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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"
14 width="136" height="136">
15
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
125<li>FIXME: Static Analyzer improvements?</li>
126
127<li>CIndex API and Python bindings: Clang now includes a C API as part of the
128CIndex library. Although we make make some changes to the API in the future, it
129is intended to be stable and has been designed for use by external projects. See
130the Clang
131doxygen <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen/group__CINDEX.html">CIndex</a>
132documentation for more details. The CIndex API also includings an preliminary
133set of Python bindings.</li>
134
135<li>ARM Support: Clang now has ABI support for both the Darwin and Linux ARM
136ABIs. Coupled with many improvements to the LLVM ARM backend, Clang is now
137suitable for use as a a beta quality ARM compiler.</li>
Bill Wendlinga8fb81d2009-03-02 04:28:18 +0000138</ul>
Chris Lattnera3c683b2008-10-13 18:11:54 +0000139</div>
140
141<!--=========================================================================-->
142<div class="doc_subsection">
143<a name="clangsa">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
144</div>
145
146<div class="doc_text">
147
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000148<p>The <a href="http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
149 project is an effort to use static source code analysis techniques to
150 automatically find bugs in C and Objective-C programs (and hopefully <a
151 href="http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/dev_cxx.html">C++ in the
152 future</a>!). The tool is very good at finding bugs that occur on specific
153 paths through code, such as on error conditions.</p>
Chris Lattnerc2d84672008-10-14 00:52:49 +0000154
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000155<p>In the LLVM 2.7 time-frame, the analyzer core has made several major and
156 minor improvements, including better support for tracking the fields of
157 structures, initial support (not enabled by default yet) for doing
158 interprocedural (cross-function) analysis, and new checks have been added.
159</p>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000160
161</div>
162
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000163<!--=========================================================================-->
164<div class="doc_subsection">
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000165<a name="vmkit">VMKit: JVM/CLI Virtual Machine Implementation</a>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000166</div>
167
168<div class="doc_text">
169<p>
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000170The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">VMKit project</a> is an implementation of
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000171a JVM and a CLI Virtual Machine (Microsoft .NET is an
172implementation of the CLI) using LLVM for static and just-in-time
173compilation.</p>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000174
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000175<p>
Chris Lattnerd5b62522010-03-29 18:34:13 +0000176With the release of LLVM 2.7, VMKit has shifted to a great framework for writing
177virtual machines. VMKit now offers precise and efficient garbage collection with
178multi-threading support, thanks to the MMTk memory management toolkit, as well
179as just in time and ahead of time compilation with LLVM. The major changes in
180VMKit 0.27 are:</p>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000181
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000182<ul>
183
Chris Lattnerd5b62522010-03-29 18:34:13 +0000184<li>Garbage collection: VMKit now uses the MMTk toolkit for garbage collectors.
185 The first collector to be ported is the MarkSweep collector, which is precise,
186 and drastically improves the performance of VMKit.</li>
187<li>Line number information in the JVM: by using the debug metadata of LLVM, the
188 JVM now supports precise line number information, useful when printing a stack
189 trace.</li>
190<li>Interface calls in the JVM: we implemented a variant of the Interface Method
191 Table technique for interface calls in the JVM.
192</li>
Nicolas Geoffray2b139382008-10-14 19:23:04 +0000193
194</ul>
Chris Lattner78a130b2008-10-13 18:01:01 +0000195</div>
196
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000197
198<!--=========================================================================-->
199<div class="doc_subsection">
200<a name="compiler-rt">compiler-rt: Compiler Runtime Library</a>
201</div>
202
203<div class="doc_text">
204<p>
205The new LLVM <a href="http://compiler-rt.llvm.org/">compiler-rt project</a>
206is a simple library that provides an implementation of the low-level
207target-specific hooks required by code generation and other runtime components.
208For example, when compiling for a 32-bit target, converting a double to a 64-bit
209unsigned integer is compiled into a runtime call to the "__fixunsdfdi"
210function. The compiler-rt library provides highly optimized implementations of
211this and other low-level routines (some are 3x faster than the equivalent
212libgcc routines).</p>
213
214<p>
215All of the code in the compiler-rt project is available under the standard LLVM
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000216License, a "BSD-style" license. New in LLVM 2.7: compiler_rt now
217supports ARM targets.</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000218
219</div>
220
221<!--=========================================================================-->
222<div class="doc_subsection">
Duncan Sands2d9c3082010-04-02 09:23:15 +0000223<a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: llvm-gcc ported to gcc-4.5</a>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000224</div>
225
226<div class="doc_text">
227<p>
Duncan Sands2d9c3082010-04-02 09:23:15 +0000228<a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is a port of llvm-gcc to
229gcc-4.5. Unlike llvm-gcc, which makes many intrusive changes to the underlying
230gcc-4.2 code, dragonegg in theory does not require any gcc-4.5 modifications
231whatsoever (currently one small patch is needed). This is thanks to the new
232<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/plugins">gcc plugin architecture</a>, which
233makes it possible to modify the behaviour of gcc at runtime by loading a plugin,
234which is nothing more than a dynamic library which conforms to the gcc plugin
235interface. DragonEgg is a gcc plugin that causes the LLVM optimizers to be run
236instead of the gcc optimizers, and the LLVM code generators instead of the gcc
237code generators, just like llvm-gcc. To use it, you add
238"-fplugin=path/dragonegg.so" to the gcc-4.5 command line, and gcc-4.5 magically
239becomes llvm-gcc-4.5!
