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Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +00008 <title>LLVM 2.3 Release Notes</title>
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10<body>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000011
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +000012<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.3 Release Notes</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000013
14<ol>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000015 <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
16 <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
Chris Lattner77a51732004-04-30 22:17:12 +000017 <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000018 <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000019 <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000020 <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000021</ol>
22
Chris Lattner020e1fc2004-05-23 21:07:27 +000023<div class="doc_author">
Chris Lattnera69595e2005-10-29 07:07:09 +000024 <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a><p>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000025</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000026
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +000027<!-- Done through Week-of-Mon-20080324.txt -->
28
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000029<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000030<div class="doc_section">
31 <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
32</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000033<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
34
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000035<div class="doc_text">
36
37<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +000038infrastructure, release 2.3. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +000039major improvements from the previous release and any known problems. All LLVM
Chris Lattner98a33492007-05-09 04:58:11 +000040releases may be downloaded from the <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +000041releases web site</a>.</p>
Chris Lattner62495762003-10-02 16:38:05 +000042
Chris Lattnerb5bb5972004-12-07 08:04:13 +000043<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
Chris Lattnera69595e2005-10-29 07:07:09 +000044release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM
Chris Lattnere7525b52003-10-07 21:38:31 +000045web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a
46href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000047list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000048
Reid Spencerc7f87f22007-07-09 08:04:31 +000049<p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +000050main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the
51current one. To see the release notes for a specific releases, please see the
52<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000053
54</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000055
56<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000057<div class="doc_section">
58 <a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
59</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +000060<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
61
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +000062<div class="doc_text">
63
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +000064<p>This is the fourteenth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +000065It includes a large number of features and refinements from LLVM 2.2.</p>
Chris Lattnerba7bd472003-12-06 20:22:41 +000066
Chris Lattner21a90402004-05-24 04:50:25 +000067</div>
68
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +000069<!-- Unfinished features in 2.3:
Chris Lattner2b8a52e2008-02-10 07:46:44 +000070 Machine LICM
71 Machine Sinking
72 LegalizeDAGTypes
73 -->
74
Chris Lattnerba7bd472003-12-06 20:22:41 +000075<!--=========================================================================-->
Chris Lattner406bddf2005-05-15 05:44:51 +000076<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +000077<a name="changes">Major Changes in LLVM 2.3</a>
Chris Lattnera2735862008-02-10 07:04:35 +000078</div>
79
80<div class="doc_text">
81
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +000082<p>LLVM 2.2 was the last LLVM release to support llvm-gcc 4.0 and llvm-upgrade.
83llvm-gcc 4.0 has been replaced with llvm-gcc 4.2. llvm-upgrade was useful for
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +000084upgrading LLVM 1.9 files to LLVM 2.x syntax, but you can always use a previous
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +000085LLVM release to do this. One nice impact of this is that the LLVM regression
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +000086test suite no longer depends on llvm-upgrade, which makes it run faster.</p>
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +000087
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +000088<p>LLVM API Changes:</p>
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +000089
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +000090<ul>
91<li>Several core LLVM IR classes have migrated to use 'FOOCLASS::Create(...)'
92 instead of 'new FOOCLASS(...)' (e.g. where FOOCLASS=BasicBlock). We hope to
93 standardize on FOOCLASS::Create for all IR classes in the future, but not
94 all of them have been moved over yet.</li>
95<li>LLVM 2.3 renames the LLVMBuilder and LLVMFoldingBuilder classes to
96 IRBuilder.</li>
97<li>MRegisterInfo was renamed to TargetRegisterInfo.</li>
98<li>The MappedFile class is gone, please use MemoryBuffer instead.</li>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +000099<li>The '-enable-eh' flag to llc has been removed. Now code should encode
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000100 whether it is safe to not generate unwind information for a function by
101 tagging the Function object with the 'nounwind' attribute.</li>
102
103</ul>
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000104</div>
105
106<!--=========================================================================-->
107<div class="doc_subsection">
108<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
109</div>
110
111<div class="doc_text">
112
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000113<p>LLVM 2.3 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000114
115<ul>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000116<li>Multiple Return Value Support.</li>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000117
118
119<li><p>LLVM 2.3 includes a complete reimplementation of the "llvmc" tool. It is
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000120designed to overcome several problems with the original llvmc and to provide a
