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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 Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +000088<p><tt>llvm2cpp</tt> tool has been folded into llc, use
89 <tt>llc -march=cpp</tt> instead of <tt>llvm2cpp</tt>.</p>
90
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +000091<p>LLVM API Changes:</p>
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +000092
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +000093<ul>
94<li>Several core LLVM IR classes have migrated to use 'FOOCLASS::Create(...)'
95 instead of 'new FOOCLASS(...)' (e.g. where FOOCLASS=BasicBlock). We hope to
96 standardize on FOOCLASS::Create for all IR classes in the future, but not
97 all of them have been moved over yet.</li>
98<li>LLVM 2.3 renames the LLVMBuilder and LLVMFoldingBuilder classes to
99 IRBuilder.</li>
100<li>MRegisterInfo was renamed to TargetRegisterInfo.</li>
101<li>The MappedFile class is gone, please use MemoryBuffer instead.</li>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000102<li>The '-enable-eh' flag to llc has been removed. Now code should encode
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000103 whether it is safe to not generate unwind information for a function by
104 tagging the Function object with the 'nounwind' attribute.</li>
105
106</ul>
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000107</div>
108
109<!--=========================================================================-->
110<div class="doc_subsection">
111<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
112</div>
113
114<div class="doc_text">
115
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000116<p>LLVM 2.3 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000117
118<ul>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000119<li>Multiple Return Value Support.</li>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000120
121
122<li><p>LLVM 2.3 includes a complete reimplementation of the "llvmc" tool. It is
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000123designed to overcome several problems with the original llvmc and to provide a
124superset of the features of the 'gcc' driver.</p>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000125
126<p>The main features of llvmc2 is:</p>
127
128<ul>
129<li>Extended handling of command line options and smart rules for
130dispatching them to different tools.</li>
131<li>Flexible (and extensible) rules for defining different tools.</li>
132<li>The different intermediate steps performed by tools are represented
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000133as edges in the abstract graph.</li>
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000134<li>The 'language' for driver behavior definition is tablegen and thus
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000135it's relatively easy to add new features.</li>
136<li>The definition of driver is transformed into set of C++ classes, thus
137no runtime interpretation is needed.</li>
138</ul>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000139</li>
140
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000141
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000142<li>Reimplemented <a href="LinkTimeOptimization.html">LTO interface</a> in
143 C.</li>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000144
145
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000146<li>Kaleidoscope tutorial in Ocaml.</li>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000147
Chris Lattner458e79f2008-02-10 08:18:42 +0000148</ul>
149
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000150</div>
151
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000152
153<!--=========================================================================-->
154<div class="doc_subsection">
155<a name="frontends">llvm-gcc 4.2 Improvements and Clang</a>
156</div>
157
158<div class="doc_text">
159
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000160<p>LLVM 2.3 fully supports the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end.</p>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000161
162<p>llvm-gcc 4.2 includes numerous fixes to better support the Objective-C
163front-end. Objective-C now works very well on Mac OS/X.</p>
164
165<p>llvm-gcc 4.2 includes many other fixes which improve conformance with the
166relevant parts of the GCC testsuite.</p>
167
168<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang project</a> is an effort to build
169a set of new 'llvm native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
170and code generator. Currently, its C and Objective-C support is maturing
171nicely, and it has advanced source-to-source analysis and transformation
172capabilities. If you are interested in building source-level tools for C and
173Objective-C (and eventually C++), you should take a look. However, note that
174clang is not an official part of the LLVM 2.3 release. If you are interested in
175this project, please see its <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">web site</a>.</p>
176
177</div>
178
179
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000180<!--=========================================================================-->
181<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000182<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
183</div>
184
185<div class="doc_text">
186<p>New features include:
187</p>
188
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000189
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000190Common linkage?