240</p>
241
242<p>
243DragonEgg is still a work in progress. Currently C works very well, while C++,
244Ada and Fortran work fairly well. All other languages either don't work at all,
245or only work poorly. For the moment only the x86-32 and x86-64 targets are
Duncan Sands566f40b2010-04-20 19:40:58 +0000246supported, and only on linux and darwin (darwin needs an additional gcc patch).
Duncan Sands2d9c3082010-04-02 09:23:15 +0000247</p>
248
249<p>
Duncan Sandsa9cc3892010-04-21 13:51:48 +0000250DragonEgg is a new project which is seeing its first release with llvm-2.7.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000251</p>
252
253</div>
254
255
256<!--=========================================================================-->
257<div class="doc_subsection">
258<a name="mc">llvm-mc: Machine Code Toolkit</a>
259</div>
260
261<div class="doc_text">
262<p>
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000263The LLVM Machine Code (aka MC) sub-project of LLVM was created to solve a number
264of problems in the realm of assembly, disassembly, object file format handling,
265and a number of other related areas that CPU instruction-set level tools work
266in. It is a sub-project of LLVM which provides it with a number of advantages
267over other compilers that do not have tightly integrated assembly-level tools.
268For a gentle introduction, please see the <a
269href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/intro-to-llvm-mc-project.html">Intro to the
270LLVM MC Project Blog Post</a>.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000271</p>
272
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000273<p>2.7 includes major parts of the work required by the new MC Project. A few
274 targets have been refactored to support it, and work is underway to support a
275 native assembler in LLVM. This work is not complete in LLVM 2.7, but you has
276 made substantially more progress on LLVM mainline.</p>
277
278<p>One minor example of what MC can do is to transcode an AT&amp;T syntax
279 X86 .s file into intel syntax. You can do this with something like:</p>
280
281<pre>
282 llvm-mc foo.s -output-asm-variant=1 -o foo-intel.s
283</pre>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000284</p>
285
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000286</div>
287
288
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000289<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
290<div class="doc_section">
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000291 <a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 2.7</a>
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000292</div>
293<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
294
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000295<div class="doc_text">
296
297<p>An exciting aspect of LLVM is that it is used as an enabling technology for
298 a lot of other language and tools projects. This section lists some of the
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000299 projects that have already been updated to work with LLVM 2.7.</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000300</div>
301
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000302<!--=========================================================================-->
303<div class="doc_subsection">
304<a name="pure">Pure</a>
305</div>
306
307<div class="doc_text">
308<p>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000309<a href="http://pure-lang.googlecode.com/">Pure</a>
310is an algebraic/functional programming language based on term rewriting.
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000311Programs are collections of equations which are used to evaluate expressions in
312a symbolic fashion. Pure offers dynamic typing, eager and lazy evaluation,
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000313lexical closures, a hygienic macro system (also based on term rewriting),
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000314built-in list and matrix support (including list and matrix comprehensions) and
315an easy-to-use C interface. The interpreter uses LLVM as a backend to
316 JIT-compile Pure programs to fast native code.</p>
317
Chris Lattner1f8dc512010-03-17 17:25:49 +0000318<p>Pure versions 0.43 and later have been tested and are known to work with
319LLVM 2.7 (and continue to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.5).</p>
320
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000321</div>
322
Chris Lattner1ad599a2009-02-28 18:58:01 +0000323<!--=========================================================================-->
324<div class="doc_subsection">
325<a name="RoadsendPHP">Roadsend PHP</a>
326</div>
327
328<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000329<p>
330<a href="http://code.roadsend.com/rphp">Roadsend PHP</a> (rphp) is an open
Chris Lattner9e08de12009-03-02 19:07:24 +0000331source implementation of the PHP programming
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000332language that uses LLVM for its optimizer, JIT and static compiler. This is a
Chris Lattnere5236102010-03-17 04:02:39 +0000333reimplementation of an earlier project that is now based on LLVM.
Chris Lattner1f8dc512010-03-17 17:25:49 +0000334</p>
Chris Lattner1ad599a2009-02-28 18:58:01 +0000335</div>
Chris Lattnerb2cc5022009-02-26 22:33:38 +0000336
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000337<!--=========================================================================-->
338<div class="doc_subsection">
339<a name="UnladenSwallow">Unladen Swallow</a>
340</div>
341
342<div class="doc_text">
343<p>
344<a href="http://code.google.com/p/unladen-swallow/">Unladen Swallow</a> is a
345branch of <a href="http://python.org/">Python</a> intended to be fully
346compatible and significantly faster. It uses LLVM's optimization passes and JIT
Chris Lattnerd7db82c2010-03-18 06:52:15 +0000347compiler.
Chris Lattnere5236102010-03-17 04:02:39 +0000348</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000349</div>
350
351<!--=========================================================================-->
352<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner49894862010-03-29 17:50:39 +0000353<a name="tce">TTA-based Codesign Environment (TCE)</a>
354</div>
355
356<div class="doc_text">
357<p>
358<a href="http://tce.cs.tut.fi/">TCE</a> is a toolset for designing
359application-specific processors (ASP) based on the Transport triggered
360architecture (TTA). The toolset provides a complete co-design flow from C/C++
361programs down to synthesizable VHDL and parallel program binaries. Processor
362customization points include the register files, function units, supported
363operations, and the interconnection network.</p>
364
365<p>TCE uses llvm-gcc/Clang and LLVM for C/C++ language support, target
366independent optimizations and also for parts of code generation. It generates
367new LLVM-based code generators "on the fly" for the designed TTA processors and
368loads them in to the compiler backend as runtime libraries to avoid per-target
369recompilation of larger parts of the compiler chain.</p>
370
371</div>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000372
John Criswelle75f04f2010-04-06 14:52:14 +0000373<!--=========================================================================-->
374<div class="doc_subsection">
375<a name="safecode">SAFECode Compiler</a>
376</div>
377
378<div class="doc_text">
379<p>
380<a href="http://safecode.cs.illinois.edu">SAFECode</a> is a memory safe C
381compiler built using LLVM. It takes standard, unannotated C code, analyzes the
382code to ensure that memory accesses and array indexing operations are safe, and
383instruments the code with run-time checks when safety cannot be proven
384statically.
