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| <title>LLVM 2.6 Release Notes</title> |
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| <body> |
| |
| <div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.6 Release Notes</div> |
| |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 2.6</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.6?</a></li> |
| <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <div class="doc_author"> |
| <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a></p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="intro">Introduction</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler |
| Infrastructure, release 2.6. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including |
| major improvements from the previous release and significant known problems. |
| All LLVM releases may be downloaded from the <a |
| href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM releases web site</a>.</p> |
| |
| <p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest |
| release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM |
| web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a |
| href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM Developer's Mailing |
| List</a> is a good place to send them.</p> |
| |
| <p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the |
| main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the |
| current one. To see the release notes for a specific release, please see the |
| <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!-- |
| Almost dead code. |
| include/llvm/Analysis/LiveValues.h => Dan |
| lib/Transforms/IPO/MergeFunctions.cpp => consider for 2.8. |
| llvm/Analysis/PointerTracking.h => Edwin wants this, consider for 2.8. |
| --> |
| |
| |
| <!-- Unfinished features in 2.6: |
| gcc plugin. |
| strong phi elim |
| variable debug info for optimized code |
| postalloc scheduler: anti dependence breaking, hazard recognizer? |
| metadata |
| loop dependence analysis |
| ELF Writer? How stable? |
| <li>PostRA scheduler improvements, ARM adoption (David Goodwin).</li> |
| 2.7 supports the GDB 7.0 jit interfaces for debug info. |
| 2.7 eliminates ADT/iterator.h |
| --> |
| |
| <!-- for announcement email: |
| Logo web page. |
| llvm devmtg |
| compiler_rt |
| KLEE web page at klee.llvm.org |
| Many new papers added to /pubs/ |
| Mention gcc plugin. |
| |
| --> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| The LLVM 2.6 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM |
| repository (which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators |
| and supporting tools), the Clang repository and the llvm-gcc repository. In |
| addition to this code, the LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in |
| development. Here we include updates on these subprojects. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="clang">Clang: C/C++/Objective-C Frontend Toolkit</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang project</a> is an effort to build |
| a set of new 'LLVM native' front-end technologies for the C family of languages. |
| LLVM 2.6 is the first release to officially include Clang, and it provides a |
| production quality C and Objective-C compiler. If you are interested in <a |
| href="http://clang.llvm.org/performance.html">fast compiles</a> and |
| <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/diagnostics.html">good diagnostics</a>, we |
| encourage you to try it out. Clang currently compiles typical Objective-C code |
| 3x faster than GCC and compiles C code about 30% faster than GCC at -O0 -g |
| (which is when the most pressure is on the frontend).</p> |
| |
| <p>In addition to supporting these languages, C++ support is also <a |
| href="http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html">well under way</a>, and mainline |
| Clang is able to parse the libstdc++ 4.2 headers and even codegen simple apps. |
| If you are interested in Clang C++ support or any other Clang feature, we |
| strongly encourage you to get involved on the <a |
| href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/cfe-dev">Clang front-end mailing |
| list</a>.</p> |
| |
| <p>In the LLVM 2.6 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>C and Objective-C support are now considered production quality.</li> |
| <li>AuroraUX, FreeBSD and OpenBSD are now supported.</li> |
| <li>Most of Objective-C 2.0 is now supported with the GNU runtime.</li> |
| <li>Many many bugs are fixed and lots of features have been added.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="clangsa">Clang Static Analyzer</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>Previously announced in the 2.4 and 2.5 LLVM releases, the Clang project also |
| includes an early stage static source code analysis tool for <a |
| href="http://clang.llvm.org/StaticAnalysis.html">automatically finding bugs</a> |
| in C and Objective-C programs. The tool performs checks to find |
| bugs that occur on a specific path within a program.</p> |
| |
| <p>In the LLVM 2.6 time-frame, the analyzer core has undergone several important |
| improvements and cleanups and now includes a new <em>Checker</em> interface that |
| is intended to eventually serve as a basis for domain-specific checks. Further, |
| in addition to generating HTML files for reporting analysis results, the |
| analyzer can now also emit bug reports in a structured XML format that is |
| intended to be easily readable by other programs.</p> |
| |
| <p>The set of checks performed by the static analyzer continues to expand, and |
| future plans for the tool include full source-level inter-procedural analysis |
| and deeper checks such as buffer overrun detection. There are many opportunities |
| to extend and enhance the static analyzer, and anyone interested in working on |
| this project is encouraged to get involved!</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="vmkit">VMKit: JVM/CLI Virtual Machine Implementation</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">VMKit project</a> is an implementation of |
| a JVM and a CLI Virtual Machine (Microsoft .NET is an |
| implementation of the CLI) using LLVM for static and just-in-time |
| compilation.</p> |
| |
| <p> |
| VMKit version 0.26 builds with LLVM 2.6 and you can find it on its |
| <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/releases/">web page</a>. The release includes |
