs. Coupled with many improvements to the LLVM ARM backend, Clang is now
135suitable for use as a a beta quality ARM compiler.</li>
Bill Wendlinga8fb81d2009-03-02 04:28:18 +0000136</ul>
Chris Lattnera3c683b2008-10-13 18:11:54 +0000137</div>
138
139<!--=========================================================================-->
140<div class="doc_subsection">
141<a name="clangsa">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
142</div>
143
144<div class="doc_text">
145
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000146<p>The <a href="http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
147 project is an effort to use static source code analysis techniques to
148 automatically find bugs in C and Objective-C programs (and hopefully <a
149 href="http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/dev_cxx.html">C++ in the
150 future</a>!). The tool is very good at finding bugs that occur on specific
151 paths through code, such as on error conditions.</p>
Chris Lattnerc2d84672008-10-14 00:52:49 +0000152
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000153<p>In the LLVM 2.7 time-frame, the analyzer core has made several major and
154 minor improvements, including better support for tracking the fields of
155 structures, initial support (not enabled by default yet) for doing
156 interprocedural (cross-function) analysis, and new checks have been added.
157</p>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000158
159</div>
160
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000161<!--=========================================================================-->
162<div class="doc_subsection">
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000163<a name="vmkit">VMKit: JVM/CLI Virtual Machine Implementation</a>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000164</div>
165
166<div class="doc_text">
167<p>
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000168The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">VMKit project</a> is an implementation of
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000169a JVM and a CLI Virtual Machine (Microsoft .NET is an
170implementation of the CLI) using LLVM for static and just-in-time
171compilation.</p>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000172
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000173<p>
Chris Lattnerd5b62522010-03-29 18:34:13 +0000174With the release of LLVM 2.7, VMKit has shifted to a great framework for writing
175virtual machines. VMKit now offers precise and efficient garbage collection with
176multi-threading support, thanks to the MMTk memory management toolkit, as well
177as just in time and ahead of time compilation with LLVM. The major changes in
178VMKit 0.27 are:</p>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000179
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000180<ul>
181
Chris Lattnerd5b62522010-03-29 18:34:13 +0000182<li>Garbage collection: VMKit now uses the MMTk toolkit for garbage collectors.
183 The first collector to be ported is the MarkSweep collector, which is precise,
184 and drastically improves the performance of VMKit.</li>
185<li>Line number information in the JVM: by using the debug metadata of LLVM, the
186 JVM now supports precise line number information, useful when printing a stack
187 trace.</li>
188<li>Interface calls in the JVM: we implemented a variant of the Interface Method
189 Table technique for interface calls in the JVM.
190</li>
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000191
192</ul>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000193</div>
194
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000195
196<!--=========================================================================-->
197<div class="doc_subsection">
198<a name="compiler-rt">compiler-rt: Compiler Runtime Library</a>
199</div>
200
201<div class="doc_text">
202<p>
203The new LLVM <a href="http://compiler-rt.llvm.org/">compiler-rt project</a>
204is a simple library that provides an implementation of the low-level
205target-specific hooks required by code generation and other runtime components.
206For example, when compiling for a 32-bit target, converting a double to a 64-bit
207unsigned integer is compiled into a runtime call to the "__fixunsdfdi"
208function. The compiler-rt library provides highly optimized implementations of
209this and other low-level routines (some are 3x faster than the equivalent
210libgcc routines).</p>
211
212<p>
213All of the code in the compiler-rt project is available under the standard LLVM
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000214License, a "BSD-style" license. New in LLVM 2.7: compiler_rt now
215supports ARM targets.</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000216
217</div>
218
219<!--=========================================================================-->
220<div class="doc_subsection">
Duncan Sands2d9c3082010-04-02 09:23:15 +0000221<a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: llvm-gcc ported to gcc-4.5</a>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000222</div>
223
224<div class="doc_text">
225<p>
Duncan Sands2d9c3082010-04-02 09:23:15 +0000226<a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is a port of llvm-gcc to
227gcc-4.5. Unlike llvm-gcc, which makes many intrusive changes to the underlying
228gcc-4.2 code, dragonegg in theory does not require any gcc-4.5 modifications
229whatsoever (currently one small patch is needed). This is thanks to the new
230<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/plugins">gcc plugin architecture</a>, which
231makes it possible to modify the behaviour of gcc at runtime by loading a plugin,
232which is nothing more than a dynamic library which conforms to the gcc plugin
233interface. DragonEgg is a gcc plugin that causes the LLVM optimizers to be run
234instead of the gcc optimizers, and the LLVM code generators instead of the gcc
235code generators, just like llvm-gcc. To use it, you add
236"-fplugin=path/dragonegg.so" to the gcc-4.5 command line, and gcc-4.5 magically
237becomes llvm-gcc-4.5!
238</p>
239
240<p>
241DragonEgg is still a work in progress. Currently C works very well, while C++,
242Ada and Fortran work fairly well. All other languages either don't work at all,
243or only work poorly. For the moment only the x86-32 and x86-64 targets are
Duncan Sands566f40b2010-04-20 19:40:58 +0000244supported, and only on linux and darwin (darwin needs an additional gcc patch).