385</p>
386</div>
387
388
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000389<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
390<div class="doc_section">
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000391 <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.7?</a>
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000392</div>
393<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
394
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000395<div class="doc_text">
396
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000397<p>This release includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000398minor improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are listed
399in this section.
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000400</p>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000401
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000402</div>
403
404<!--=========================================================================-->
405<div class="doc_subsection">
406<a name="orgchanges">LLVM Community Changes</a>
407</div>
408
409<div class="doc_text">
410
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000411<p>In addition to changes to the code, between LLVM 2.6 and 2.7, a number of
412organization changes have happened:
413</p>
414
415<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000416<li>LLVM has a new <a href="http://llvm.org/Logo.html">official logo</a>!</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000417
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000418<li>Ted Kremenek and Doug Gregor have stepped forward as <a
419 href="http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#owners">Code Owners</a> of the
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000420 Clang static analyzer and the Clang frontend, respectively.</li>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000421
422<li>LLVM now has an <a href="http://blog.llvm.org">official Blog</a> at
423 <a href="http://blog.llvm.org">http://blog.llvm.org</a>. This is a great way
424 to learn about new LLVM-related features as they are implemented. Several
425 features in this release are already explained on the blog.</li>
426
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000427<li>The LLVM web pages are now checked into the SVN server, in the "www",
428 "www-pubs" and "www-releases" SVN modules. Previously they were hidden in a
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000429 largely inaccessible old CVS server.</li>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000430
431<li><a href="http://llvm.org">llvm.org</a> is now hosted on a new (and much
432 faster) server. It is still graciously hosted at the University of Illinois
433 of Urbana Champaign.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000434</ul>
Chris Lattner5cce7a52008-06-08 22:59:35 +0000435</div>
436
Chris Lattnerf6a0d382008-06-08 21:58:17 +0000437<!--=========================================================================-->
Chris Lattnerf65224f2008-06-08 21:34:41 +0000438<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000439<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
440</div>
441
442<div class="doc_text">
443
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000444<p>LLVM 2.7 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000445
446<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000447<li>2.7 includes initial support for the <a
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000448 href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroBlaze">MicroBlaze</a> target.
449 MicroBlaze is a soft processor core designed for Xilinx FPGAs.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000450
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000451<li>2.7 includes a new LLVM IR "extensible metadata" feature. This feature
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000452 supports many different use cases, including allowing front-end authors to
453 encode source level information into LLVM IR, which is consumed by later
454 language-specific passes. This is a great way to do high-level optimizations
455 like devirtualization, type-based alias analysis, etc. See the <a
456 href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/extensible-metadata-in-llvm-ir.html">
457 Extensible Metadata Blog Post</a> for more information.</li>
458
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000459<li>2.7 encodes <a href="SourceLevelDebugging.html">debug information</a>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000460in a completely new way, built on extensible metadata. The new implementation
461is much more memory efficient and paves the way for improvements to optimized
462code debugging experience.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000463
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000464<li>2.7 now directly supports taking the address of a label and doing an
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000465 indirect branch through a pointer. This is particularly useful for
466 interpreter loops, and is used to implement the GCC "address of label"
467 extension. For more information, see the <a
468href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/01/address-of-label-and-indirect-branches.html">
469Address of Label and Indirect Branches in LLVM IR Blog Post</a>.
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000470
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000471<li>2.7 is the first release to start supporting APIs for assembling and
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000472 disassembling target machine code. These APIs are useful for a variety of
473 low level clients, and are surfaced in the new "enhanced disassembly" API.
474 For more information see the <a
475 href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/01/x86-disassembler.html">The X86
476 Disassembler Blog Post</a> for more information.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000477
Chris Lattnerfa63e262010-04-22 06:38:11 +0000478<li>2.7 includes major parts of the work required by the new MC Project,
479 see the <a href="#mc">MC update above</a> for more information.</li>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000480</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000481
Chris Lattner5ba16862008-02-10 08:18:42 +0000482</ul>
Chris Lattner2b656342010-03-17 06:41:58 +0000483
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000484</div>
485
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000486<!--=========================================================================-->
487<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000488<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM IR and Core Improvements</a>
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000489</div>
490
491<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000492<p>LLVM IR has several new features for better support of new targets and that
493expose new optimization opportunities:</p>
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000494
Chris Lattnerc5a4e312008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000495<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000496<li>LLVM IR now supports a 16-bit "half float" data type through <a
497 href="LangRef.html#int_fp16">two new intrinsics</a> and APFloat support.</li>
498<li>LLVM IR supports two new <a href="LangRef.html#fnattrs">function
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000499 attributes</a>: inlinehint and alignstack(n). The former is a hint to the
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000500 optimizer that a function was declared 'inline' and thus the inliner should
501 weight it higher when considering inlining it. The later
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000502 indicates to the code generator that the function diverges from the platform
503 ABI on stack alignment.</li>
504<li>The new <a href="LangRef.html#int_objectsize">llvm.objectsize</a> intrinsic
505 allows the optimizer to infer the sizes of memory objects in some cases.