| bug fixes, cleanup and new features. The major changes are:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>A new llcj tool to generate shared libraries or executables of Java |
| files.</li> |
| <li>Cooperative garbage collection. </li> |
| <li>Fast subtype checking (paper from Click et al [JGI'02]). </li> |
| <li>Implementation of a two-word header for Java objects instead of the original |
| three-word header. </li> |
| <li>Better Java specification-compliance: division by zero checks, stack |
| overflow checks, finalization and references support. </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="compiler-rt">compiler-rt: Compiler Runtime Library</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| The new LLVM <a href="http://compiler-rt.llvm.org/">compiler-rt project</a> |
| is a simple library that provides an implementation of the low-level |
| target-specific hooks required by code generation and other runtime components. |
| For example, when compiling for a 32-bit target, converting a double to a 64-bit |
| unsigned integer is compiled into a runtime call to the "__fixunsdfdi" |
| function. The compiler-rt library provides highly optimized implementations of |
| this and other low-level routines (some are 3x faster than the equivalent |
| libgcc routines).</p> |
| |
| <p> |
| All of the code in the compiler-rt project is available under the standard LLVM |
| License, a "BSD-style" license.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="klee">KLEE: Symbolic Execution and Automatic Test Case Generator</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| The new LLVM <a href="http://klee.llvm.org/">KLEE project</a> is a symbolic |
| execution framework for programs in LLVM bitcode form. KLEE tries to |
| symbolically evaluate "all" paths through the application and records state |
| transitions that lead to fault states. This allows it to construct testcases |
| that lead to faults and can even be used to verify algorithms. For more |
| details, please see the <a |
| href="http://llvm.org/pubs/2008-12-OSDI-KLEE.html">OSDI 2008 paper</a> about |
| KLEE.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: GCC-4.5 as an LLVM frontend</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| The goal of <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is to make |
| gcc-4.5 act like llvm-gcc without requiring any gcc modifications whatsoever. |
| <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is a shared library (llvm.so) |
| that is loaded by gcc at runtime. It uses the new gcc plugin architecture to |
| disable the GCC optimizers and code generators, and schedule the LLVM optimizers |
| and code generators (or direct output of LLVM IR) instead. Currently only Linux |
| and Darwin are supported, and only on x86-32 and x86-64. It should be easy to |
| add additional unix-like architectures and other processor families. In theory |
| it should be possible to use <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> |
| with any language supported by gcc, however only C and Fortran work well for the |
| moment. Ada and C++ work to some extent, while Java, Obj-C and Obj-C++ are so |
| far entirely untested. Since gcc-4.5 has not yet been released, neither has |
| <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a>. To build |
| <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> you will need to check out the |
| development versions of <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/svn.html/"> gcc</a>, |
| <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/GettingStarted.html#checkout">llvm</a> and |
| <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> from their respective |
| subversion repositories, and follow the instructions in the |
| <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> README. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="mc">llvm-mc: Machine Code Toolkit</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| The LLVM Machine Code (MC) Toolkit project is a (very early) effort to build |
| better tools for dealing with machine code, object file formats, etc. The idea |
| is to be able to generate most of the target specific details of assemblers and |
| disassemblers from existing LLVM target .td files (with suitable enhancements), |
| and to build infrastructure for reading and writing common object file formats. |
| One of the first deliverables is to build a full assembler and integrate it into |
| the compiler, which is predicted to substantially reduce compile time in some |
| scenarios. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>In the LLVM 2.6 timeframe, the MC framework has grown to the point where it |
| can reliably parse and pretty print (with some encoding information) a |
| darwin/x86 .s file successfully, and has the very early phases of a Mach-O |
| assembler in progress. Beyond the MC framework itself, major refactoring of the |
| LLVM code generator has started. The idea is to make the code generator reason |
| about the code it is producing in a much more semantic way, rather than a |
| textual way. For example, the code generator now uses MCSection objects to |
| represent section assignments, instead of text strings that print to .section |
| directives.</p> |
| |
| <p>MC is an early and ongoing project that will hopefully continue to lead to |
| many improvements in the code generator and build infrastructure useful for many |
| other situations. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 2.6</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>An exciting aspect of LLVM is that it is used as an enabling technology for |
| a lot of other language and tools projects. This section lists some of the |
| projects that have already been updated to work with LLVM 2.6.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="Rubinius">Rubinius</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p><a href="http://github.com/evanphx/rubinius">Rubinius</a> is an environment |
| for running Ruby code which strives to write as much of the core class |
| implementation in Ruby as possible. Combined with a bytecode interpreting VM, it |
| uses LLVM to optimize and compile ruby code down to machine code. Techniques |
| such as type feedback, method inlining, and uncommon traps are all used to |
| remove dynamism from ruby execution and increase performance.</p> |
| |
| <p>Since LLVM 2.5, Rubinius has made several major leaps forward, implementing |