121superset of the features of the 'gcc' driver.</p>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000122
123<p>The main features of llvmc2 is:</p>
124
125<ul>
126<li>Extended handling of command line options and smart rules for
127dispatching them to different tools.</li>
128<li>Flexible (and extensible) rules for defining different tools.</li>
129<li>The different intermediate steps performed by tools are represented
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000130as edges in the abstract graph.</li>
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000131<li>The 'language' for driver behavior definition is tablegen and thus
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000132it's relatively easy to add new features.</li>
133<li>The definition of driver is transformed into set of C++ classes, thus
134no runtime interpretation is needed.</li>
135</ul>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000136</li>
137
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000138
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000139<li>Reimplemented <a href="LinkTimeOptimization.html">LTO interface</a> in
140 C.</li>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000141
142
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000143<li>Kaleidoscope tutorial in Ocaml.</li>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000144
Chris Lattner458e79f2008-02-10 08:18:42 +0000145</ul>
146
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000147</div>
148
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000149
150<!--=========================================================================-->
151<div class="doc_subsection">
152<a name="frontends">llvm-gcc 4.2 Improvements and Clang</a>
153</div>
154
155<div class="doc_text">
156
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000157<p>LLVM 2.3 fully supports the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end.</p>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000158
159<p>llvm-gcc 4.2 includes numerous fixes to better support the Objective-C
160front-end. Objective-C now works very well on Mac OS/X.</p>
161
162<p>llvm-gcc 4.2 includes many other fixes which improve conformance with the
163relevant parts of the GCC testsuite.</p>
164
165<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang project</a> is an effort to build
166a set of new 'llvm native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
167and code generator. Currently, its C and Objective-C support is maturing
168nicely, and it has advanced source-to-source analysis and transformation
169capabilities. If you are interested in building source-level tools for C and
170Objective-C (and eventually C++), you should take a look. However, note that
171clang is not an official part of the LLVM 2.3 release. If you are interested in
172this project, please see its <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">web site</a>.</p>
173
174</div>
175
176
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000177<!--=========================================================================-->
178<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000179<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
180</div>
181
182<div class="doc_text">
183<p>New features include:
184</p>
185
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000186
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000187Common linkage?
188
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000189Atomic operation support, Alpha, X86, X86-64, PowerPC. "__sync_synchronize",
Anton Korobeynikovf7c5a6e2008-06-08 10:23:46 +0000190"__sync_val_compare_and_swap", etc
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000191
192<ul>
Gordon Henriksen03a4ad42008-06-05 12:51:50 +0000193<li>The C and Ocaml bindings have received additional improvements. The
194bindings now cover pass managers, several transformation passes, iteration
195over the LLVM IR, target data, and parameter attribute lists.</li>
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000196</ul>
197
198</div>
199
200<!--=========================================================================-->
201<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner2b8a52e2008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000202<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
203</div>
204
205<div class="doc_text">
206
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000207<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, the
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000208LLVM 2.3 optimizers support a few major enhancements:</p>
Chris Lattner2b8a52e2008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000209
210<ul>
211
Devang Patel33aac002008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000212<li>Loop index set splitting on by default.<p>
213This transformation hoists conditions from loop bodies and reduces loop's
214iteration space to improve performance. For example, <p>
215<pre>
Chris Lattner94fd4472008-06-08 20:25:30 +0000216for (i = LB; i &lt; UB; ++i)
217 if (i &lt;= NV)
Devang Patel33aac002008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000218 LOOP_BODY
219</pre>
220is transformed into
221<pre>
222NUB = min(NV+1, UB)
Chris Lattner94fd4472008-06-08 20:25:30 +0000223for (i = LB; i &lt; NUB; ++i)
Devang Patel33aac002008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000224 LOOP_BODY
225</pre>
226</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000227
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000228<li>LLVM includes a new <tt>memcpy</tt> optimization pass removes
229dead <tt>memcpy</tt> calls, unneeded copies of aggregates, and performs
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000230return slot optimization. The LLVM optimizer now notices long sequences of
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000231consecutive stores and merges them into <tt>memcpy</tt>'s where profitable.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000232
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000233<li>Alignment detection for vector memory references and for <tt>memcpy</tt> and
234<tt>memset</tt> is now more aggressive.</li>
Owen Andersonf7647e42008-06-06 16:23:15 +0000235
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000236<li>The aggressive dead code elimination (ADCE) optimization has been rewritten
237to make it both faster and safer in the presence of code containing infinite
238loops. Some of its prior functionality has been factored out into the loop
239deletion pass, which <em>is</em> safe for infinite loops.</li>
240
241<li>Several optimizations have been sped up, leading to faster code generation
242 with the same code quality.</li>
243
244<li>The 'SimplifyLibCalls' pass, which optimizes calls to libc and libm