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000506 This intrinsic is used to implement the GCC <tt>__builtin_object_size</tt>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000507 extension.</li>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000508<li>LLVM IR now supports marking load and store instructions with <a
509 href="LangRef.html#i_load">"non-temporal" hints</a> (building on the new
510 metadata feature). This hint encourages the code
511 generator to generate non-temporal accesses when possible, which are useful
512 for code that is carefully managing cache behavior. Currently, only the
513 X86 backend provides target support for this feature.</li>
514
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000515<li>LLVM 2.7 has pre-alpha support for <a
516 href="http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#t_union">unions in LLVM IR</a>.
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000517 Unfortunately, this support is not really usable in 2.7, so if you're
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000518 interested in pushing it forward, please help contribute to LLVM mainline.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000519</li>
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000520</ul>
Mikhail Glushenkov808cd3e2008-10-13 02:08:34 +0000521
Chris Lattnerc3649452008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000522</div>
523
524<!--=========================================================================-->
525<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000526<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
527</div>
528
529<div class="doc_text">
530
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000531<p>In addition to a large array of minor performance tweaks and bug fixes, this
Chris Lattnerea9c2242008-10-13 21:50:36 +0000532release includes a few major enhancements and additions to the optimizers:</p>
Chris Lattner8fda4952008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000533
534<ul>
535
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000536<li>The inliner reuses now merges arrays stack objects in different callees when
537 inlining multiple call sites into one function. This reduces the stack size
538 of the resultant function.</li>
539<li>The -basicaa alias analysis pass (which is the default) has been improved to
540 be less dependent on "type safe" pointers. It can now look through bitcasts
541 and other constructs more aggressively, allowing better load/store
542 optimization.</li>
543<li>The load elimination optimization in the GVN Pass [<a
544href="http://blog.llvm.org/2009/12/introduction-to-load-elimination-in-gvn.html">intro
545 blog post</a>] has been substantially improved to be more aggressive about
546 partial redundancy elimination and do more aggressive phi translation. Please
547 see the <a
548 href="http://blog.llvm.org/2009/12/advanced-topics-in-redundant-load.html">
549 Advanced Topics in Redundant Load Elimination with a Focus on PHI Translation
550 Blog Post</a> for more details.</li>
551<li>The module <a href="LangRef.html#datalayout">target data string</a> now
552 includes a notion of what the 'native' integer data types a for the target,
553 which allows various optimizations to use. This helps mid-level
554 optimizations avoid promoting complex sequences of operations to data types
555 that are not natively supported (e.g. converting i32 operations to i64 on
556 a 32-bit chip).</li>
557<li>The mid-level optimizer is now conservative when operating on a module with
558 no target data. Previously, it would default to SparcV9 settings, which is
559 not what most people expected.</li>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000560<li>Jump threading is now much more aggressive at simplifying correlated
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000561 conditionals and threading blocks with otherwise complex logic. It has
562 subsumed the old "Conditional Propagation" pass, and -condprop has been
563 removed from LLVM 2.7.</li>
564<li>The -instcombine pass has been refactored from being one huge file to being
565 a library of its own. Internally, it uses a customized IRBuilder to clean
566 it up and simplify it.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000567
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000568<li>The optimal edge profiling pass is reliable and much more complete than in
569 2.6. It can be used with the llvm-prof tool but isn't wired up to the
570 llvm-gcc and clang command line options yet.</li>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000571
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000572<li>A new experimental alias analysis implementation, -scev-aa, has been added.
573 It uses LLVM's Scalar Evolution implementation to do symbolic analysis of
574 pointer offset expressions to disambiguate pointers. It can catch a few
575 cases that basicaa cannot, particularly in complex loop nests.</li>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000576
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000577<li>The default pass ordering has been tweaked for improved optimization
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000578 effectiveness.</li>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000579
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000580</ul>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000581
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000582</div>
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000583
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000584
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000585<!--=========================================================================-->
586<div class="doc_subsection">
587<a name="executionengine">Interpreter and JIT Improvements</a>
588</div>
Chris Lattnerea9c2242008-10-13 21:50:36 +0000589
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000590<div class="doc_text">
591
592<ul>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000593<li>The JIT now supports generating debug information, which is compatible with
594the new GDB 7.0 (and later) interfaces for registering debug info for
595dynamically generated code.</li>
596
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000597<li>The JIT now <a href="http://llvm.org/PR5184">defaults
Jeffrey Yasskin40715142010-01-29 19:10:38 +0000598to compiling eagerly</a> to avoid a race condition in the lazy JIT.
599Clients that still want the lazy JIT can switch it on by calling
600<tt>ExecutionEngine::DisableLazyCompilation(false)</tt>.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000601
Jeffrey Yasskinc0577082010-02-11 01:07:39 +0000602<li>It is now possible to create more than one JIT instance in the same process.