| a counter based JIT, type feedback and speculative method inlining. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="macruby">MacRuby</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://macruby.org">MacRuby</a> is an implementation of Ruby on top of |
| core Mac OS X technologies, such as the Objective-C common runtime and garbage |
| collector and the CoreFoundation framework. It is principally developed by |
| Apple and aims at enabling the creation of full-fledged Mac OS X applications. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p> |
| MacRuby uses LLVM for optimization passes, JIT and AOT compilation of Ruby |
| expressions. It also uses zero-cost DWARF exceptions to implement Ruby exception |
| handling.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="pure">Pure</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://pure-lang.googlecode.com/">Pure</a> |
| is an algebraic/functional programming language based on term rewriting. |
| Programs are collections of equations which are used to evaluate expressions in |
| a symbolic fashion. Pure offers dynamic typing, eager and lazy evaluation, |
| lexical closures, a hygienic macro system (also based on term rewriting), |
| built-in list and matrix support (including list and matrix comprehensions) and |
| an easy-to-use C interface. The interpreter uses LLVM as a backend to |
| JIT-compile Pure programs to fast native code.</p> |
| |
| <p>Pure versions 0.31 and later have been tested and are known to work with |
| LLVM 2.6 (and continue to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.3 as well). |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="ldc">LLVM D Compiler</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc">LDC</a> is an implementation of |
| the D Programming Language using the LLVM optimizer and code generator. |
| The LDC project works great with the LLVM 2.6 release. General improvements in |
| this |
| cycle have included new inline asm constraint handling, better debug info |
| support, general bug fixes and better x86-64 support. This has allowed |
| some major improvements in LDC, getting it much closer to being as |
| fully featured as the original DMD compiler from DigitalMars. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="RoadsendPHP">Roadsend PHP</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://code.roadsend.com/rphp">Roadsend PHP</a> (rphp) is an open |
| source implementation of the PHP programming |
| language that uses LLVM for its optimizer, JIT and static compiler. This is a |
| reimplementation of an earlier project that is now based on LLVM.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="UnladenSwallow">Unladen Swallow</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://code.google.com/p/unladen-swallow/">Unladen Swallow</a> is a |
| branch of <a href="http://python.org/">Python</a> intended to be fully |
| compatible and significantly faster. It uses LLVM's optimization passes and JIT |
| compiler.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="llvm-lua">llvm-lua</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://code.google.com/p/llvm-lua/">LLVM-Lua</a> uses LLVM to add JIT |
| and static compiling support to the Lua VM. Lua bytecode is analyzed to |
| remove type checks, then LLVM is used to compile the bytecode down to machine |
| code.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="icedtea">IcedTea Java Virtual Machine Implementation</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page">IcedTea</a> provides a |
| harness to build OpenJDK using only free software build tools and to provide |
| replacements for the not-yet free parts of OpenJDK. One of the extensions that |
| IcedTea provides is a new JIT compiler named <a |
| href="http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/ZeroSharkFaq">Shark</a> which uses LLVM |
| to provide native code generation without introducing processor-dependent |
| code. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.6?</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>This release includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and |
| minor improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are listed |
| in this section. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>LLVM 2.6 includes several major new capabilities:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>New <a href="#compiler-rt">compiler-rt</a>, <A href="#klee">KLEE</a> |
| and <a href="#mc">machine code toolkit</a> sub-projects.</li> |
| <li>Debug information now includes line numbers when optimizations are enabled. |
| This allows statistical sampling tools like OProfile and Shark to map |
| samples back to source lines.</li> |
| <li>LLVM now includes new experimental backends to support the MSP430, SystemZ |
| and BlackFin architectures.</li> |
| <li>LLVM supports a new <a href="GoldPlugin.html">Gold Linker Plugin</a> which |
| enables support for <a href="LinkTimeOptimization.html">transparent |
| link-time optimization</a> on ELF targets when used with the Gold binutils |
| linker.</li> |
| <li>LLVM now supports doing optimization and code generation on multiple |
| threads. Please see the <a href="ProgrammersManual.html#threading">LLVM |
| Programmer's Manual</a> for more information.</li> |
| <li>LLVM now has experimental support for <a |
| href="http://nondot.org/~sabre/LLVMNotes/EmbeddedMetadata.txt">embedded |
| metadata</a> in LLVM IR, though the implementation is not guaranteed to be |
| final and the .bc file format may change in future releases. Debug info |
| does not yet use this format in LLVM 2.6.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="coreimprovements">LLVM IR and Core Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p>LLVM IR has several new features for better support of new targets and that |
| expose new optimization opportunities:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The <a href="LangRef.html#i_add">add</a>, <a |
| href="LangRef.html#i_sub">sub</a> and <a href="LangRef.html#i_mul">mul</a> |
| instructions have been split into integer and floating point versions (like |
| divide and remainder), introducing new <a |
| href="LangRef.html#i_fadd">fadd</a>, <a href="LangRef.html#i_fsub">fsub</a>, |
| and <a href="LangRef.html#i_fmul">fmul</a> instructions.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="LangRef.html#i_add">add</a>, <a |
| href="LangRef.html#i_sub">sub</a> and <a href="LangRef.html#i_mul">mul</a> |