Duncan Sands2d9c3082010-04-02 09:23:15 +0000245</p>
246
247<p>
Duncan Sandsa9cc3892010-04-21 13:51:48 +0000248DragonEgg is a new project which is seeing its first release with llvm-2.7.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000249</p>
250
251</div>
252
253
254<!--=========================================================================-->
255<div class="doc_subsection">
256<a name="mc">llvm-mc: Machine Code Toolkit</a>
257</div>
258
259<div class="doc_text">
260<p>
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000261The LLVM Machine Code (aka MC) sub-project of LLVM was created to solve a number
262of problems in the realm of assembly, disassembly, object file format handling,
263and a number of other related areas that CPU instruction-set level tools work
264in. It is a sub-project of LLVM which provides it with a number of advantages
265over other compilers that do not have tightly integrated assembly-level tools.
266For a gentle introduction, please see the <a
267href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/intro-to-llvm-mc-project.html">Intro to the
268LLVM MC Project Blog Post</a>.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000269</p>
270
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000271<p>2.7 includes major parts of the work required by the new MC Project. A few
272 targets have been refactored to support it, and work is underway to support a
273 native assembler in LLVM. This work is not complete in LLVM 2.7, but you has
274 made substantially more progress on LLVM mainline.</p>
275
276<p>One minor example of what MC can do is to transcode an AT&amp;T syntax
Gabor Greif92d28ea2010-04-22 10:21:43 +0000277 X86 .s file into intel syntax. You can do this with something like:
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000278
279<pre>
280 llvm-mc foo.s -output-asm-variant=1 -o foo-intel.s
281</pre>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000282</p>
283
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000284</div>
285
286
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000287<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
288<div class="doc_section">
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000289 <a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 2.7</a>
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000290</div>
291<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
292
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000293<div class="doc_text">
294
295<p>An exciting aspect of LLVM is that it is used as an enabling technology for
296 a lot of other language and tools projects. This section lists some of the
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000297 projects that have already been updated to work with LLVM 2.7.</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000298</div>
299
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000300<!--=========================================================================-->
301<div class="doc_subsection">
302<a name="pure">Pure</a>
303</div>
304
305<div class="doc_text">
306<p>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000307<a href="http://pure-lang.googlecode.com/">Pure</a>
308is an algebraic/functional programming language based on term rewriting.
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000309Programs are collections of equations which are used to evaluate expressions in
310a symbolic fashion. Pure offers dynamic typing, eager and lazy evaluation,
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000311lexical closures, a hygienic macro system (also based on term rewriting),
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000312built-in list and matrix support (including list and matrix comprehensions) and
313an easy-to-use C interface. The interpreter uses LLVM as a backend to
314 JIT-compile Pure programs to fast native code.</p>
315
Chris Lattner1f8dc512010-03-17 17:25:49 +0000316<p>Pure versions 0.43 and later have been tested and are known to work with
317LLVM 2.7 (and continue to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.5).</p>
318
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000319</div>
320
Chris Lattner1ad599a2009-02-28 18:58:01 +0000321<!--=========================================================================-->
322<div class="doc_subsection">
323<a name="RoadsendPHP">Roadsend PHP</a>
324</div>
325
326<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000327<p>
328<a href="http://code.roadsend.com/rphp">Roadsend PHP</a> (rphp) is an open
Chris Lattner9e08de12009-03-02 19:07:24 +0000329source implementation of the PHP programming
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000330language that uses LLVM for its optimizer, JIT and static compiler. This is a
Chris Lattnere5236102010-03-17 04:02:39 +0000331reimplementation of an earlier project that is now based on LLVM.
Chris Lattner1f8dc512010-03-17 17:25:49 +0000332</p>
Chris Lattner1ad599a2009-02-28 18:58:01 +0000333</div>
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000334
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000335<!--=========================================================================-->
336<div class="doc_subsection">
337<a name="UnladenSwallow">Unladen Swallow</a>
338</div>
339
340<div class="doc_text">
341<p>
342<a href="http://code.google.com/p/unladen-swallow/">Unladen Swallow</a> is a
343branch of <a href="http://python.org/">Python</a> intended to be fully
344compatible and significantly faster. It uses LLVM's optimization passes and JIT
Chris Lattnerd7db82c2010-03-18 06:52:15 +0000345compiler.
Chris Lattnere5236102010-03-17 04:02:39 +0000346</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000347</div>
348
349<!--=========================================================================-->
350<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner49894862010-03-29 17:50:39 +0000351<a name="tce">TTA-based Codesign Environment (TCE)</a>
352</div>
353
354<div class="doc_text">
355<p>
356<a href="http://tce.cs.tut.fi/">TCE</a> is a toolset for designing
357application-specific processors (ASP) based on the Transport triggered
358architecture (TTA). The toolset provides a complete co-design flow from C/C++
359programs down to synthesizable VHDL and parallel program binaries. Processor
360customization points include the register files, function units, supported
361operations, and the interconnection network.</p>
362
363<p>TCE uses llvm-gcc/Clang and LLVM for C/C++ language support, target
364independent optimizations and also for parts of code generation. It generates
365new LLVM-based code generators "on the fly" for the designed TTA processors and
366loads them in to the compiler backend as runtime libraries to avoid per-target
367recompilation of larger parts of the compiler chain.</p>
368
369</div>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000370
John Criswelle75f04f2010-04-06 14:52:14 +0000371<!--=========================================================================-->
372<div class="doc_subsection">
373<a name="safecode">SAFECode Compiler</a>
374</div>
375
376<div class="doc_text">
377<p>
378<a href="http://safecode.cs.illinois.edu">SAFECode</a> is a memory safe C
379compiler built using LLVM. It takes standard, unannotated C code, analyzes the
380code to ensure that memory accesses and array indexing operations are safe, and
381instruments the code with run-time checks when safety cannot be proven
382statically.