603These JITs can generate machine code in parallel,
604although <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/ProgrammersManual.html#jitthreading">you
605still have to obey the other threading restrictions</a>.</li>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000606
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000607</ul>
608
609</div>
610
611<!--=========================================================================-->
612<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner5f393542009-03-02 03:24:11 +0000613<a name="codegen">Target Independent Code Generator Improvements</a>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000614</div>
615
616<div class="doc_text">
617
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000618<p>We have put a significant amount of work into the code generator
619infrastructure, which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make
620it run faster:</p>
Chris Lattner0eef6e42008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000621
622<ul>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000623<li>The 'llc -asm-verbose' option (which is now the default) has been enhanced
624 to emit many useful comments to .s files indicating information about spill
625 slots and loop nest structure. This should make it much easier to read and
626 understand assembly files. This is wired up in llvm-gcc and clang to
627 the <tt>-fverbose-asm</tt> option.</li>
628
629<li>New LSR with "full strength reduction" mode. FIXME: Description?</li>
630
631<li>A new codegen level Common Subexpression Elimination pass (MachineCSE)
632 is available and enabled by default. It catches redundancies exposed by
633 lowering.</li>
634<li>A new pre-register-allocation tail duplication pass is available and enabled
635 by default, it can substantially improve branch prediction quality in some
636 cases.</li>
637<li>A new sign and zero extension optimization pass (OptimizeExtsPass)
638 is available and enabled by default. This pass can takes advantage
639 architecture features like x86-64 implicit zero extension behavior and
640 sub-registers.</li>
641<li>The code generator now supports a mode where it attempts to preserve the
642 order of instructions in the input code. This is important for source that
643 is hand scheduled and extremely sensitive to scheduling. It is compatible
644 with the GCC <tt>-fno-schedule-insns</tt> option.</li>
645<li>The target-independent code generator now supports generating code with
646 arbitrary numbers of result values. Returning more values than was
647 previously supported is handled by returning through a hidden pointer. In
648 2.7, only the X86 and XCore targets have adopted support for this
649 though.</li>
650<li>The code generator now supports generating code that follows the
651 <a href="LangRef.html#callingconv">Glasgow Haskell Compiler Calling
652 Convention</a> and ABI.</li>
653<li>The "<a href="CodeGenerator.html#selectiondag_select">DAG instruction
654 selection</a>" phase of the code generator has been largely rewritten for
655 2.7. Previously, tblgen spit out tons of C++ code which was compiled and
656 linked into the target to do the pattern matching, now it emits a much
657 smaller table which is read by the target-independent code. The primary
658 advantages of this approach is that the size and compile time of various
659 targets is much improved. The X86 code generator shrunk by 1.5MB of code,
660 for example.</li>
661<li>Almost the entire code generator has switched to emitting code through the
662 MC interfaces instead of printing textually to the .s file. This led to a
663 number of cleanups and speedups. In 2.7, debug an exception handling
664 information does not go through MC yet.</li>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000665</ul>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000666</div>
667
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000668<!--=========================================================================-->
669<div class="doc_subsection">
670<a name="x86">X86-32 and X86-64 Target Improvements</a>
671</div>
672
673<div class="doc_text">
674<p>New features of the X86 target include:
675</p>
676
677<ul>
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000678<li>The X86 backend now optimizes tails calls much more aggressively for
679 functions that use the standard C calling convention.</li>
680<li>The X86 backend now models scalar SSE registers as subregs of the SSE vector
681 registers, making the code generator more aggressive in cases where scalars
682 and vector types are mixed.</li>
Chris Lattner5f393542009-03-02 03:24:11 +0000683
Chris Lattner556aac32010-04-21 06:42:24 +0000684<li>PostRA scheduler for X86? FIXME: is this on by default in 2.7?</li>
Chris Lattner5f393542009-03-02 03:24:11 +0000685
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000686</ul>
687
Chris Lattner47202c32009-03-02 02:37:32 +0000688</div>
Chris Lattnerb0d6c502007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000689
690<!--=========================================================================-->
691<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000692<a name="ARM">ARM Target Improvements</a>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000693</div>
694
695<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000696<p>New features of the ARM target include:
697</p>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000698
699<ul>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000700
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000701<li>The ARM backend now generates instructions in unified assembly syntax.</li>
702
703<li>llvm-gcc now has complete support for the ARM v7 NEON instruction set. This
704 support differs slightly from the GCC implementation. Please see the
705 <a
706href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/arm-advanced-simd-neon-intrinsics-and.html">
707 ARM Advanced SIMD (NEON) Intrinsics and Types in LLVM Blog Post</a> for
708 helpful information if migrating code from GCC to LLVM-GCC.</li>
709
710<li>The ARM and Thumb code generators now using register scavenging for stack
711 object address materialization.(FIXME: WHAT BENEFIT DOES THIS PROVIDE?)</li>
712
713<li>The ARM backend now has good support for ARMv4 targets, and has been tested
714 on StrongARM hardware. Previously, LLVM only supported ARMv4T and
715 newer chips.</li>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000716</ul>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000717
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000718
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000719</div>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000720
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000721<!--=========================================================================-->
722<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000723<a name="newapis">New Useful APIs</a>
724</div>
725
726<div class="doc_text">
727
728<p>This release includes a number of new APIs that are used internally, which
729 may also be useful for external clients.
730</p>
731
732<ul>
Chris Lattnerabfaf732010-04-22 05:41:35 +0000733<li>The optimizer uses the new CodeMetrics class to measure the size of code.
