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|  | <title>Extending LLVM: Adding instructions, intrinsics, types, etc.</title> | 
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|  |  | 
|  | <h1> | 
|  | Extending LLVM: Adding instructions, intrinsics, types, etc. | 
|  | </h1> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  | <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction and Warning</a></li> | 
|  | <li><a href="#intrinsic">Adding a new intrinsic function</a></li> | 
|  | <li><a href="#instruction">Adding a new instruction</a></li> | 
|  | <li><a href="#sdnode">Adding a new SelectionDAG node</a></li> | 
|  | <li><a href="#type">Adding a new type</a> | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  | <li><a href="#fund_type">Adding a new fundamental type</a></li> | 
|  | <li><a href="#derived_type">Adding a new derived type</a></li> | 
|  | </ol></li> | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="doc_author"> | 
|  | <p>Written by <a href="http://misha.brukman.net">Misha Brukman</a>, | 
|  | Brad Jones, Nate Begeman, | 
|  | and <a href="http://nondot.org/sabre">Chris Lattner</a></p> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | <h2> | 
|  | <a name="introduction">Introduction and Warning</a> | 
|  | </h2> | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>During the course of using LLVM, you may wish to customize it for your | 
|  | research project or for experimentation. At this point, you may realize that | 
|  | you need to add something to LLVM, whether it be a new fundamental type, a new | 
|  | intrinsic function, or a whole new instruction.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>When you come to this realization, stop and think. Do you really need to | 
|  | extend LLVM? Is it a new fundamental capability that LLVM does not support at | 
|  | its current incarnation or can it be synthesized from already pre-existing LLVM | 
|  | elements? If you are not sure, ask on the <a | 
|  | href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM-dev</a> list. The | 
|  | reason is that extending LLVM will get involved as you need to update all the | 
|  | different passes that you intend to use with your extension, and there are | 
|  | <em>many</em> LLVM analyses and transformations, so it may be quite a bit of | 
|  | work.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>Adding an <a href="#intrinsic">intrinsic function</a> is far easier than | 
|  | adding an instruction, and is transparent to optimization passes.  If your added | 
|  | functionality can be expressed as a | 
|  | function call, an intrinsic function is the method of choice for LLVM | 
|  | extension.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>Before you invest a significant amount of effort into a non-trivial | 
|  | extension, <span class="doc_warning">ask on the list</span> if what you are | 
|  | looking to do can be done with already-existing infrastructure, or if maybe | 
|  | someone else is already working on it. You will save yourself a lot of time and | 
|  | effort by doing so.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | <h2> | 
|  | <a name="intrinsic">Adding a new intrinsic function</a> | 
|  | </h2> | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>Adding a new intrinsic function to LLVM is much easier than adding a new | 
|  | instruction.  Almost all extensions to LLVM should start as an intrinsic | 
|  | function and then be turned into an instruction if warranted.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/docs/LangRef.html</tt>: | 
|  | Document the intrinsic.  Decide whether it is code generator specific and | 
|  | what the restrictions are.  Talk to other people about it so that you are | 
|  | sure it's a good idea.</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/Intrinsics*.td</tt>: | 
|  | Add an entry for your intrinsic.  Describe its memory access characteristics | 
|  | for optimization (this controls whether it will be DCE'd, CSE'd, etc). Note | 
|  | that any intrinsic using the <tt>llvm_int_ty</tt> type for an argument will | 
|  | be deemed by <tt>tblgen</tt> as overloaded and the corresponding suffix | 
|  | will be required on the intrinsic's name.</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/Analysis/ConstantFolding.cpp</tt>: If it is possible to | 
|  | constant fold your intrinsic, add support to it in the | 
|  | <tt>canConstantFoldCallTo</tt> and <tt>ConstantFoldCall</tt> functions.</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/test/Regression/*</tt>: Add test cases for your test cases to the | 
|  | test suite</li> | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>Once the intrinsic has been added to the system, you must add code generator | 
|  | support for it.  Generally you must do the following steps:</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <dl> | 
|  | <dt>Add support to the C backend in <tt>lib/Target/CBackend/</tt></dt> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <dd>Depending on the intrinsic, there are a few ways to implement this.  For | 
|  | most intrinsics, it makes sense to add code to lower your intrinsic in | 
|  | <tt>LowerIntrinsicCall</tt> in <tt>lib/CodeGen/IntrinsicLowering.cpp</tt>. | 
|  | Second, if it makes sense to lower the intrinsic to an expanded sequence of | 
|  | C code in all cases, just emit the expansion in <tt>visitCallInst</tt> in | 
|  | <tt>Writer.cpp</tt>.  If the intrinsic has some way to express it with GCC | 
|  | (or any other compiler) extensions, it can be conditionally supported based | 
|  | on the compiler compiling the CBE output (see <tt>llvm.prefetch</tt> for an | 
|  | example).  Third, if the intrinsic really has no way to be lowered, just | 
|  | have the code generator emit code that prints an error message and calls | 
|  | abort if executed.</dd> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <dt>Add support to the .td file for the target(s) of your choice in | 
|  | <tt>lib/Target/*/*.td</tt>.</dt> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <dd>This is usually a matter of adding a pattern to the .td file that matches | 