383</p>
384</div>
385
386
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000387<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
388<div class="doc_section">
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000389 <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.7?</a>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000390</div>
391<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
392
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000393<div class="doc_text">
394
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000395<p>This release includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000396minor improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are listed
397in this section.
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000398</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000399
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000400</div>
401
402<!--=========================================================================-->
403<div class="doc_subsection">
404<a name="orgchanges">LLVM Community Changes</a>
405</div>
406
407<div class="doc_text">
408
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000409<p>In addition to changes to the code, between LLVM 2.6 and 2.7, a number of
410organization changes have happened:
411</p>
412
413<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000414<li>LLVM has a new <a href="http://llvm.org/Logo.html">official logo</a>!</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000415
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000416<li>Ted Kremenek and Doug Gregor have stepped forward as <a
417 href="http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#owners">Code Owners</a> of the
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000418 Clang static analyzer and the Clang frontend, respectively.</li>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000419
420<li>LLVM now has an <a href="http://blog.llvm.org">official Blog</a> at
421 <a href="http://blog.llvm.org">http://blog.llvm.org</a>. This is a great way
422 to learn about new LLVM-related features as they are implemented. Several
423 features in this release are already explained on the blog.</li>
424
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000425<li>The LLVM web pages are now checked into the SVN server, in the "www",
426 "www-pubs" and "www-releases" SVN modules. Previously they were hidden in a
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000427 largely inaccessible old CVS server.</li>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000428
429<li><a href="http://llvm.org">llvm.org</a> is now hosted on a new (and much
430 faster) server. It is still graciously hosted at the University of Illinois
431 of Urbana Champaign.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000432</ul>
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000433</div>
434
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000435<!--=========================================================================-->
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000436<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000437<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
438</div>
439
440<div class="doc_text">
441
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000442<p>LLVM 2.7 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000443
444<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000445<li>2.7 includes initial support for the <a
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000446 href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroBlaze">MicroBlaze</a> target.
447 MicroBlaze is a soft processor core designed for Xilinx FPGAs.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000448
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000449<li>2.7 includes a new LLVM IR "extensible metadata" feature. This feature
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000450 supports many different use cases, including allowing front-end authors to
451 encode source level information into LLVM IR, which is consumed by later
452 language-specific passes. This is a great way to do high-level optimizations
453 like devirtualization, type-based alias analysis, etc. See the <a
454 href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/extensible-metadata-in-llvm-ir.html">
455 Extensible Metadata Blog Post</a> for more information.</li>
456
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000457<li>2.7 encodes <a href="SourceLevelDebugging.html">debug information</a>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000458in a completely new way, built on extensible metadata. The new implementation
459is much more memory efficient and paves the way for improvements to optimized
460code debugging experience.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000461
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000462<li>2.7 now directly supports taking the address of a label and doing an
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000463 indirect branch through a pointer. This is particularly useful for
464 interpreter loops, and is used to implement the GCC "address of label"
465 extension. For more information, see the <a
466href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/01/address-of-label-and-indirect-branches.html">
467Address of Label and Indirect Branches in LLVM IR Blog Post</a>.
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000468
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000469<li>2.7 is the first release to start supporting APIs for assembling and
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000470 disassembling target machine code. These APIs are useful for a variety of
471 low level clients, and are surfaced in the new "enhanced disassembly" API.
472 For more information see the <a
473 href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/01/x86-disassembler.html">The X86
474 Disassembler Blog Post</a> for more information.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000475
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000476<li>2.7 includes major parts of the work required by the new MC Project,
477 see the <a href="#mc">MC update above</a> for more information.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000478
Chris Lattner5ba16862008-02-10 08:18:42 +0000479</ul>
Chris Lattner2b656342010-03-17 06:41:58 +0000480
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000481</div>
482
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000483<!--=========================================================================-->
484<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000485<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM IR and Core Improvements</a>
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000486</div>
487
488<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000489<p>LLVM IR has several new features for better support of new targets and that
490expose new optimization opportunities:</p>
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000491
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000492<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000493<li>LLVM IR now supports a 16-bit "half float" data type through <a
494 href="LangRef.html#int_fp16">two new intrinsics</a> and APFloat support.</li>
495<li>LLVM IR supports two new <a href="LangRef.html#fnattrs">function
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000496 attributes</a>: inlinehint and alignstack(n). The former is a hint to the
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000497 optimizer that a function was declared 'inline' and thus the inliner should
498 weight it higher when considering inlining it. The later
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000499 indicates to the code generator that the function diverges from the platform
500 ABI on stack alignment.</li>
501<li>The new <a href="LangRef.html#int_objectsize">llvm.objectsize</a> intrinsic
502 allows the optimizer to infer the sizes of memory objects in some cases.