| instructions now support optional "nsw" and "nuw" bits which indicate that |
| the operation is guaranteed to not overflow (in the signed or |
| unsigned case, respectively). This gives the optimizer more information and |
| can be used for things like C signed integer values, which are undefined on |
| overflow.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="LangRef.html#i_sdiv">sdiv</a> instruction now supports an |
| optional "exact" flag which indicates that the result of the division is |
| guaranteed to have a remainder of zero. This is useful for optimizing pointer |
| subtraction in C.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="LangRef.html#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a> instruction now |
| supports arbitrary integer index values for array/pointer indices. This |
| allows for better code generation on 16-bit pointer targets like PIC16.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="LangRef.html#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a> instruction now |
| supports an "inbounds" optimization hint that tells the optimizer that the |
| pointer is guaranteed to be within its allocated object.</li> |
| <li>LLVM now support a series of new linkage types for global values which allow |
| for better optimization and new capabilities: |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="LangRef.html#linkage_linkonce">linkonce_odr</a> and |
| <a href="LangRef.html#linkage_weak">weak_odr</a> have the same linkage |
| semantics as the non-"odr" linkage types. The difference is that these |
| linkage types indicate that all definitions of the specified function |
| are guaranteed to have the same semantics. This allows inlining |
| templates functions in C++ but not inlining weak functions in C, |
| which previously both got the same linkage type.</li> |
| <li><a href="LangRef.html#linkage_available_externally">available_externally |
| </a> is a new linkage type that gives the optimizer visibility into the |
| definition of a function (allowing inlining and side effect analysis) |
| but that does not cause code to be generated. This allows better |
| optimization of "GNU inline" functions, extern templates, etc.</li> |
| <li><a href="LangRef.html#linkage_linker_private">linker_private</a> is a |
| new linkage type (which is only useful on Mac OS X) that is used for |
| some metadata generation and other obscure things.</li> |
| </ul></li> |
| <li>Finally, target-specific intrinsics can now return multiple values, which |
| is useful for modeling target operations with multiple results.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>In addition to a large array of minor performance tweaks and bug fixes, this |
| release includes a few major enhancements and additions to the optimizers:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>The <a href="Passes.html#scalarrepl">Scalar Replacement of Aggregates</a> |
| pass has many improvements that allow it to better promote vector unions, |
| variables which are memset, and much more strange code that can happen to |
| do bitfield accesses to register operations. An interesting change is that |
| it now produces "unusual" integer sizes (like i1704) in some cases and lets |
| other optimizers clean things up.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="Passes.html#loop-reduce">Loop Strength Reduction</a> pass now |
| promotes small integer induction variables to 64-bit on 64-bit targets, |
| which provides a major performance boost for much numerical code. It also |
| promotes shorts to int on 32-bit hosts, etc. LSR now also analyzes pointer |
| expressions (e.g. getelementptrs), as well as integers.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="Passes.html#gvn">GVN</a> pass now eliminates partial |
| redundancies of loads in simple cases.</li> |
| <li>The <a href="Passes.html#inline">Inliner</a> now reuses stack space when |
| inlining similar arrays from multiple callees into one caller.</li> |
| <li>LLVM includes a new experimental Static Single Information (SSI) |
| construction pass.</li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="executionengine">Interpreter and JIT Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>LLVM has a new "EngineBuilder" class which makes it more obvious how to |
| set up and configure an ExecutionEngine (a JIT or interpreter).</li> |
| <li>The JIT now supports generating more than 16M of code.</li> |
| <li>When configured with <tt>--with-oprofile</tt>, the JIT can now inform |
| OProfile about JIT'd code, allowing OProfile to get line number and function |
| name information for JIT'd functions.</li> |
| <li>When "libffi" is available, the LLVM interpreter now uses it, which supports |
| calling almost arbitrary external (natively compiled) functions.</li> |
| <li>Clients of the JIT can now register a 'JITEventListener' object to receive |
| callbacks when the JIT emits or frees machine code. The OProfile support |
| uses this mechanism.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="codegen">Target Independent Code Generator Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>We have put a significant amount of work into the code generator |
| infrastructure, which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make |
| it run faster:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>The <tt>llc -asm-verbose</tt> option (exposed from llvm-gcc as <tt>-dA</tt> |
| and clang as <tt>-fverbose-asm</tt> or <tt>-dA</tt>) now adds a lot of |
| useful information in comments to |
| the generated .s file. This information includes location information (if |
| built with <tt>-g</tt>) and loop nest information.</li> |
| <li>The code generator now supports a new MachineVerifier pass which is useful |
| for finding bugs in targets and codegen passes.</li> |
| <li>The Machine LICM is now enabled by default. It hoists instructions out of |
| loops (such as constant pool loads, loads from read-only stubs, vector |
| constant synthesization code, etc.) and is currently configured to only do |
| so when the hoisted operation can be rematerialized.</li> |
| <li>The Machine Sinking pass is now enabled by default. This pass moves |
| side-effect free operations down the CFG so that they are executed on fewer |
| paths through a function.</li> |
| <li>The code generator now performs "stack slot coloring" of register spills, |
| which allows spill slots to be reused. This leads to smaller stack frames |