245 functions for C-based languages, has been rewritten to be a FunctionPass
246 instead a ModulePass. This allows it to be run more often and to be
247 included at -O1 in llvm-gcc. It was also extended to include more
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000248 optimizations and several corner case bugs were fixed.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000249
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000250<li>LLVM now includes a simple 'Jump Threading' pass, which attempts to simplify
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000251 conditional branches using information about predecessor blocks, simplifying
252 the control flow graph. This pass is pretty basic at this point, but catches
253 some important cases and provides a foundation to build on.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000254</ul>
255
256</div>
257
258<!--=========================================================================-->
259<div class="doc_subsection">
260<a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
261</div>
262
263<div class="doc_text">
264
265<p>We put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
266which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make it run
267faster:</p>
268
269<ul>
270<li>MemOperand in the code generator: describe me!.</li>
271
272<li>The target-independent code generator infrastructure now uses LLVM's APInt
273 class to handle integer values, which allows it to support integer types
274 larger than 64 bits. Note that support for such types is also dependent on
275 target-specific support. Use of APInt is also a step toward support for
276 non-power-of-2 integer sizes.</li>
277
278<li>Several compile time speedups for code with large basic blocks.</li>
279
280<li>Several improvements which make llc's <tt>--view-sunit-dags</tt>
281 visualization of scheduling dependency graphs easier to understand.</li>
282
283<li>The code generator allows targets to write patterns that generate subreg
284 references directly in .td files now.</li>
285
286<li><tt>memcpy</tt> lowering in the backend is more aggressive, particularly for
287 <tt>memcpy</tt> calls introduced by the code generator when handling
288 pass-by-value structure argument copies.</li>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000289</ul>
290
291</div>
292
293
294<!--=========================================================================-->
295<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000296<a name="x86specific">X86/X86-64 Specific Improvements</a>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000297</div>
Chris Lattner727c3742007-05-18 06:33:02 +0000298
Chris Lattner89e761c2006-04-18 06:32:08 +0000299<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000300<p>New target-specific features include:
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000301</p>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000302
303<ul>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000304<li>llvm-gcc's X86-64 ABI conformance is far improved, particularly in the
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000305 area of passing and returning structures by value. llvm-gcc compiled code
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000306 now interoperates very well on X86-64 systems with other compilers.</li>
307
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000308<li>Support for Win64 was added. This includes code generation itself, JIT
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000309 support and necessary changes to llvm-gcc.</li>
310
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000311<li>The LLVM X86 backend now supports the support SSE 4.1 instruction set, and
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000312 the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end supports the SSE 4.1 compiler builtins. Various
313 generic vector operations (insert/extract/shuffle) are much more efficient
314 when SSE 4.1 is enabled. The JIT automatically takes advantage of these
315 instructions, but llvm-gcc must be explicitly told to use them, e.g. with
316 <tt>-march=penryn</tt>.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000317
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000318<li>The X86 backend now does a number of optimizations that aim to avoid
319 converting numbers back and forth from SSE registers to the X87 floating
320 point stack.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000321
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000322<li>The X86 backend supports stack realignment, which is particularly useful for
323 vector code on OS's without 16-byte aligned stacks.</li>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000324
325<li>The X86 backend now supports the "sseregparm" options in GCC, which allow
326 functions to be tagged as passing floating point values in SSE
327 registers.</li>
328
329<li>Trampolines (taking the address of a nested function) now work on
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000330 Linux/X86-64.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000331
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000332<li><tt>__builtin_prefetch</tt> is now compiled into the appropriate prefetch
333 instructions instead of being ignored.</li>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000334
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000335<li>128-bit integers are now supported on X86-64 targets.</li>
Dan Gohmanb0ec18b2008-06-05 16:15:39 +0000336
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000337<li>The register allocator can now rematerialize PIC-base computations.</li>
338
Chris Lattner8ce1ba42007-05-17 21:41:31 +0000339</ul>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000340
Chris Lattner8ce1ba42007-05-17 21:41:31 +0000341</div>
Chris Lattner72a269f2006-03-03 00:34:26 +0000342
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000343<!--=========================================================================-->
344<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000345<a name="targetspecific">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
346</div>
347
348<div class="doc_text">
349<p>New target-specific features include:
350</p>
351
352<ul>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000353<li>The LLVM C backend now supports vector code.</li>
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000354
355
356</ul>
357
358</div>
359
360
361
362<!--=========================================================================-->
363<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000364<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
365</div>
366
367<div class="doc_text">
368<p>New features include:
369</p>
370