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000503 This intrinsic is used to implement the GCC <tt>__builtin_object_size</tt>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000504 extension.</li>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000505<li>LLVM IR now supports marking load and store instructions with <a
506 href="LangRef.html#i_load">"non-temporal" hints</a> (building on the new
507 metadata feature). This hint encourages the code
508 generator to generate non-temporal accesses when possible, which are useful
509 for code that is carefully managing cache behavior. Currently, only the
510 X86 backend provides target support for this feature.</li>
511
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000512<li>LLVM 2.7 has pre-alpha support for <a
Gabor Greifdd39cd12010-04-22 10:11:24 +0000513 href="LangRef.html#t_union">unions in LLVM IR</a>.
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000514 Unfortunately, this support is not really usable in 2.7, so if you're
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000515 interested in pushing it forward, please help contribute to LLVM mainline.</li>
Gabor Greif92d28ea2010-04-22 10:21:43 +0000516
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000517</ul>
Mikhail Glushenkov808cd3e2008-10-13 02:08:34 +0000518
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000519</div>
520
521<!--=========================================================================-->
522<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000523<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
524</div>
525
526<div class="doc_text">
527
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000528<p>In addition to a large array of minor performance tweaks and bug fixes, this
Chris Lattnerea9c2242008-10-13 21:50:36 +0000529release includes a few major enhancements and additions to the optimizers:</p>
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000530
531<ul>
532
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000533<li>The inliner reuses now merges arrays stack objects in different callees when
534 inlining multiple call sites into one function. This reduces the stack size
535 of the resultant function.</li>
536<li>The -basicaa alias analysis pass (which is the default) has been improved to
537 be less dependent on "type safe" pointers. It can now look through bitcasts
538 and other constructs more aggressively, allowing better load/store
539 optimization.</li>
540<li>The load elimination optimization in the GVN Pass [<a
541href="http://blog.llvm.org/2009/12/introduction-to-load-elimination-in-gvn.html">intro
542 blog post</a>] has been substantially improved to be more aggressive about
543 partial redundancy elimination and do more aggressive phi translation. Please
544 see the <a
545 href="http://blog.llvm.org/2009/12/advanced-topics-in-redundant-load.html">
546 Advanced Topics in Redundant Load Elimination with a Focus on PHI Translation
547 Blog Post</a> for more details.</li>
548<li>The module <a href="LangRef.html#datalayout">target data string</a> now
549 includes a notion of what the 'native' integer data types a for the target,
550 which allows various optimizations to use. This helps mid-level
551 optimizations avoid promoting complex sequences of operations to data types
552 that are not natively supported (e.g. converting i32 operations to i64 on
553 a 32-bit chip).</li>
554<li>The mid-level optimizer is now conservative when operating on a module with
555 no target data. Previously, it would default to SparcV9 settings, which is
556 not what most people expected.</li>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000557<li>Jump threading is now much more aggressive at simplifying correlated
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000558 conditionals and threading blocks with otherwise complex logic. It has
559 subsumed the old "Conditional Propagation" pass, and -condprop has been
560 removed from LLVM 2.7.</li>
561<li>The -instcombine pass has been refactored from being one huge file to being
562 a library of its own. Internally, it uses a customized IRBuilder to clean
563 it up and simplify it.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000564
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000565<li>The optimal edge profiling pass is reliable and much more complete than in
566 2.6. It can be used with the llvm-prof tool but isn't wired up to the
567 llvm-gcc and clang command line options yet.</li>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000568
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000569<li>A new experimental alias analysis implementation, -scev-aa, has been added.
570 It uses LLVM's Scalar Evolution implementation to do symbolic analysis of
571 pointer offset expressions to disambiguate pointers. It can catch a few
572 cases that basicaa cannot, particularly in complex loop nests.</li>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000573
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000574<li>The default pass ordering has been tweaked for improved optimization
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000575 effectiveness.</li>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000576
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000577</ul>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000578
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000579</div>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000580
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000581
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000582<!--=========================================================================-->
583<div class="doc_subsection">
584<a name="executionengine">Interpreter and JIT Improvements</a>
585</div>
Chris Lattnerea9c2242008-10-13 21:50:36 +0000586
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000587<div class="doc_text">
588
589<ul>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000590<li>The JIT now supports generating debug information, which is compatible with
591the new GDB 7.0 (and later) interfaces for registering debug info for
592dynamically generated code.</li>
593
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000594<li>The JIT now <a href="http://llvm.org/PR5184">defaults
Jeffrey Yasskin40715142010-01-29 19:10:38 +0000595to compiling eagerly</a> to avoid a race condition in the lazy JIT.
596Clients that still want the lazy JIT can switch it on by calling
597<tt>ExecutionEngine::DisableLazyCompilation(false)</tt>.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000598
Jeffrey Yasskinc0577082010-02-11 01:07:39 +0000599<li>It is now possible to create more than one JIT instance in the same process.