| in cases where there are lots of register spills.</li> |
| <li>The register allocator has many improvements to take better advantage of |
| commutable operations, various spiller peephole optimizations, and can now |
| coalesce cross-register-class copies.</li> |
| <li>Tblgen now supports multiclass inheritance and a number of new string and |
| list operations like <tt>!(subst)</tt>, <tt>!(foreach)</tt>, <tt>!car</tt>, |
| <tt>!cdr</tt>, <tt>!null</tt>, <tt>!if</tt>, <tt>!cast</tt>. |
| These make the .td files more expressive and allow more aggressive factoring |
| of duplication across instruction patterns.</li> |
| <li>Target-specific intrinsics can now be added without having to hack VMCore to |
| add them. This makes it easier to maintain out-of-tree targets.</li> |
| <li>The instruction selector is better at propagating information about values |
| (such as whether they are sign/zero extended etc.) across basic block |
| boundaries.</li> |
| <li>The SelectionDAG datastructure has new nodes for representing buildvector |
| and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2957">vector shuffle</a> operations. This |
| makes operations and pattern matching more efficient and easier to get |
| right.</li> |
| <li>The Prolog/Epilog Insertion Pass now has experimental support for performing |
| the "shrink wrapping" optimization, which moves spills and reloads around in |
| the CFG to avoid doing saves on paths that don't need them.</li> |
| <li>LLVM includes new experimental support for writing ELF .o files directly |
| from the compiler. It works well for many simple C testcases, but doesn't |
| support exception handling, debug info, inline assembly, etc.</li> |
| <li>Targets can now specify register allocation hints through |
| <tt>MachineRegisterInfo::setRegAllocationHint</tt>. A regalloc hint consists |
| of hint type and physical register number. A hint type of zero specifies a |
| register allocation preference. Other hint type values are target specific |
| which are resolved by <tt>TargetRegisterInfo::ResolveRegAllocHint</tt>. An |
| example is the ARM target which uses register hints to request that the |
| register allocator provide an even / odd register pair to two virtual |
| registers.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="x86">X86-32 and X86-64 Target Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p>New features of the X86 target include: |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>SSE 4.2 builtins are now supported.</li> |
| <li>GCC-compatible soft float modes are now supported, which are typically used |
| by OS kernels.</li> |
| <li>X86-64 now models implicit zero extensions better, which allows the code |
| generator to remove a lot of redundant zexts. It also models the 8-bit "H" |
| registers as subregs, which allows them to be used in some tricky |
| situations.</li> |
| <li>X86-64 now supports the "local exec" and "initial exec" thread local storage |
| model.</li> |
| <li>The vector forms of the <a href="LangRef.html#i_icmp">icmp</a> and <a |
| href="LangRef.html#i_fcmp">fcmp</a> instructions now select to efficient |
| SSE operations.</li> |
| <li>Support for the win64 calling conventions have improved. The primary |
| missing feature is support for varargs function definitions. It seems to |
| work well for many win64 JIT purposes.</li> |
| <li>The X86 backend has preliminary support for <a |
| href="CodeGenerator.html#x86_memory">mapping address spaces to segment |
| register references</a>. This allows you to write GS or FS relative memory |
| accesses directly in LLVM IR for cases where you know exactly what you're |
| doing (such as in an OS kernel). There are some known problems with this |
| support, but it works in simple cases.</li> |
| <li>The X86 code generator has been refactored to move all global variable |
| reference logic to one place |
| (<tt>X86Subtarget::ClassifyGlobalReference</tt>) which |
| makes it easier to reason about.</li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="pic16">PIC16 Target Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p>New features of the PIC16 target include: |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Support for floating-point, indirect function calls, and |
| passing/returning aggregate types to functions. |
| <li>The code generator is able to generate debug info into output COFF files. |
| <li>Support for placing an object into a specific section or at a specific |
| address in memory.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>Things not yet supported:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Variable arguments.</li> |
| <li>Interrupts/programs.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="ARM">ARM Target Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p>New features of the ARM target include: |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>Preliminary support for processors, such as the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9, |
| that implement version v7-A of the ARM architecture. The ARM backend now |
| supports both the Thumb2 and Advanced SIMD (Neon) instruction sets.</li> |
| |
| <li>The AAPCS-VFP "hard float" calling conventions are also supported with the |
| <tt>-float-abi=hard</tt> flag.</li> |
| |
| <li>The ARM calling convention code is now tblgen generated instead of resorting |
| to C++ code.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>These features are still somewhat experimental |
| and subject to change. The Neon intrinsics, in particular, may change in future |
| releases of LLVM. ARMv7 support has progressed a lot on top of tree since 2.6 |
| branched.</p> |
| |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="OtherTarget">Other Target Specific Improvements</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p>New features of other targets include: |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Mips now supports O32 Calling Convention.</li> |
| <li>Many improvements to the 32-bit PowerPC SVR4 ABI (used on powerpc-linux) |
| support, lots of bugs fixed.</li> |
| <li>Added support for the 64-bit PowerPC SVR4 ABI (used on powerpc64-linux). |
| Needs more testing.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="newapis">New Useful APIs</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>This release includes a number of new APIs that are used internally, which |
