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6 <title>LLVM Bitcode File Format</title>
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9<body>
10<div class="doc_title"> LLVM Bitcode File Format </div>
11<ol>
12 <li><a href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]13 <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
14 <li><a href="#bitstream">Bitstream Format</a>
15 <ol>
16 <li><a href="#magic">Magic Numbers</a></li>
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]17 <li><a href="#primitives">Primitives</a></li>
18 <li><a href="#abbrevid">Abbreviation IDs</a></li>
19 <li><a href="#blocks">Blocks</a></li>
20 <li><a href="#datarecord">Data Records</a></li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb63c2007-05-12 07:49:15 +0000[diff] [blame^]21 <li><a href="#abbreviations">Abbreviations</a></li>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]22 </ol>
23 </li>
24 <li><a href="#llvmir">LLVM IR Encoding</a></li>
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]25</ol>
26<div class="doc_author">
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]27 <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>.
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]28</p>
29</div>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]30
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]31<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]32<div class="doc_section"> <a name="abstract">Abstract</a></div>
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]33<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]34
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]35<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]36
37<p>This document describes the LLVM bitstream file format and the encoding of
38the LLVM IR into it.</p>
39
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]40</div>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]41
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]42<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]43<div class="doc_section"> <a name="overview">Overview</a></div>
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]44<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]45
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]46<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]47
48<p>
49What is commonly known as the LLVM bitcode file format (also, sometimes
50anachronistically known as bytecode) is actually two things: a <a
51href="#bitstream">bitstream container format</a>
52and an <a href="#llvmir">encoding of LLVM IR</a> into the container format.</p>
53
54<p>
55The bitstream format is an abstract encoding of structured data, like very
56similar to XML in some ways. Like XML, bitstream files contain tags, and nested
57structures, and you can parse the file without having to understand the tags.
58Unlike XML, the bitstream format is a binary encoding, and unlike XML it
59provides a mechanism for the file to self-describe "abbreviations", which are
60effectively size optimizations for the content.</p>
61
62<p>This document first describes the LLVM bitstream format, then describes the
63record structure used by LLVM IR files.
64</p>
65
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]66</div>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]67
68<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
69<div class="doc_section"> <a name="bitstream">Bitstream Format</a></div>
70<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
71
72<div class="doc_text">
73
74<p>
75The bitstream format is literally a stream of bits, with a very simple
76structure. This structure consists of the following concepts:
77</p>
78
79<ul>
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]80<li>A "<a href="#magic">magic number</a>" that identifies the contents of
81 the stream.</li>
82<li>Encoding <a href="#primitives">primitives</a> like variable bit-rate
83 integers.</li>
84<li><a href="#blocks">Blocks</a>, which define nested content.</li>
85<li><a href="#datarecord">Data Records</a>, which describe entities within the
86 file.</li>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]87<li>Abbreviations, which specify compression optimizations for the file.</li>
88</ul>
89
90<p>Note that the <a
91href="CommandGuide/html/llvm-bcanalyzer.html">llvm-bcanalyzer</a> tool can be
92used to dump and inspect arbitrary bitstreams, which is very useful for
93understanding the encoding.</p>
94
95</div>
96
97<!-- ======================================================================= -->
98<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="magic">Magic Numbers</a>
99</div>
100
101<div class="doc_text">
102
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]103<p>The first four bytes of the stream identify the encoding of the file. This
104is used by a reader to know what is contained in the file.</p>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]105
106</div>
107
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]108<!-- ======================================================================= -->
109<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="primitives">Primitives</a>
110</div>
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]111
112<div class="doc_text">
113
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]114<p>
115A bitstream literally consists of a stream of bits. This stream is made up of a
116number of primitive values that encode a stream of integer values. These
117integers are are encoded in two ways: either as <a href="#fixedwidth">Fixed
118Width Integers</a> or as <a href="#variablewidth">Variable Width
119Integers</a>.