600These JITs can generate machine code in parallel,
601although <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/ProgrammersManual.html#jitthreading">you
602still have to obey the other threading restrictions</a>.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000603
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000604</ul>
605
606</div>
607
608<!--=========================================================================-->
609<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner5f393542009-03-02 03:24:11 +0000610<a name="codegen">Target Independent Code Generator Improvements</a>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000611</div>
612
613<div class="doc_text">
614
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000615<p>We have put a significant amount of work into the code generator
616infrastructure, which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make
617it run faster:</p>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000618
619<ul>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000620<li>The 'llc -asm-verbose' option (which is now the default) has been enhanced
621 to emit many useful comments to .s files indicating information about spill
622 slots and loop nest structure. This should make it much easier to read and
623 understand assembly files. This is wired up in llvm-gcc and clang to
624 the <tt>-fverbose-asm</tt> option.</li>
625
626<li>New LSR with "full strength reduction" mode. FIXME: Description?</li>
627
628<li>A new codegen level Common Subexpression Elimination pass (MachineCSE)
629 is available and enabled by default. It catches redundancies exposed by
630 lowering.</li>
631<li>A new pre-register-allocation tail duplication pass is available and enabled
632 by default, it can substantially improve branch prediction quality in some
633 cases.</li>
634<li>A new sign and zero extension optimization pass (OptimizeExtsPass)
635 is available and enabled by default. This pass can takes advantage
636 architecture features like x86-64 implicit zero extension behavior and
637 sub-registers.</li>
638<li>The code generator now supports a mode where it attempts to preserve the
639 order of instructions in the input code. This is important for source that
640 is hand scheduled and extremely sensitive to scheduling. It is compatible
641 with the GCC <tt>-fno-schedule-insns</tt> option.</li>
642<li>The target-independent code generator now supports generating code with
643 arbitrary numbers of result values. Returning more values than was
644 previously supported is handled by returning through a hidden pointer. In
645 2.7, only the X86 and XCore targets have adopted support for this
646 though.</li>
647<li>The code generator now supports generating code that follows the
648 <a href="LangRef.html#callingconv">Glasgow Haskell Compiler Calling
649 Convention</a> and ABI.</li>
650<li>The "<a href="CodeGenerator.html#selectiondag_select">DAG instruction
651 selection</a>" phase of the code generator has been largely rewritten for
652 2.7. Previously, tblgen spit out tons of C++ code which was compiled and
653 linked into the target to do the pattern matching, now it emits a much
654 smaller table which is read by the target-independent code. The primary
655 advantages of this approach is that the size and compile time of various
656 targets is much improved. The X86 code generator shrunk by 1.5MB of code,
657 for example.</li>
658<li>Almost the entire code generator has switched to emitting code through the
659 MC interfaces instead of printing textually to the .s file. This led to a
660 number of cleanups and speedups. In 2.7, debug an exception handling
661 information does not go through MC yet.</li>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000662</ul>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000663</div>
664
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000665<!--=========================================================================-->
666<div class="doc_subsection">
667<a name="x86">X86-32 and X86-64 Target Improvements</a>
668</div>
669
670<div class="doc_text">
671<p>New features of the X86 target include:
672</p>
673
674<ul>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000675<li>The X86 backend now optimizes tails calls much more aggressively for
676 functions that use the standard C calling convention.</li>
677<li>The X86 backend now models scalar SSE registers as subregs of the SSE vector
678 registers, making the code generator more aggressive in cases where scalars
679 and vector types are mixed.</li>
Chris Lattner5f393542009-03-02 03:24:11 +0000680
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000681<li>PostRA scheduler for X86? FIXME: is this on by default in 2.7?</li>
Chris Lattner5f393542009-03-02 03:24:11 +0000682
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000683</ul>
684
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000685</div>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000686
687<!--=========================================================================-->
688<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000689<a name="ARM">ARM Target Improvements</a>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000690</div>
691
692<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000693<p>New features of the ARM target include:
694</p>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000695
696<ul>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000697
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000698<li>The ARM backend now generates instructions in unified assembly syntax.</li>
699
700<li>llvm-gcc now has complete support for the ARM v7 NEON instruction set. This
701 support differs slightly from the GCC implementation. Please see the
702 <a
703href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/arm-advanced-simd-neon-intrinsics-and.html">
704 ARM Advanced SIMD (NEON) Intrinsics and Types in LLVM Blog Post</a> for
705 helpful information if migrating code from GCC to LLVM-GCC.</li>
706
707<li>The ARM and Thumb code generators now using register scavenging for stack
708 object address materialization.(FIXME: WHAT BENEFIT DOES THIS PROVIDE?)</li>
709
710<li>The ARM backend now has good support for ARMv4 targets, and has been tested
711 on StrongARM hardware. Previously, LLVM only supported ARMv4T and
712 newer chips.</li>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000713</ul>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000714
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000715
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000716</div>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000717
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000718<!--=========================================================================-->
719<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000720<a name="newapis">New Useful APIs</a>
721</div>
722
723<div class="doc_text">
724
725<p>This release includes a number of new APIs that are used internally, which
726 may also be useful for external clients.
727</p>
728
729<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000730<li>The optimizer uses the new CodeMetrics class to measure the size of code.