|  | the intrinsic, though it may obviously require adding the instructions you | 
|  | want to generate as well.  There are lots of examples in the PowerPC and X86 | 
|  | backend to follow.</dd> | 
|  | </dl> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | <h2> | 
|  | <a name="sdnode">Adding a new SelectionDAG node</a> | 
|  | </h2> | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>As with intrinsics, adding a new SelectionDAG node to LLVM is much easier | 
|  | than adding a new instruction.  New nodes are often added to help represent | 
|  | instructions common to many targets.  These nodes often map to an LLVM | 
|  | instruction (add, sub) or intrinsic (byteswap, population count).  In other | 
|  | cases, new nodes have been added to allow many targets to perform a common task | 
|  | (converting between floating point and integer representation) or capture more | 
|  | complicated behavior in a single node (rotate).</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  | <li><tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/ISDOpcodes.h</tt>: | 
|  | Add an enum value for the new SelectionDAG node.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/SelectionDAG.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | Add code to print the node to <tt>getOperationName</tt>.  If your new node | 
|  | can be evaluated at compile time when given constant arguments (such as an | 
|  | add of a constant with another constant), find the <tt>getNode</tt> method | 
|  | that takes the appropriate number of arguments, and add a case for your node | 
|  | to the switch statement that performs constant folding for nodes that take | 
|  | the same number of arguments as your new node.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/LegalizeDAG.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | Add code to <a href="CodeGenerator.html#selectiondag_legalize">legalize, | 
|  | promote, and expand</a> the node as necessary.  At a minimum, you will need | 
|  | to add a case statement for your node in <tt>LegalizeOp</tt> which calls | 
|  | LegalizeOp on the node's operands, and returns a new node if any of the | 
|  | operands changed as a result of being legalized.  It is likely that not all | 
|  | targets supported by the SelectionDAG framework will natively support the | 
|  | new node.  In this case, you must also add code in your node's case | 
|  | statement in <tt>LegalizeOp</tt> to Expand your node into simpler, legal | 
|  | operations.  The case for <tt>ISD::UREM</tt> for expanding a remainder into | 
|  | a divide, multiply, and a subtract is a good example.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/LegalizeDAG.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | If targets may support the new node being added only at certain sizes, you | 
|  | will also need to add code to your node's case statement in | 
|  | <tt>LegalizeOp</tt> to Promote your node's operands to a larger size, and | 
|  | perform the correct operation.  You will also need to add code to | 
|  | <tt>PromoteOp</tt> to do this as well.  For a good example, see | 
|  | <tt>ISD::BSWAP</tt>, | 
|  | which promotes its operand to a wider size, performs the byteswap, and then | 
|  | shifts the correct bytes right to emulate the narrower byteswap in the | 
|  | wider type.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/LegalizeDAG.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | Add a case for your node in <tt>ExpandOp</tt> to teach the legalizer how to | 
|  | perform the action represented by the new node on a value that has been | 
|  | split into high and low halves.  This case will be used to support your | 
|  | node with a 64 bit operand on a 32 bit target.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/DAGCombiner.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | If your node can be combined with itself, or other existing nodes in a | 
|  | peephole-like fashion, add a visit function for it, and call that function | 
|  | from <tt></tt>.  There are several good examples for simple combines you | 
|  | can do; <tt>visitFABS</tt> and <tt>visitSRL</tt> are good starting places. | 
|  | </li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/Target/PowerPC/PPCISelLowering.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | Each target has an implementation of the <tt>TargetLowering</tt> class, | 
|  | usually in its own file (although some targets include it in the same | 
|  | file as the DAGToDAGISel).  The default behavior for a target is to | 
|  | assume that your new node is legal for all types that are legal for | 
|  | that target.  If this target does not natively support your node, then | 
|  | tell the target to either Promote it (if it is supported at a larger | 
|  | type) or Expand it.  This will cause the code you wrote in | 
|  | <tt>LegalizeOp</tt> above to decompose your new node into other legal | 
|  | nodes for this target.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/Target/TargetSelectionDAG.td</tt>: | 
|  | Most current targets supported by LLVM generate code using the DAGToDAG | 
|  | method, where SelectionDAG nodes are pattern matched to target-specific | 
|  | nodes, which represent individual instructions.  In order for the targets | 
|  | to match an instruction to your new node, you must add a def for that node | 
|  | to the list in this file, with the appropriate type constraints. Look at | 
|  | <tt>add</tt>, <tt>bswap</tt>, and <tt>fadd</tt> for examples.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>lib/Target/PowerPC/PPCInstrInfo.td</tt>: | 
|  | Each target has a tablegen file that describes the target's instruction | 
|  | set.  For targets that use the DAGToDAG instruction selection framework, | 
|  | add a pattern for your new node that uses one or more target nodes. | 
|  | Documentation for this is a bit sparse right now, but there are several | 
|  | decent examples.  See the patterns for <tt>rotl</tt> in | 
|  | <tt>PPCInstrInfo.td</tt>.</li> | 