| may also be useful for external clients. |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>New <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/PrettyStackTrace_8h-source.html"> |
| <tt>PrettyStackTrace</tt> class</a> allows crashes of llvm tools (and applications |
| that integrate them) to provide more detailed indication of what the |
| compiler was doing at the time of the crash (e.g. running a pass). |
| At the top level for each LLVM tool, it includes the command line arguments. |
| </li> |
| <li>New <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/StringRef_8h-source.html">StringRef</a> |
| and <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/Twine_8h-source.html">Twine</a> classes |
| make operations on character ranges and |
| string concatenation to be more efficient. <tt>StringRef</tt> is just a <tt>const |
| char*</tt> with a length, <tt>Twine</tt> is a light-weight rope.</li> |
| <li>LLVM has new <tt>WeakVH</tt>, <tt>AssertingVH</tt> and <tt>CallbackVH</tt> |
| classes, which make it easier to write LLVM IR transformations. <tt>WeakVH</tt> |
| is automatically drops to null when the referenced <tt>Value</tt> is deleted, |
| and is updated across a <tt>replaceAllUsesWith</tt> operation. |
| <tt>AssertingVH</tt> aborts the program if the |
| referenced value is destroyed while it is being referenced. <tt>CallbackVH</tt> |
| is a customizable class for handling value references. See <a |
| href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/ValueHandle_8h-source.html">ValueHandle.h</a> |
| for more information.</li> |
| <li>The new '<a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/Triple_8h-source.html">Triple |
| </a>' class centralizes a lot of logic that reasons about target |
| triples.</li> |
| <li>The new '<a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/ErrorHandling_8h-source.html"> |
| llvm_report_error()</a>' set of APIs allows tools to embed the LLVM |
| optimizer and backend and recover from previously unrecoverable errors.</li> |
| <li>LLVM has new abstractions for <a |
| href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/Atomic_8h-source.html">atomic operations</a> |
| and <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/RWMutex_8h-source.html">reader/writer |
| locks</a>.</li> |
| <li>LLVM has new <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/SourceMgr_8h-source.html"> |
| <tt>SourceMgr</tt> and <tt>SMLoc</tt> classes</a> which implement caret |
| diagnostics and basic include stack processing for simple parsers. It is |
| used by tablegen, llvm-mc, the .ll parser and FileCheck.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements and New Features</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <p>Other miscellaneous features include:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>LLVM now includes a new internal '<a |
| href="http://llvm.org/cmds/FileCheck.html">FileCheck</a>' tool which allows |
| writing much more accurate regression tests that run faster. Please see the |
| <a href="TestingGuide.html#FileCheck">FileCheck section of the Testing |
| Guide</a> for more information.</li> |
| <li>LLVM profile information support has been significantly improved to produce |
| correct use counts, and has support for edge profiling with reduced runtime |
| overhead. Combined, the generated profile information is both more correct and |
| imposes about half as much overhead (2.6. from 12% to 6% overhead on SPEC |
| CPU2000).</li> |
| <li>The C bindings (in the llvm/include/llvm-c directory) include many newly |
| supported APIs.</li> |
| <li>LLVM 2.6 includes a brand new experimental LLVM bindings to the Ada2005 |
| programming language.</li> |
| |
| <li>The LLVMC driver has several new features: |
| <ul> |
| <li>Dynamic plugins now work on Windows.</li> |
| <li>New option property: init. Makes possible to provide default values for |
| options defined in plugins (interface to <tt>cl::init</tt>).</li> |
| <li>New example: Skeleton, shows how to create a standalone LLVMC-based |
| driver.</li> |
| <li>New example: mcc16, a driver for the PIC16 toolchain.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!--=========================================================================--> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based |
| on LLVM 2.5, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading |
| from the previous release.</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The Itanium (IA64) backend has been removed. It was not actively supported |
| and had bitrotted.</li> |
| <li>The BigBlock register allocator has been removed, it had also bitrotted.</li> |
| <li>The C Backend (<tt>-march=c</tt>) is no longer considered part of the LLVM release |
| criteria. We still want it to work, but no one is maintaining it and it lacks |
| support for arbitrary precision integers and other important IR features.</li> |
| |
| <li>All LLVM tools now default to overwriting their output file, behaving more |
| like standard unix tools. Previously, this only happened with the '<tt>-f</tt>' |
| option.</li> |
| <li>LLVM build now builds all libraries as .a files instead of some |
| libraries as relinked .o files. This requires some APIs like |
| InitializeAllTargets.h. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major LLVM |
| API changes are:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>All uses of <tt>hash_set</tt> and <tt>hash_map</tt> have been removed from |
| the LLVM tree and the wrapper headers have been removed.</li> |
| <li>The llvm/Streams.h and <tt>DOUT</tt> member of Debug.h have been removed. The |
| <tt>llvm::Ostream</tt> class has been completely removed and replaced with |
| uses of <tt>raw_ostream</tt>.</li> |
| <li>LLVM's global uniquing tables for <tt>Type</tt>s and <tt>Constant</tt>s have |
| been privatized into members of an <tt>LLVMContext</tt>. A number of APIs |
| now take an <tt>LLVMContext</tt> as a parameter. To smooth the transition |
| for clients that will only ever use a single context, the new |
| <tt>getGlobalContext()</tt> API can be used to access a default global |
| context which can be passed in any and all cases where a context is |
| required. |
| <li>The <tt>getABITypeSize</tt> methods are now called <tt>getAllocSize</tt>.</li> |
| <li>The <tt>Add</tt>, <tt>Sub</tt> and <tt>Mul</tt> operators are no longer |
| overloaded for floating-point types. Floating-point addition, subtraction |
| and multiplication are now represented with new operators <tt>FAdd</tt>, |