731 Various passes that use thing (like the inliner, loop unswitcher, etc) all
732 use this to make more accurate estimates of the code size impact of various
733 optimizations.</li>
734<li>A new <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/InstructionSimplify_8h-source.html">
735 llvm/Analysis/InstructionSimplify.h</a> interface available for doing
736 symbolic simplification of instructions (e.g. <tt>a+0</tt> -&gt; <tt>a</tt>)
737 without requiring the instruction to exist. This centralizes a lot of
738 ad-hoc symbolic manipulation code scattered in various passes.</li>
739<li>The optimizer now uses a new <a
740 href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/SSAUpdater_8h-source.html">SSAUpdater</a>
741 class which efficiently supports
742 doing unstructured SSA update operations. This centralized a bunch of code
743 scattered through various passes (e.g. jump threading, lcssa, loop rotate,
744 etc) for doing this sort of thing. The code generator has an similar
745 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/MachineSSAUpdater_8h-source.html">
746 MachineSSAUpdater</a> class.</li>
747<li>The <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/Regex_8h-source.html">
748 llvm/Support/Regex.h</a> header exposes a platform independent regular
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000749 expression API. Building on this, the <a
750 href="TestingGuide.html#FileCheck">FileCheck</a> utility now supports
751 regular exressions.</li>
752<li>raw_ostream now supports a circular "debug stream" accessed with "dbgs()".
753 By default, this stream works the same way as "errs()", but if you pass
754 <tt>-debug-buffer-size=1000</tt> to opt, the debug stream is capped to a
755 fixed sized circular buffer and the output is printed at the end of the
756 program's execution. This is helpful if you have a long lived compiler
757 process and you're interested in seeing snapshots in time.</li>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000758</ul>
759
760
761</div>
762
763<!--=========================================================================-->
764<div class="doc_subsection">
765<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements and New Features</a>
766</div>
767
768<div class="doc_text">
769<p>Other miscellaneous features include:</p>
770
771<ul>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000772<li>You can now build LLVM as a big dynamic library (e.g. "libllvm2.7.so"). To
773 get this, configure LLVM with the --enable-shared option.</li>
774
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000775<li>LLVM command line tools now overwrite their output by default, before they
776 would only do this with -f. This makes them more convenient to use, and
777 behave more like standard unix tools.</li>
778
779<li>The opt and llc tools now autodetect whether their input is a .ll or .bc
780 file, and automatically do the right thing. This means you don't need to
781 explicitly use the llvm-as tool for most things.</li>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000782</ul>
783
784</div>
785
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000786
787<!--=========================================================================-->
788<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000789<a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a>
790</div>
791
792<div class="doc_text">
793
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000794<p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000795on LLVM 2.6, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000796from the previous release.</p>
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000797
798<ul>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000799
800<li>
801The Andersen's alias analysis ("anders-aa") pass, the Predicate Simplifier
802("predsimplify") pass, the LoopVR pass, the GVNPRE pass, and the random sampling
803profiling ("rsprofiling") passes have all been removed. They were not being
804actively maintained and had substantial problems. If you are interested in
805these components, you are welcome to ressurect them from SVN, fix the
806correctness problems, and resubmit them to mainline.</li>
807
808<li>LLVM now defaults to building most libraries with RTTI turned off, providing
809a code size reduction. Packagers who are interested in building LLVM to support
810plugins that require RTTI information should build with "make REQUIRE_RTTI=1"
811and should read the new <a href="Packaging.html">Advice on Packaging LLVM</a>
812document.</li>
813
Jeffrey Yasskin260af332010-02-09 23:03:44 +0000814<li>The LLVM interpreter now defaults to <em>not</em> using <tt>libffi</tt> even
815if you have it installed. This makes it more likely that an LLVM built on one
816system will work when copied to a similar system. To use <tt>libffi</tt>,
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000817configure with <tt>--enable-libffi</tt>.</li>
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000818
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000819<li>Debug information uses a completely different representation, an LLVM 2.6
820.bc file should work with LLVM 2.7, but debug info won't come forward.</li>
821
822<li>The LLVM 2.6 (and earlier) "malloc" and "free" instructions got removed,
823 along with LowerAllocations pass. Now you should just use a call to the
824 malloc and free functions in libc. These calls are optimized as well as
825 the old instructions were.</li>
826</ul>
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000827
828<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major LLVM
829API changes are:</p>
830
831<ul>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000832<li>Just about everything has been converted to use raw_ostream instead of
833 std::ostream.</li>
834<li>llvm/ADT/iterator.h has been removed, just use &lt;iterator&gt;
835 instead.</li>
836<li>The Streams.h file and "DOUT" got removed, use "DEBUG(errs() &lt;&lt; ...);"
837 instead.</li>
Jeffrey Yasskin2ca16212010-01-28 01:41:20 +0000838<li><tt>ModuleProvider</tt> has been <a
Gabor Greif92d28ea2010-04-22 10:21:43 +0000839href="http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?view=rev&amp;revision=94686">removed</a>
Jeffrey Yasskin2ca16212010-01-28 01:41:20 +0000840and its methods moved to <tt>Module</tt> and <tt>GlobalValue</tt>.