|  | <li>TODO: document complex patterns.</li> | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/test/Regression/CodeGen/*</tt>: Add test cases for your new node | 
|  | to the test suite.  <tt>llvm/test/Regression/CodeGen/X86/bswap.ll</tt> is | 
|  | a good example.</li> | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | <h2> | 
|  | <a name="instruction">Adding a new instruction</a> | 
|  | </h2> | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p><span class="doc_warning">WARNING: adding instructions changes the bitcode | 
|  | format, and it will take some effort to maintain compatibility with | 
|  | the previous version.</span> Only add an instruction if it is absolutely | 
|  | necessary.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/Instruction.def</tt>: | 
|  | add a number for your instruction and an enum name</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/Instructions.h</tt>: | 
|  | add a definition for the class that will represent your instruction</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/Support/InstVisitor.h</tt>: | 
|  | add a prototype for a visitor to your new instruction type</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/AsmParser/Lexer.l</tt>: | 
|  | add a new token to parse your instruction from assembly text file</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/AsmParser/llvmAsmParser.y</tt>: | 
|  | add the grammar on how your instruction can be read and what it will | 
|  | construct as a result</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/Bitcode/Reader/Reader.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | add a case for your instruction and how it will be parsed from bitcode</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/VMCore/Instruction.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | add a case for how your instruction will be printed out to assembly</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/VMCore/Instructions.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | implement the class you defined in | 
|  | <tt>llvm/include/llvm/Instructions.h</tt></li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li>Test your instruction</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/Target/*</tt>: | 
|  | Add support for your instruction to code generators, or add a lowering | 
|  | pass.</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/test/Regression/*</tt>: add your test cases to the test suite.</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>Also, you need to implement (or modify) any analyses or passes that you want | 
|  | to understand this new instruction.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  | <h2> | 
|  | <a name="type">Adding a new type</a> | 
|  | </h2> | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p><span class="doc_warning">WARNING: adding new types changes the bitcode | 
|  | format, and will break compatibility with currently-existing LLVM | 
|  | installations.</span> Only add new types if it is absolutely necessary.</p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | <h3> | 
|  | <a name="fund_type">Adding a fundamental type</a> | 
|  | </h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/Type.h</tt>: | 
|  | add enum for the new type; add static <tt>Type*</tt> for this type</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/VMCore/Type.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | add mapping from <tt>TypeID</tt> => <tt>Type*</tt>; | 
|  | initialize the static <tt>Type*</tt></li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/AsmReader/Lexer.l</tt>: | 
|  | add ability to parse in the type from text assembly</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/AsmReader/llvmAsmParser.y</tt>: | 
|  | add a token for that type</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- ======================================================================= --> | 
|  | <h3> | 
|  | <a name="derived_type">Adding a derived type</a> | 
|  | </h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/Type.h</tt>: | 
|  | add enum for the new type; add a forward declaration of the type | 
|  | also</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/include/llvm/DerivedTypes.h</tt>: | 
|  | add new class to represent new class in the hierarchy; add forward | 
|  | declaration to the TypeMap value type</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/VMCore/Type.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | add support for derived type to: | 
|  | <div class="doc_code"> | 
|  | <pre> | 
|  | std::string getTypeDescription(const Type &Ty, | 
|  | std::vector<const Type*> &TypeStack) | 
|  | bool TypesEqual(const Type *Ty, const Type *Ty2, | 
|  | std::map<const Type*, const Type*> & EqTypes) | 
|  | </pre> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  | add necessary member functions for type, and factory methods</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/AsmReader/Lexer.l</tt>: | 
|  | add ability to parse in the type from text assembly</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/BitCode/Writer/Writer.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | modify <tt>void BitcodeWriter::outputType(const Type *T)</tt> to serialize | 
|  | your type</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/BitCode/Reader/Reader.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | modify <tt>const Type *BitcodeReader::ParseType()</tt> to read your data | 
|  | type</li> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <li><tt>llvm/lib/VMCore/AsmWriter.cpp</tt>: | 
|  | modify | 
|  | <div class="doc_code"> | 
|  | <pre> | 
|  | void calcTypeName(const Type *Ty, | 
|  | std::vector<const Type*> &TypeStack, | 
|  | std::map<const Type*,std::string> &TypeNames, | 
|  | std::string & Result) | 
|  | </pre> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  | to output the new derived type | 
|  | </li> | 
|  |  | 
|  |  | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <!-- *********************************************************************** --> | 
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