| <tt>FSub</tt> and <tt>FMul</tt>. In the <tt>IRBuilder</tt> API, |
| <tt>CreateAdd</tt>, <tt>CreateSub</tt>, <tt>CreateMul</tt> and |
| <tt>CreateNeg</tt> should only be used for integer arithmetic now; |
| <tt>CreateFAdd</tt>, <tt>CreateFSub</tt>, <tt>CreateFMul</tt> and |
| <tt>CreateFNeg</tt> should now be used for floating-point arithmetic.</li> |
| <li>The <tt>DynamicLibrary</tt> class can no longer be constructed, its functionality has |
| moved to static member functions.</li> |
| <li><tt>raw_fd_ostream</tt>'s constructor for opening a given filename now |
| takes an extra <tt>Force</tt> argument. If <tt>Force</tt> is set to |
| <tt>false</tt>, an error will be reported if a file with the given name |
| already exists. If <tt>Force</tt> is set to <tt>true</tt>, the file will |
| be silently truncated (which is the behavior before this flag was |
| added).</li> |
| <li><tt>SCEVHandle</tt> no longer exists, because reference counting is no |
| longer done for <tt>SCEV*</tt> objects, instead <tt>const SCEV*</tt> |
| should be used.</li> |
| |
| <li>Many APIs, notably <tt>llvm::Value</tt>, now use the <tt>StringRef</tt> |
| and <tt>Twine</tt> classes instead of passing <tt>const char*</tt> |
| or <tt>std::string</tt>, as described in |
| the <a href="ProgrammersManual.html#string_apis">Programmer's Manual</a>. Most |
| clients should be unaffected by this transition, unless they are used to |
| <tt>Value::getName()</tt> returning a string. Here are some tips on updating to |
| 2.6: |
| <ul> |
| <li><tt>getNameStr()</tt> is still available, and matches the old |
| behavior. Replacing <tt>getName()</tt> calls with this is an safe option, |
| although more efficient alternatives are now possible.</li> |
| |
| <li>If you were just relying on <tt>getName()</tt> being able to be sent to |
| a <tt>std::ostream</tt>, consider migrating |
| to <tt>llvm::raw_ostream</tt>.</li> |
| |
| <li>If you were using <tt>getName().c_str()</tt> to get a <tt>const |
| char*</tt> pointer to the name, you can use <tt>getName().data()</tt>. |
| Note that this string (as before), may not be the entire name if the |
| name contains embedded null characters.</li> |
| |
| <li>If you were using <tt>operator +</tt> on the result of <tt>getName()</tt> and |
| treating the result as an <tt>std::string</tt>, you can either |
| use <tt>Twine::str</tt> to get the result as an <tt>std::string</tt>, or |
| could move to a <tt>Twine</tt> based design.</li> |
| |
| <li><tt>isName()</tt> should be replaced with comparison |
| against <tt>getName()</tt> (this is now efficient). |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| |
| <li>The registration interfaces for backend Targets has changed (what was |
| previously <tt>TargetMachineRegistry</tt>). For backend authors, see the <a |
| href="WritingAnLLVMBackend.html#TargetRegistration">Writing An LLVM Backend</a> |
| guide. For clients, the notable API changes are: |
| <ul> |
| <li><tt>TargetMachineRegistry</tt> has been renamed |
| to <tt>TargetRegistry</tt>.</li> |
| |
| <li>Clients should move to using the <tt>TargetRegistry::lookupTarget()</tt> |
| function to find targets.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32, X86-64, AMD64, EMT-64) running Red Hat |
| Linux, Fedora Core, FreeBSD and AuroraUX (and probably other unix-like |
| systems).</li> |
| <li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit |
| and 64-bit modes.</li> |
| <li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li> |
| <li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited |
| support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li> |
| <li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 10.</li> |
| <li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses GNU autoconf to adapt itself |
| to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor |
| porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your |
| portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>This section contains significant known problems with the LLVM system, |
| listed by component. If you run into a problem, please check the <a |
| href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if |
| there isn't already one.</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The llvm-gcc bootstrap will fail with some versions of binutils (e.g. 2.15) |
| with a message of "<tt><a href="http://llvm.org/PR5004">Error: can not do 8 |
| byte pc-relative relocation</a></tt>" when building C++ code. We intend to |
| fix this on mainline, but a workaround for 2.6 is to upgrade to binutils |
| 2.17 or later.</li> |
| |
| <li>LLVM will not correctly compile on Solaris and/or OpenSolaris |
| using the stock GCC 3.x.x series 'out the box', |
| See: <a href="#brokengcc">Broken versions of GCC and other tools</a>. |
| However, A <a href="http://pkg.auroraux.org/GCC">Modern GCC Build</a> |
| for x86/x86-64 has been made available from the third party AuroraUX Project |
| that has been meticulously tested for bootstrapping LLVM & Clang.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to |
| be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should |
| not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be |
| useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these |
| components, please contact us on the <a |
| href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The MSIL, Alpha, SPU, MIPS, PIC16, Blackfin, MSP430 and SystemZ backends are |
| experimental.</li> |
| <li>The <tt>llc</tt> "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only |
| supported value for this option. The ELF writer is experimental.</li> |
| <li>The implementation of Andersen's Alias Analysis has many known bugs.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The X86 backend does not yet support |
| all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86 |
| floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not |
| 'u'.</li> |
| <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured |
| to generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li> |
| <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we |
| expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build the mingw64 |
| runtime currently due |
| to <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2255">several</a> |
| <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2257">bugs</a> and due to lack of support for |
| the |