841Most clients can remove uses of <tt>ExistingModuleProvider</tt>,
842replace <tt>getBitcodeModuleProvider</tt> with
843<tt>getLazyBitcodeModule</tt>, and pass their <tt>Module</tt> to
844functions that used to accept <tt>ModuleProvider</tt>. Clients who
845wrote their own <tt>ModuleProvider</tt>s will need to derive from
846<tt>GVMaterializer</tt> instead and use
847<tt>Module::setMaterializer</tt> to attach it to a
848<tt>Module</tt>.</li>
849
850<li><tt>GhostLinkage</tt> has given up the ghost.
851<tt>GlobalValue</tt>s that have not yet been read from their backing
852storage have the same linkage they will have after being read in.
853Clients must replace calls to
854<tt>GlobalValue::hasNotBeenReadFromBitcode</tt> with
855<tt>GlobalValue::isMaterializable</tt>.</li>
Daniel Dunbar61f41422010-02-10 04:09:52 +0000856
Daniel Dunbar369889a2010-02-14 01:47:19 +0000857<li>The <tt>llvm/Support/DataTypes.h</tt> header has moved
858to <tt>llvm/System/DataTypes.h</tt>.</li>
859
Duncan Sandsdd29fc82010-02-17 17:20:17 +0000860<li>The <tt>isInteger</tt>, <tt>isIntOrIntVector</tt>, <tt>isFloatingPoint</tt>,
861<tt>isFPOrFPVector</tt> and <tt>isFPOrFPVector</tt> methods have been renamed
862<tt>isIntegerTy</tt>, <tt>isIntOrIntVectorTy</tt>, <tt>isFloatingPointTy</tt>,
863<tt>isFPOrFPVectorTy</tt> and <tt>isFPOrFPVectorTy</tt> respectively.</li>
Devang Patel0e3da1a2008-10-14 20:03:43 +0000864</ul>
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000865
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000866</div>
867
868
869
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000870<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
871<div class="doc_section">
872 <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
873</div>
874<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
875
876<div class="doc_text">
877
878<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
879
880<ul>
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000881<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32, X86-64, AMD64, EMT-64) running Red Hat
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000882 Linux, Fedora Core, FreeBSD and AuroraUX (and probably other unix-like
883 systems).</li>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000884<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.4 and above in 32-bit
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000885 and 64-bit modes.</li>
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000886<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000887<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
888 support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
Chris Lattner9235ce52009-10-16 16:30:58 +0000889<li>Sun x86 and AMD64 machines running Solaris 10, OpenSolaris 0906.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000890<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000891</ul>
892
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000893<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses GNU autoconf to adapt itself
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000894to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
895porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
896portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
897
898</div>
899
900<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
901<div class="doc_section">
902 <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
903</div>
904<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
905
906<div class="doc_text">
907
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000908<p>This section contains significant known problems with the LLVM system,
Chris Lattnerb1ad47c2008-11-10 05:40:34 +0000909listed by component. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000910href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
911there isn't already one.</p>
912
Chris Lattner1f8dc512010-03-17 17:25:49 +0000913<ul>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000914<li>LLVM will not correctly compile on Solaris and/or OpenSolaris
915using the stock GCC 3.x.x series 'out the box',
Chris Lattnerc09ffd22009-11-03 21:50:09 +0000916See: <a href="GettingStarted.html#brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC and other tools</a>.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000917However, A <a href="http://pkg.auroraux.org/GCC">Modern GCC Build</a>
918for x86/x86-64 has been made available from the third party AuroraUX Project
919that has been meticulously tested for bootstrapping LLVM &amp; Clang.</li>
920</ul>
921
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000922</div>
923
924<!-- ======================================================================= -->
925<div class="doc_subsection">
926 <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
927</div>
928
929<div class="doc_text">
930
931<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
932be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
933not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
934useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000935components, please contact us on the <a
936href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000937
938<ul>
Wesley Peckbe6dc822010-03-18 14:31:30 +0000939<li>The MSIL, Alpha, SPU, MIPS, PIC16, Blackfin, MSP430, SystemZ and MicroBlaze
940 backends are experimental.</li>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000941<li><tt>llc</tt> "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only
Chris Lattner58b1d0f2010-03-17 04:41:49 +0000942 supported value for this option. The MachO writer is experimental, and
943 works much better in mainline SVN.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000944</ul>
945
946</div>
947
948<!-- ======================================================================= -->
949<div class="doc_subsection">
950 <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
951</div>
952
953<div class="doc_text">
954
955<ul>
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000956 <li>The X86 backend does not yet support
957 all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86
958 floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not
959 'u'.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000960 <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured
961 to generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
Duncan Sands8b4f3772008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000962 <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +0000963 expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build the mingw64
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000964 runtime currently due to lack of support for the 'u' inline assembly
965 constraint and for X87 floating point inline assembly.</li>
Dan Gohman3882ecb2008-06-08 23:05:11 +0000966 <li>The X86-64 backend does not yet support the LLVM IR instruction
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000967 <tt>va_arg</tt>. Currently, front-ends support variadic
Dan Gohman3882ecb2008-06-08 23:05:11 +0000968 argument constructs on X86-64 by lowering them manually.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000969</ul>
970
971</div>
972
973<!-- ======================================================================= -->
974<div class="doc_subsection">
975 <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
976</div>
977
978<div class="doc_text">
979
980<ul>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000981<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
982compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
983</ul>
984
985</div>
986
987<!-- ======================================================================= -->
988<div class="doc_subsection">
989 <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
990</div>
991
992<div class="doc_text">
993
994<ul>
995<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
Duncan Sands1827fa62007-09-26 15:59:54 +0000996processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000997results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +0000998<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported but not fully tested.