734 Various passes that use thing (like the inliner, loop unswitcher, etc) all
735 use this to make more accurate estimates of the code size impact of various
736 optimizations.</li>
737<li>A new <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/InstructionSimplify_8h-source.html">
738 llvm/Analysis/InstructionSimplify.h</a> interface available for doing
739 symbolic simplification of instructions (e.g. <tt>a+0</tt> -&gt; <tt>a</tt>)
740 without requiring the instruction to exist. This centralizes a lot of
741 ad-hoc symbolic manipulation code scattered in various passes.</li>
742<li>The optimizer now uses a new <a
743 href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/SSAUpdater_8h-source.html">SSAUpdater</a>
744 class which efficiently supports
745 doing unstructured SSA update operations. This centralized a bunch of code
746 scattered through various passes (e.g. jump threading, lcssa, loop rotate,
747 etc) for doing this sort of thing. The code generator has an similar
748 <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/MachineSSAUpdater_8h-source.html">
749 MachineSSAUpdater</a> class.</li>
750<li>The <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/Regex_8h-source.html">
751 llvm/Support/Regex.h</a> header exposes a platform independent regular
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000752 expression API. Building on this, the <a
753 href="TestingGuide.html#FileCheck">FileCheck</a> utility now supports
754 regular exressions.</li>
755<li>raw_ostream now supports a circular "debug stream" accessed with "dbgs()".
756 By default, this stream works the same way as "errs()", but if you pass
757 <tt>-debug-buffer-size=1000</tt> to opt, the debug stream is capped to a
758 fixed sized circular buffer and the output is printed at the end of the
759 program's execution. This is helpful if you have a long lived compiler
760 process and you're interested in seeing snapshots in time.</li>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000761</ul>
762
763
764</div>
765
766<!--=========================================================================-->
767<div class="doc_subsection">
768<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements and New Features</a>
769</div>
770
771<div class="doc_text">
772<p>Other miscellaneous features include:</p>
773
774<ul>
Chris Lattner8a57e892010-04-21 06:23:40 +0000775<li>You can now build LLVM as a big dynamic library (e.g. "libllvm2.7.so"). To
776 get this, configure LLVM with the --enable-shared option.</li>
777
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000778<li>LLVM command line tools now overwrite their output by default, before they
779 would only do this with -f. This makes them more convenient to use, and
780 behave more like standard unix tools.</li>
781
782<li>The opt and llc tools now autodetect whether their input is a .ll or .bc
783 file, and automatically do the right thing. This means you don't need to
784 explicitly use the llvm-as tool for most things.</li>
Chris Lattner7ccc40d2009-03-01 02:30:21 +0000785</ul>
786
787</div>
788
Chris Lattnere45f18b2008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000789
790<!--=========================================================================-->
791<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000792<a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a>
793</div>
794
795<div class="doc_text">
796
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000797<p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based
Jeffrey Yasskin8ee1b0a2010-01-28 01:14:43 +0000798on LLVM 2.6, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000799from the previous release.</p>
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000800
801<ul>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000802
803<li>
804The Andersen's alias analysis ("anders-aa") pass, the Predicate Simplifier
805("predsimplify") pass, the LoopVR pass, the GVNPRE pass, and the random sampling
806profiling ("rsprofiling") passes have all been removed. They were not being
807actively maintained and had substantial problems. If you are interested in
808these components, you are welcome to ressurect them from SVN, fix the
809correctness problems, and resubmit them to mainline.</li>
810
811<li>LLVM now defaults to building most libraries with RTTI turned off, providing
812a code size reduction. Packagers who are interested in building LLVM to support
813plugins that require RTTI information should build with "make REQUIRE_RTTI=1"
814and should read the new <a href="Packaging.html">Advice on Packaging LLVM</a>
815document.</li>
816
Jeffrey Yasskin260af332010-02-09 23:03:44 +0000817<li>The LLVM interpreter now defaults to <em>not</em> using <tt>libffi</tt> even
818if you have it installed. This makes it more likely that an LLVM built on one
819system will work when copied to a similar system. To use <tt>libffi</tt>,
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000820configure with <tt>--enable-libffi</tt>.</li>
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000821
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000822<li>Debug information uses a completely different representation, an LLVM 2.6
823.bc file should work with LLVM 2.7, but debug info won't come forward.</li>
824
825<li>The LLVM 2.6 (and earlier) "malloc" and "free" instructions got removed,
826 along with LowerAllocations pass. Now you should just use a call to the
827 malloc and free functions in libc. These calls are optimized as well as
828 the old instructions were.</li>
829</ul>
Chris Lattnercc64a322008-10-13 22:06:31 +0000830
831<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major LLVM
832API changes are:</p>
833
834<ul>
Chris Lattner6fd928d2010-04-21 05:17:40 +0000835<li>Just about everything has been converted to use raw_ostream instead of
836 std::ostream.</li>
837<li>llvm/ADT/iterator.h has been removed, just use &lt;iterator&gt;
838 instead.</li>
839<li>The Streams.h file and "DOUT" got removed, use "DEBUG(errs() &lt;&lt; ...);"
840 instead.</li>
Jeffrey Yasskin2ca16212010-01-28 01:41:20 +0000841<li><tt>ModuleProvider</tt> has been <a
842href="http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?view=rev&revision=94686">removed</a>
843and its methods moved to <tt>Module</tt> and <tt>GlobalValue</tt>.
844Most clients can remove uses of <tt>ExistingModuleProvider</tt>,
845replace <tt>getBitcodeModuleProvider</tt> with
846<tt>getLazyBitcodeModule</tt>, and pass their <tt>Module</tt> to
847functions that used to accept <tt>ModuleProvider</tt>. Clients who
848wrote their own <tt>ModuleProvider</tt>s will need to derive from
849<tt>GVMaterializer</tt> instead and use
850<tt>Module::setMaterializer</tt> to attach it to a
851<tt>Module</tt>.</li>
852
853<li><tt>GhostLinkage</tt> has given up the ghost.