| 'u' inline assembly constraint and for X87 floating point inline assembly.</li> |
| <li>The X86-64 backend does not yet support the LLVM IR instruction |
| <tt>va_arg</tt>. Currently, the llvm-gcc and front-ends support variadic |
| argument constructs on X86-64 by lowering them manually.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static |
| compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Support for the Advanced SIMD (Neon) instruction set is still incomplete |
| and not well tested. Some features may not work at all, and the code quality |
| may be poor in some cases.</li> |
| <li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6 |
| processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong |
| results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li> |
| <li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported but not fully tested. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32); it does not |
| support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="mips-be">Known problems with the MIPS back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>64-bit MIPS targets are not supported yet.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the |
| appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend has only basic support for |
| inline assembly code</a>.</li> |
| <li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common |
| C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and |
| C++ code compiled with <tt>llc</tt> or native compilers.</li> |
| <li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li> |
| <li>The C backend does not support arbitrary precision integers.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C front-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is |
| the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions |
| are only supported on some targets. For example, trampolines are only |
| supported on some targets (these are used when you take the address of a |
| nested function).</p> |
| |
| <p>If you run into GCC extensions which are not supported, please let us know. |
| </p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C++ front-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully |
| tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM |
| itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>Exception handling works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets. Currently |
| only Linux and Darwin targets are supported (both 32 and 64 bit).</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="fortran-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Fortran front-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Fortran support generally works, but there are still several unresolved bugs |
| in <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">Bugzilla</a>. Please see the |
| tools/gfortran component for details.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Ada front-end</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well; however, this is not a mature |
| technology, and problems should be expected. |
| <ul> |
| <li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due |
| to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms. |
| However, it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a> |
| which does support trampolines.</li> |
| <li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>. |
| This is due to lack of LLVM support for <tt>setjmp</tt>/<tt>longjmp</tt> style |
| exception handling, which is used internally by the compiler. |
| Workaround: configure with <tt>--disable-bootstrap</tt>.</li> |
| <li>The c380004, <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> |
| and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS tests fail |
| (c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline). |
| If the compiler is built with checks disabled then <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> |
| causes the compiler to go into an infinite loop, using up all system memory.</li> |
| <li>Some GCC specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler.</li> |
| <li>The <tt>-E</tt> binder option (exception backtraces) |
| <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs |
| crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use <tt>-E</tt>.</li> |
| <li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start |
| or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records |
| or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type |
| starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li> |
| <li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers |
| 'main' as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>. |
| Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and |
| <tt>envp</tt> rather than integers.</li> |
| <li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is |
| ignored</a>.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================= --> |
| <div class="doc_subsection"> |
| <a name="ocaml-bindings">Known problems with the O'Caml bindings</a> |
| </div> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>Llvm.Linkage</tt> module is broken, and has incorrect values. Only |
| <tt>Llvm.Linkage.External</tt>, <tt>Llvm.Linkage.Available_externally</tt>, and |
| <tt>Llvm.Linkage.Link_once</tt> will be correct. If you need any of the other linkage |
| modes, you'll have to write an external C library in order to expose the |
| functionality. This has been fixed in the trunk.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| <div class="doc_section"> |
| <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a> |
| </div> |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
| |
| <div class="doc_text"> |
| |
| <p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a |
| href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a |
| href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also |
| contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the |
| Subversion version of the source code. |
| You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going |
| into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p> |
| |
| <p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact |
| us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing |
| lists</a>.</p> |
| |
| </div> |
| |
| <!-- *********************************************************************** --> |
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