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000999</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001000</ul>
1001
1002</div>
1003
1004<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1005<div class="doc_subsection">
1006 <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
1007</div>
1008
1009<div class="doc_text">
1010
1011<ul>
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001012<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32); it does not
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001013 support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
1014</ul>
1015
1016</div>
1017
1018<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1019<div class="doc_subsection">
Bruno Cardoso Lopes62d45d72008-10-25 14:56:26 +00001020 <a name="mips-be">Known problems with the MIPS back-end</a>
1021</div>
1022
1023<div class="doc_text">
1024
1025<ul>
Bruno Cardoso Lopes62d45d72008-10-25 14:56:26 +00001026<li>64-bit MIPS targets are not supported yet.</li>
1027</ul>
1028
1029</div>
1030
1031<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1032<div class="doc_subsection">
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001033 <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
1034</div>
1035
1036<div class="doc_text">
1037
1038<ul>
1039
1040<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
1041appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
1042
1043</ul>
1044</div>
1045
1046<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1047<div class="doc_subsection">
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001048 <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
1049</div>
1050
1051<div class="doc_text">
1052
1053<ul>
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +00001054<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend has only basic support for
1055 inline assembly code</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnere0194462007-09-26 06:01:35 +00001056<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
1057 C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
Gabor Greife33c5322009-03-02 12:02:51 +00001058 C++ code compiled with <tt>llc</tt> or native compilers.</li>
Duncan Sandsbd0ad6e2008-02-10 13:40:55 +00001059<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
Duncan Sandse6e264c2009-02-25 11:51:54 +00001060<li>The C backend does not support arbitrary precision integers.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001061</ul>
1062
1063</div>
1064
1065
1066<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1067<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner58b1d0f2010-03-17 04:41:49 +00001068 <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C and C++ front-end</a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001069</div>
1070
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001071<div class="doc_text">
1072
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +00001073<p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is
1074 the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
1075 are only supported on some targets. For example, trampolines are only
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +00001076 supported on some targets (these are used when you take the address of a
1077 nested function).</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001078
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001079</div>
1080
1081<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1082<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6c8a1b82008-10-30 03:58:13 +00001083 <a name="fortran-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Fortran front-end</a>
1084</div>
1085
1086<div class="doc_text">
Gabor Greif1fc8fbc2008-11-04 21:50:59 +00001087<ul>
Chris Lattner6c8a1b82008-10-30 03:58:13 +00001088<li>Fortran support generally works, but there are still several unresolved bugs
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001089 in <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">Bugzilla</a>. Please see the
1090 tools/gfortran component for details.</li>
Gabor Greif1fc8fbc2008-11-04 21:50:59 +00001091</ul>
Chris Lattner6c8a1b82008-10-30 03:58:13 +00001092</div>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001093
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001094<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1095<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +00001096 <a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Ada front-end</a>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001097</div>
1098
1099<div class="doc_text">
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001100The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well; however, this is not a mature
1101technology, and problems should be expected.
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001102<ul>
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +00001103<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001104to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms.
1105However, it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001106which does support trampolines.</li>
1107<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
Duncan Sandsf73473e2009-02-25 11:59:06 +00001108This is due to lack of LLVM support for <tt>setjmp</tt>/<tt>longjmp</tt> style
1109exception handling, which is used internally by the compiler.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001110Workaround: configure with <tt>--disable-bootstrap</tt>.</li>
Duncan Sands2dbc2e82008-10-13 17:27:23 +00001111<li>The c380004, <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
1112and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS tests fail
Duncan Sandsf73473e2009-02-25 11:59:06 +00001113(c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline).
1114If the compiler is built with checks disabled then <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
1115causes the compiler to go into an infinite loop, using up all system memory.</li>
Duncan Sandsc2a29a02009-03-02 16:35:57 +00001116<li>Some GCC specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler.</li>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001117<li>The <tt>-E</tt> binder option (exception backtraces)
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001118<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001119crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use <tt>-E</tt>.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001120<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
1121or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
1122or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
1123starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +00001124<li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers
1125'main' as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
1126Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and
1127<tt>envp</tt> rather than integers.</li>
1128<li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is
1129ignored</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001130</ul>
1131</div>
1132
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001133<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1134<div class="doc_section">
1135 <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
1136</div>
1137<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1138
1139<div class="doc_text">
1140
1141<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
1142href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
1143href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
1144contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
1145Subversion version of the source code.
1146You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
1147into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
1148
1149<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
1150us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
1151lists</a>.</p>
1152
1153</div>
1154
1155<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1156
1157<hr>
1158<address>
1159 <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"><img
Misha Brukman947321d2008-12-11 17:34:48 +00001160 src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss-blue" alt="Valid CSS"></a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001161 <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
Misha Brukman947321d2008-12-11 17:34:48 +00001162 src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401-blue" alt="Valid HTML 4.01"></a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001163
1164 <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
1165 Last modified: $Date$
1166</address>
1167
1168</body>
1169</html>