854<tt>GlobalValue</tt>s that have not yet been read from their backing
855storage have the same linkage they will have after being read in.
856Clients must replace calls to
857<tt>GlobalValue::hasNotBeenReadFromBitcode</tt> with
858<tt>GlobalValue::isMaterializable</tt>.</li>
Daniel Dunbar61f41422010-02-10 04:09:52 +0000859
Daniel Dunbar369889a2010-02-14 01:47:19 +0000860<li>The <tt>llvm/Support/DataTypes.h</tt> header has moved
861to <tt>llvm/System/DataTypes.h</tt>.</li>
862
Duncan Sandsdd29fc82010-02-17 17:20:17 +0000863<li>The <tt>isInteger</tt>, <tt>isIntOrIntVector</tt>, <tt>isFloatingPoint</tt>,
864<tt>isFPOrFPVector</tt> and <tt>isFPOrFPVector</tt> methods have been renamed
865<tt>isIntegerTy</tt>, <tt>isIntOrIntVectorTy</tt>, <tt>isFloatingPointTy</tt>,
866<tt>isFPOrFPVectorTy</tt> and <tt>isFPOrFPVectorTy</tt> respectively.</li>
Devang Patel0e3da1a2008-10-14 20:03:43 +0000867</ul>
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000868
Chris Lattner92eacf82008-10-13 17:57:36 +0000869</div>
870
871
872
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000873<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
874<div class="doc_section">
875 <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
876</div>
877<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
878
879<div class="doc_text">
880
881<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
882
883<ul>
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000884<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32, X86-64, AMD64, EMT-64) running Red Hat
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000885 Linux, Fedora Core, FreeBSD and AuroraUX (and probably other unix-like
886 systems).</li>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000887<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.4 and above in 32-bit
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000888 and 64-bit modes.</li>
Chris Lattnere0798082008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000889<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000890<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
891 support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
Chris Lattner9235ce52009-10-16 16:30:58 +0000892<li>Sun x86 and AMD64 machines running Solaris 10, OpenSolaris 0906.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000893<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000894</ul>
895
Chris Lattnerba948522008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000896<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses GNU autoconf to adapt itself
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000897to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
898porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
899portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
900
901</div>
902
903<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
904<div class="doc_section">
905 <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
906</div>
907<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
908
909<div class="doc_text">
910
Mikhail Glushenkovf61066a2009-03-01 18:09:47 +0000911<p>This section contains significant known problems with the LLVM system,
Chris Lattnerb1ad47c2008-11-10 05:40:34 +0000912listed by component. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000913href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
914there isn't already one.</p>
915
Chris Lattner1f8dc512010-03-17 17:25:49 +0000916<ul>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000917<li>LLVM will not correctly compile on Solaris and/or OpenSolaris
918using the stock GCC 3.x.x series 'out the box',
Chris Lattnerc09ffd22009-11-03 21:50:09 +0000919See: <a href="GettingStarted.html#brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC and other tools</a>.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +0000920However, A <a href="http://pkg.auroraux.org/GCC">Modern GCC Build</a>
921for x86/x86-64 has been made available from the third party AuroraUX Project
922that has been meticulously tested for bootstrapping LLVM &amp; Clang.</li>
923</ul>
924
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000925</div>
926
927<!-- ======================================================================= -->
928<div class="doc_subsection">
929 <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
930</div>
931
932<div class="doc_text">
933
934<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
935be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
936not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
937useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000938components, please contact us on the <a
939href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000940
941<ul>
Wesley Peckbe6dc822010-03-18 14:31:30 +0000942<li>The MSIL, Alpha, SPU, MIPS, PIC16, Blackfin, MSP430, SystemZ and MicroBlaze
943 backends are experimental.</li>
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000944<li><tt>llc</tt> "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only
Chris Lattner58b1d0f2010-03-17 04:41:49 +0000945 supported value for this option. The MachO writer is experimental, and
946 works much better in mainline SVN.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000947</ul>
948
949</div>
950
951<!-- ======================================================================= -->
952<div class="doc_subsection">
953 <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
954</div>
955
956<div class="doc_text">
957
958<ul>
Anton Korobeynikov77d15e22008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000959 <li>The X86 backend does not yet support
960 all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86
961 floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not
962 'u'.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000963 <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured
964 to generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
Duncan Sands8b4f3772008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000965 <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +0000966 expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build the mingw64
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000967 runtime currently due to lack of support for the 'u' inline assembly
968 constraint and for X87 floating point inline assembly.</li>
Dan Gohman3882ecb2008-06-08 23:05:11 +0000969 <li>The X86-64 backend does not yet support the LLVM IR instruction
Chris Lattner8f33c262010-04-22 06:28:20 +0000970 <tt>va_arg</tt>. Currently, front-ends support variadic
Dan Gohman3882ecb2008-06-08 23:05:11 +0000971 argument constructs on X86-64 by lowering them manually.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000972</ul>
973
974</div>
975
976<!-- ======================================================================= -->
977<div class="doc_subsection">
978 <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
979</div>
980
981<div class="doc_text">
982
983<ul>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +0000984<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
985compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
986</ul>
987
988</div>
989
990<!-- ======================================================================= -->
991<div class="doc_subsection">
992 <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
993</div>
994
995<div class="doc_text">
996
997<ul>
998<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
Duncan Sands1827fa62007-09-26 15:59:54 +0000999processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001000results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001001<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported but not fully tested.