371<ul>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000372<li>LLVM now builds with GCC 4.3.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000373<li><tt>llvm2cpp</tt> tool has been folded into llc, use
374 <tt>llc -march=cpp</tt></li>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000375</ul>
376
377</div>
Chris Lattner72a269f2006-03-03 00:34:26 +0000378
Chris Lattner62495762003-10-02 16:38:05 +0000379<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000380<div class="doc_section">
381 <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
382</div>
Chris Lattner62495762003-10-02 16:38:05 +0000383<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
384
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000385<div class="doc_text">
386
John Criswell64307722004-12-08 20:35:47 +0000387<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
Chris Lattner2c7b0872004-06-01 18:22:41 +0000388
389<ul>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000390<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32) running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
Reid Spencer9803b402005-05-17 02:47:27 +0000391 (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
Chris Lattner7422bce2008-02-06 06:30:34 +0000392<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit and
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000393 64-bit modes.</li>
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000394<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000395<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
396 support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000397<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 10.</li>
John Criswelld5234922005-05-13 20:28:15 +0000398<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000399<li>Itanium-based (IA64) machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
Chris Lattner2c7b0872004-06-01 18:22:41 +0000400</ul>
401
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000402<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses GNU autoconf to adapt itself
Brian Gaekee3e557e2004-05-09 05:28:35 +0000403to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
404porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
405portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000406
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000407</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000408
409<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000410<div class="doc_section">
411 <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
412</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000413<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
414
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000415<div class="doc_text">
416
417<p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000418component. As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
Chris Lattnerb84f3322003-12-12 21:22:16 +0000419sections. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
Chris Lattnera69595e2005-10-29 07:07:09 +0000420href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
Chris Lattnerb84f3322003-12-12 21:22:16 +0000421there isn't already one.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000422
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000423</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000424
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000425<!-- ======================================================================= -->
426<div class="doc_subsection">
427 <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
428</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000429
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000430<div class="doc_text">
431
Misha Brukmanfa50a222004-05-12 21:46:05 +0000432<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
433be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
434not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
435useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000436components, please contact us on the <a
437href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000438
439<ul>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000440<li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, SPU, and MIPS backends are experimental.</li>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000441<li>The llc "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported
Chris Lattner7422bce2008-02-06 06:30:34 +0000442 value for this option.</li>
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000443</ul>
444
445</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000446
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000447<!-- ======================================================================= -->
448<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000449 <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
John Criswell3bdbd302005-11-08 21:11:33 +0000450</div>
451
452<div class="doc_text">
453
454<ul>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000455 <li>The X86 backend does not yet support
456 all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86
457 floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not
458 'u'.</li>
459 <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured to
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000460 generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000461 <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000462 expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build mingw64 runtime
463 currently due
464 to <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2255">several</a>
465 <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2257">bugs</a> in FP stackifier
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000466</ul>
467
468</div>
469
470<!-- ======================================================================= -->
471<div class="doc_subsection">
472 <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
473</div>
474
475<div class="doc_text">
476
477<ul>
Nicolas Geoffray77d99502007-05-15 09:21:28 +0000478<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000479compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000480</ul>
481
482</div>
483
484<!-- ======================================================================= -->
485<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000486 <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
487</div>
488
489<div class="doc_text">
490
491<ul>
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000492<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
Duncan Sands47fc0a22007-09-26 15:59:54 +0000493processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000494results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000495<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported, but not fully tested.