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]120</p>
121
122</div>
123
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]124<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
125<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="fixedwidth">Fixed Width Integers</a>
126</div>
127
128<div class="doc_text">
129
130<p>Fixed-width integer values have their low bits emitted directly to the file.
131 For example, a 3-bit integer value encodes 1 as 001. Fixed width integers
132 are used when there are a well-known number of options for a field. For
133 example, boolean values are usually encoded with a 1-bit wide integer.
134</p>
135
136</div>
137
138<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
139<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="variablewidth">Variable Width
140Integers</a></div>
141
142<div class="doc_text">
143
144<p>Variable-width integer (VBR) values encode values of arbitrary size,
145optimizing for the case where the values are small. Given a 4-bit VBR field,
146any 3-bit value (0 through 7) is encoded directly, with the high bit set to
147zero. Values larger than N-1 bits emit their bits in a series of N-1 bit
148chunks, where all but the last set the high bit.</p>
149
150<p>For example, the value 27 (0x1B) is encoded as 1011 0011 when emitted as a
151vbr4 value. The first set of four bits indicates the value 3 (011) with a
152continuation piece (indicated by a high bit of 1). The next word indicates a
153value of 24 (011 << 3) with no continuation. The sum (3+24) yields the value
15427.
155</p>
156
157</div>
158
159<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
160<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="char6">6-bit characters</a></div>
161
162<div class="doc_text">
163
164<p>6-bit characters encode common characters into a fixed 6-bit field. They
165represent the following characters with the following 6-bit values:<s/p>
166
167<ul>
168<li>'a' .. 'z' - 0 .. 25</li>
169<li>'A' .. 'Z' - 26 .. 52</li>
170<li>'0' .. '9' - 53 .. 61</li>
171<li>'.' - 62</li>
172<li>'_' - 63</li>
173</ul>
174
175<p>This encoding is only suitable for encoding characters and strings that
176consist only of the above characters. It is completely incapable of encoding
177characters not in the set.</p>
178
179</div>
180
181<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
182<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="wordalign">Word Alignment</a></div>
183
184<div class="doc_text">
185
186<p>Occasionally, it is useful to emit zero bits until the bitstream is a
187multiple of 32 bits. This ensures that the bit position in the stream can be
188represented as a multiple of 32-bit words.</p>
189
190</div>
191
192
193<!-- ======================================================================= -->
194<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="abbrevid">Abbreviation IDs</a>
195</div>
196
197<div class="doc_text">
198
199<p>
200A bitstream is a sequential series of <a href="#blocks">Blocks</a> and
201<a href="#datarecord">Data Records</a>. Both of these start with an
202abbreviation ID encoded as a fixed-bitwidth field. The width is specified by
203the current block, as described below. The value of the abbreviation ID
204specifies either a builtin ID (which have special meanings, defined below) or
205one of the abbreviation IDs defined by the stream itself.
206</p>
207
208<p>
209The set of builtin abbrev IDs is:
210</p>
211
212<ul>
213<li>0 - <a href="#END_BLOCK">END_BLOCK</a> - This abbrev ID marks the end of the
214 current block.</li>
215<li>1 - <a href="#ENTER_SUBBLOCK">ENTER_SUBBLOCK</a> - This abbrev ID marks the
216 beginning of a new block.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb63c2007-05-12 07:49:15 +0000[diff] [blame^]217<li>2 - <a href="#DEFINE_ABBREV">DEFINE_ABBREV</a> - This defines a new
218 abbreviation.</li>
219<li>3 - <a href="#UNABBREV_RECORD">UNABBREV_RECORD</a> - This ID specifies the
220 definition of an unabbreviated record.</li>
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]221</ul>
222
Chris Lattnerdaeb63c2007-05-12 07:49:15 +0000[diff] [blame^]223<p>Abbreviation IDs 4 and above are defined by the stream itself, and specify
224an <a href="#abbrev_records">abbreviated record encoding</a>.</p>
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]225
226</div>
227
228<!-- ======================================================================= -->
229<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="blocks">Blocks</a>
230</div>
231
232<div class="doc_text">
233
234<p>
235Blocks in a bitstream denote nested regions of the stream, and are identified by
236a content-specific id number (for example, LLVM IR uses an ID of 12 to represent
237function bodies). Nested blocks capture the hierachical structure of the data
238encoded in it, and various properties are associated with blocks as the file is
239parsed. Block definitions allow the reader to efficiently skip blocks
240in constant time if the reader wants a summary of blocks, or if it wants to
241efficiently skip data they do not understand. The LLVM IR reader uses this
242mechanism to skip function bodies, lazily reading them on demand.