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001002</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001003</ul>
1004
1005</div>
1006
1007<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1008<div class="doc_subsection">
1009 <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
1010</div>
1011
1012<div class="doc_text">
1013
1014<ul>
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001015<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32); it does not
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001016 support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
1017</ul>
1018
1019</div>
1020
1021<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1022<div class="doc_subsection">
Bruno Cardoso Lopes62d45d72008-10-25 14:56:26 +00001023 <a name="mips-be">Known problems with the MIPS back-end</a>
1024</div>
1025
1026<div class="doc_text">
1027
1028<ul>
Bruno Cardoso Lopes62d45d72008-10-25 14:56:26 +00001029<li>64-bit MIPS targets are not supported yet.</li>
1030</ul>
1031
1032</div>
1033
1034<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1035<div class="doc_subsection">
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001036 <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
1037</div>
1038
1039<div class="doc_text">
1040
1041<ul>
1042
1043<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
1044appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
1045
1046</ul>
1047</div>
1048
1049<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1050<div class="doc_subsection">
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001051 <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
1052</div>
1053
1054<div class="doc_text">
1055
1056<ul>
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +00001057<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend has only basic support for
1058 inline assembly code</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnere0194462007-09-26 06:01:35 +00001059<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
1060 C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
Gabor Greife33c5322009-03-02 12:02:51 +00001061 C++ code compiled with <tt>llc</tt> or native compilers.</li>
Duncan Sandsbd0ad6e2008-02-10 13:40:55 +00001062<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
Duncan Sandse6e264c2009-02-25 11:51:54 +00001063<li>The C backend does not support arbitrary precision integers.</li>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001064</ul>
1065
1066</div>
1067
1068
1069<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1070<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner58b1d0f2010-03-17 04:41:49 +00001071 <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C and C++ front-end</a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001072</div>
1073
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001074<div class="doc_text">
1075
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +00001076<p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is
1077 the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
1078 are only supported on some targets. For example, trampolines are only
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +00001079 supported on some targets (these are used when you take the address of a
1080 nested function).</p>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001081
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001082</div>
1083
1084<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1085<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6c8a1b82008-10-30 03:58:13 +00001086 <a name="fortran-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Fortran front-end</a>
1087</div>
1088
1089<div class="doc_text">
Gabor Greif1fc8fbc2008-11-04 21:50:59 +00001090<ul>
Chris Lattner6c8a1b82008-10-30 03:58:13 +00001091<li>Fortran support generally works, but there are still several unresolved bugs
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001092 in <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">Bugzilla</a>. Please see the
1093 tools/gfortran component for details.</li>
Gabor Greif1fc8fbc2008-11-04 21:50:59 +00001094</ul>
Chris Lattner6c8a1b82008-10-30 03:58:13 +00001095</div>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001096
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001097<!-- ======================================================================= -->
1098<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner499c07c2008-06-05 06:35:40 +00001099 <a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Ada front-end</a>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001100</div>
1101
1102<div class="doc_text">
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001103The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well; however, this is not a mature
1104technology, and problems should be expected.
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001105<ul>
Duncan Sandsa73561c2008-06-08 20:18:35 +00001106<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due
John Criswellaea8c752009-03-02 15:28:15 +00001107to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms.
1108However, it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001109which does support trampolines.</li>
1110<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
Duncan Sandsf73473e2009-02-25 11:59:06 +00001111This is due to lack of LLVM support for <tt>setjmp</tt>/<tt>longjmp</tt> style
1112exception handling, which is used internally by the compiler.
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001113Workaround: configure with <tt>--disable-bootstrap</tt>.</li>
Duncan Sands2dbc2e82008-10-13 17:27:23 +00001114<li>The c380004, <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
1115and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS tests fail
Duncan Sandsf73473e2009-02-25 11:59:06 +00001116(c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline).
1117If the compiler is built with checks disabled then <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
1118causes the compiler to go into an infinite loop, using up all system memory.</li>
Duncan Sandsc2a29a02009-03-02 16:35:57 +00001119<li>Some GCC specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler.</li>
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001120<li>The <tt>-E</tt> binder option (exception backtraces)
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001121<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
Chris Lattner0b6ea7a2009-10-13 17:48:04 +00001122crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use <tt>-E</tt>.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001123<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
1124or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
1125or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
1126starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
Chris Lattnerd95b5962008-06-08 21:19:07 +00001127<li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers
1128'main' as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
1129Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and
1130<tt>envp</tt> rather than integers.</li>
1131<li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is
1132ignored</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnerdaeb3232008-02-12 06:29:45 +00001133</ul>
1134</div>
1135
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001136<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1137<div class="doc_section">
1138 <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
1139</div>
1140<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1141
1142<div class="doc_text">
1143
1144<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
1145href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
1146href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
1147contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
1148Subversion version of the source code.
1149You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
1150into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
1151
1152<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
1153us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
1154lists</a>.</p>
1155
1156</div>
1157
1158<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1159
1160<hr>
1161<address>
1162 <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"><img
Misha Brukman947321d2008-12-11 17:34:48 +00001163 src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss-blue" alt="Valid CSS"></a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001164 <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
Misha Brukman947321d2008-12-11 17:34:48 +00001165 src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401-blue" alt="Valid HTML 4.01"></a>
Dan Gohmanf17a25c2007-07-18 16:29:46 +00001166
1167 <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
1168 Last modified: $Date$
1169</address>
1170
1171</body>
1172</html>