496</li>
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000497<li>There is a bug in QEMU-ARM (&lt;= 0.9.0) which causes it to incorrectly execute
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000498programs compiled with LLVM. Please use more recent versions of QEMU.</li>
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000499</ul>
500
501</div>
502
503<!-- ======================================================================= -->
504<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000505 <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
506</div>
507
508<div class="doc_text">
509
510<ul>
511<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
512 support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
513</ul>
514
515</div>
516
517<!-- ======================================================================= -->
518<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000519 <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
520</div>
521
522<div class="doc_text">
523
524<ul>
525
526<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
527appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
528
John Criswell3bdbd302005-11-08 21:11:33 +0000529</ul>
530</div>
531
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000532<!-- ======================================================================= -->
533<div class="doc_subsection">
534 <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
535</div>
536
537<div class="doc_text">
538
539<ul>
540
541<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
542made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
543speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
544when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
545
546<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
547ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
548pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
549mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
550compilers.</li>
551
552<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
553output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
554programs.</li>
555
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000556<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is OK).</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000557
Chris Lattner98a33492007-05-09 04:58:11 +0000558<li>The Itanium backend has bitrotted somewhat.</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000559</ul>
560
561</div>
562
563<!-- ======================================================================= -->
564<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000565 <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000566</div>
567
568<div class="doc_text">
569
570<ul>
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000571<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend has only basic support for
572 inline assembly code</a>.</li>
Chris Lattner8e061162007-09-26 06:01:35 +0000573<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
574 C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000575 C++ code compiled with llc or native compilers.</li>
Duncan Sandse09506a2008-02-10 13:40:55 +0000576<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000577</ul>
578
579</div>
John Criswell3bdbd302005-11-08 21:11:33 +0000580
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000581
582<!-- ======================================================================= -->
583<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000584 <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C front-end</a>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000585</div>
Chris Lattner178f3db2003-10-02 05:07:23 +0000586
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000587<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
Chris Lattner5a8a7282003-12-14 05:03:43 +0000588<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000589
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000590<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner72a269f2006-03-03 00:34:26 +0000591
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000592<p>llvm-gcc does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
593Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000594llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
Chris Lattner44124232006-08-08 17:27:28 +0000595
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000596<p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is
597 the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
598 are only supported on some targets. For example, trampolines are only
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000599 supported on some targets (these are used when you take the address of a
600 nested function).</p>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000601
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000602<p>If you run into GCC extensions which are not supported, please let us know.
603</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000604
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000605</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000606
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000607<!-- ======================================================================= -->
608<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000609 <a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C++ front-end</a>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000610</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000611
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000612<div class="doc_text">
613
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000614<p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully
Chris Lattnerb5bb5972004-12-07 08:04:13 +0000615tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000616itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000617
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000618<ul>
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000619<li>Exception handling works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets, including
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000620X86-64 darwin. This works when linking to a libstdc++ compiled by GCC. It is
621supported on X86-64 linux, but that is disabled by default in this release.</li>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000622</ul>
Chris Lattner46ecf612003-10-07 22:14:37 +0000623
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000624</div>
625
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000626
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000627<!-- ======================================================================= -->
628<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000629 <a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Ada front-end</a>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000630</div>
631
632<div class="doc_text">
633The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well, however this is not a mature
634technology and problems should be expected.
635<ul>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000636<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000637to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms,
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000638however it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000639which does support trampolines.</li>
640<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
641Workaround: configure with --disable-bootstrap.</li>
642<li>The c380004 and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> ACATS tests
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000643fail (c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline). When built at -O3, the
644<a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS test also fails.</li>
645<li>Some gcc specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler. The testsuite
646reports most tests as having failed even though they pass.</li>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000647<li>The -E binder option (exception backtraces)
648<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
649crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use -E.</li>
650<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
651or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
652or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
653starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000654<li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers 'main'
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000655as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000656Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and <tt>envp</tt> rather than
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000657integers.</li>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000658<li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is ignored</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000659</ul>
660</div>
661
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000662<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000663<div class="doc_section">
664 <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
665</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000666<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
667
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000668<div class="doc_text">
669
Chris Lattnercb5596d2005-05-16 17:13:10 +0000670<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
Chris Lattnere0c1df42007-05-18 00:44:29 +0000671href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
672href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
Reid Spencerc7f87f22007-07-09 08:04:31 +0000673contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
674Subversion version of the source code.
Misha Brukman96158092005-03-30 19:14:24 +0000675You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
676into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000677
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000678<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
Chris Lattnera69595e2005-10-29 07:07:09 +0000679us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
Chris Lattnerb84f3322003-12-12 21:22:16 +0000680lists</a>.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000681
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000682</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000683
684<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000685
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000686<hr>
Misha Brukman68aab3b2003-11-22 01:23:39 +0000687<address>
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690 <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
Chris Lattner458e79f2008-02-10 08:18:42 +0000691 src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!"></a>
Misha Brukman68aab3b2003-11-22 01:23:39 +0000692
Chris Lattnere0c1df42007-05-18 00:44:29 +0000693 <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000694 Last modified: $Date$
Misha Brukman68aab3b2003-11-22 01:23:39 +0000695</address>
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698</html>