243</p>
244
245<p>
246When reading and encoding the stream, several properties are maintained for the
247block. In particular, each block maintains:
248</p>
249
250<ol>
251<li>A current abbrev id width. This value starts at 2, and is set every time a
252 block record is entered. The block entry specifies the abbrev id width for
253 the body of the block.</li>
254
255<li>A set of abbreviations. Abbreviations may be defined within a block, or
256 they may be associated with all blocks of a particular ID.
257</li>
258</ol>
259
260<p>As sub blocks are entered, these properties are saved and the new sub-block
261has its own set of abbreviations, and its own abbrev id width. When a sub-block
262is popped, the saved values are restored.</p>
263
264</div>
265
266<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
267<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="ENTER_SUBBLOCK">ENTER_SUBBLOCK
268Encoding</a></div>
269
270<div class="doc_text">
271
272<p><tt>[ENTER_SUBBLOCK, blockid<sub>vbr8</sub>, newabbrevlen<sub>vbr4</sub>,
273 &lt;align32bits&gt;, blocklen<sub>32</sub>]</tt></p>
274
275<p>
276The ENTER_SUBBLOCK abbreviation ID specifies the start of a new block record.
277The <tt>blockid</tt> value is encoded as a 8-bit VBR identifier, and indicates
278the type of block being entered (which is application specific). The
279<tt>newabbrevlen</tt> value is a 4-bit VBR which specifies the
280abbrev id width for the sub-block. The <tt>blocklen</tt> is a 32-bit aligned
281value that specifies the size of the subblock, in 32-bit words. This value
282allows the reader to skip over the entire block in one jump.
283</p>
284
285</div>
286
287<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
288<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="END_BLOCK">END_BLOCK
289Encoding</a></div>
290
291<div class="doc_text">
292
293<p><tt>[END_BLOCK, &lt;align32bits&gt;]</tt></p>
294
295<p>
296The END_BLOCK abbreviation ID specifies the end of the current block record.
297Its end is aligned to 32-bits to ensure that the size of the block is an even
298multiple of 32-bits.</p>
299
300</div>
301
302
303
304<!-- ======================================================================= -->
305<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="datarecord">Data Records</a>
306</div>
307
308<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnerdaeb63c2007-05-12 07:49:15 +0000[diff] [blame^]309<p>
310Data records consist of a record code and a number of (up to) 64-bit integer
311values. The interpretation of the code and values is application specific and
312there are multiple different ways to encode a record (with an unabbrev record
313or with an abbreviation). In the LLVM IR format, for example, there is a record
314which encodes the target triple of a module. The code is MODULE_CODE_TRIPLE,
315and the values of the record are the ascii codes for the characters in the
316string.</p>
317
318</div>
319
320<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
321<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="UNABBREV_RECORD">UNABBREV_RECORD
322Encoding</a></div>
323
324<div class="doc_text">
325
326<p><tt>[UNABBREV_RECORD, code<sub>vbr6</sub>, numops<sub>vbr6</sub>,
327 op0<sub>vbr6</sub>, op1<sub>vbr6</sub>, ...]</tt></p>
328
329<p>An UNABBREV_RECORD provides a default fallback encoding, which is both
330completely general and also extremely inefficient. It can describe an arbitrary
331record, by emitting the code and operands as vbrs.</p>
332
333<p>For example, emitting an LLVM IR target triple as an unabbreviated record
334requires emitting the UNABBREV_RECORD abbrevid, a vbr6 for the
335MODULE_CODE_TRIPLE code, a vbr6 for the length of the string (which is equal to
336the number of operands), and a vbr6 for each character. Since there are no
337letters with value less than 32, each letter would need to be emitted as at
338least a two-part VBR, which means that each letter would require at least 12
339bits. This is not an efficient encoding, but it is fully general.</p>
340
341</div>
342
343<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
344<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="abbrev_records">Abbreviated Record
345Encoding</a></div>
346
347<div class="doc_text">
348
349<p><tt>[&lt;abbrevid&gt;, fields...]</tt></p>
350
351<p>An abbreviated record is a abbreviation id followed by a set of fields that
352are encoded according to the <a href="#abbreviations">abbreviation
353definition</a>. This allows records to be encoded significantly more densely
354than records encoded with the <a href="#UNABBREV_RECORD">UNABBREV_RECORD</a>
355type, and allows the abbreviation types to be specified in the stream itself,
356which allows the files to be completely self describing. The actual encoding
357of abbreviations is defined below.
358</p>
359
360</div>
361
362<!-- ======================================================================= -->
363<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="abbreviations">Abbreviations</a>
364</div>
365
366<div class="doc_text">
367<p>
368Abbreviations are an important form of compression for bitstreams. The idea is
369to specify a dense encoding for a class of records once, then use that encoding
370to emit many records. It takes space to emit the encoding into the file, but
371the space is recouped (hopefully plus some) when the records that use it are
372emitted.
373</p>
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]374
375<p>
Chris Lattnerdaeb63c2007-05-12 07:49:15 +0000[diff] [blame^]376Abbreviations can be determined dynamically per client, per file. Since the
377abbreviations are stored in the bitstream itself, different streams of the same
378format can contain different sets of abbreviations if the specific stream does
379not need it. As a concrete example, LLVM IR files usually emit an abbreviation
380for binary operators. If a specific LLVM module contained no or few binary
381operators, the abbreviation does not need to be emitted.
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]382</p>
Chris Lattnerdaeb63c2007-05-12 07:49:15 +0000[diff] [blame^]383</div>
384
385<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
386<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="DEFINE_ABBREV">DEFINE_ABBREV
387 Encoding</a></div>
388
389<div class="doc_text">
390
391<p><tt>[DEFINE_ABBREV, numabbrevops<sub>vbr5</sub>, abbrevop0, abbrevop1,
392 ...]</tt></p>
393
394<p>An abbreviation definition consists of the DEFINE_ABBREV abbrevid followed
395by a VBR that specifies the number of abbrev operands, then the abbrev
396operands themselves. Abbreviation operands come in three forms. They all start
397with a single bit that indicates whether the abbrev operand is a literal operand
398(when the bit is 1) or an encoding operand (when the bit is 0).</p>
399
400<ol>
401<li>Literal operands - <tt>[1<sub>1</sub>, litvalue<sub>vbr8</sub>]</tt> -
402Literal operands specify that the value in the result
403is always a single specific value. This specific value is emitted as a vbr8
404after the bit indicating that it is a literal operand.</li>
405<li>Encoding info without data - <tt>[0<sub>1</sub>, encoding<sub>3</sub>]</tt>
406 - blah
407</li>
408<li>Encoding info with data - <tt>[0<sub>1</sub>, encoding<sub>3</sub>,
409value<sub>vbr5</sub>]</tt> -
410
411</li>
412</ol>
Chris Lattner3a1716d2007-05-12 05:37:42 +0000[diff] [blame]413
414</div>
415
416
Chris Lattnere9ef4572007-05-12 03:23:40 +0000[diff] [blame]417<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
418<div class="doc_section"> <a name="llvmir">LLVM IR Encoding</a></div>
419<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
420
421<div class="doc_text">
422
423<p></p>
424
425</div>
426
427
Reid Spencer2c1ce4f2007-01-20 23:21:08 +0000[diff] [blame]428<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
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