191
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000192Atomic operation support, Alpha, X86, X86-64, PowerPC. "__sync_synchronize",
Anton Korobeynikovf7c5a6e2008-06-08 10:23:46 +0000193"__sync_val_compare_and_swap", etc
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000194
195<ul>
Gordon Henriksen03a4ad42008-06-05 12:51:50 +0000196<li>The C and Ocaml bindings have received additional improvements. The
197bindings now cover pass managers, several transformation passes, iteration
198over the LLVM IR, target data, and parameter attribute lists.</li>
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000199</ul>
200
201</div>
202
203<!--=========================================================================-->
204<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner2b8a52e2008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000205<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
206</div>
207
208<div class="doc_text">
209
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000210<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, the
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000211LLVM 2.3 optimizers support a few major enhancements:</p>
Chris Lattner2b8a52e2008-02-10 07:46:44 +0000212
213<ul>
214
Devang Patel33aac002008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000215<li>Loop index set splitting on by default.<p>
216This transformation hoists conditions from loop bodies and reduces loop's
217iteration space to improve performance. For example, <p>
218<pre>
Chris Lattner94fd4472008-06-08 20:25:30 +0000219for (i = LB; i &lt; UB; ++i)
220 if (i &lt;= NV)
Devang Patel33aac002008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000221 LOOP_BODY
222</pre>
223is transformed into
224<pre>
225NUB = min(NV+1, UB)
Chris Lattner94fd4472008-06-08 20:25:30 +0000226for (i = LB; i &lt; NUB; ++i)
Devang Patel33aac002008-06-05 21:44:00 +0000227 LOOP_BODY
228</pre>
229</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000230
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000231<li>LLVM includes a new <tt>memcpy</tt> optimization pass removes
232dead <tt>memcpy</tt> calls, unneeded copies of aggregates, and performs
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000233return slot optimization. The LLVM optimizer now notices long sequences of
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000234consecutive stores and merges them into <tt>memcpy</tt>'s where profitable.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000235
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000236<li>Alignment detection for vector memory references and for <tt>memcpy</tt> and
237<tt>memset</tt> is now more aggressive.</li>
Owen Andersonf7647e42008-06-06 16:23:15 +0000238
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000239<li>The aggressive dead code elimination (ADCE) optimization has been rewritten
240to make it both faster and safer in the presence of code containing infinite
241loops. Some of its prior functionality has been factored out into the loop
242deletion pass, which <em>is</em> safe for infinite loops.</li>
243
244<li>Several optimizations have been sped up, leading to faster code generation
245 with the same code quality.</li>
246
247<li>The 'SimplifyLibCalls' pass, which optimizes calls to libc and libm
248 functions for C-based languages, has been rewritten to be a FunctionPass
249 instead a ModulePass. This allows it to be run more often and to be
250 included at -O1 in llvm-gcc. It was also extended to include more
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000251 optimizations and several corner case bugs were fixed.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000252
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000253<li>LLVM now includes a simple 'Jump Threading' pass, which attempts to simplify
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000254 conditional branches using information about predecessor blocks, simplifying
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000255 the control flow graph. This pass is pretty basic at this point, but
256 catches some important cases and provides a foundation to build on.</li>
257
258<li>Several corner case bugs which could lead to deleting volatile memory
259 accesses have been fixed.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000260</ul>
261
262</div>
263
264<!--=========================================================================-->
265<div class="doc_subsection">
266<a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
267</div>
268
269<div class="doc_text">
270
271<p>We put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
272which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make it run
273faster:</p>
274
275<ul>
276<li>MemOperand in the code generator: describe me!.</li>
277
278<li>The target-independent code generator infrastructure now uses LLVM's APInt
279 class to handle integer values, which allows it to support integer types
280 larger than 64 bits. Note that support for such types is also dependent on
281 target-specific support. Use of APInt is also a step toward support for
282 non-power-of-2 integer sizes.</li>
283
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000284<li>LLVM 2.3 includes several compile time speedups for code with large basic
285 blocks, particular in the instruction selection phase, register allocation,
286 scheduling, and tail merging/jump threading.</li>
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000287
288<li>Several improvements which make llc's <tt>--view-sunit-dags</tt>
289 visualization of scheduling dependency graphs easier to understand.</li>
290
291<li>The code generator allows targets to write patterns that generate subreg
292 references directly in .td files now.</li>
293
294<li><tt>memcpy</tt> lowering in the backend is more aggressive, particularly for
295 <tt>memcpy</tt> calls introduced by the code generator when handling
296 pass-by-value structure argument copies.</li>
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000297
298<li>Inline assembly with multiple register results now returns those results
299 directly in the appropriate registers, rather than going through memory.
300 Inline assembly that uses constraints like "ir" with immediates now use the
301 'i' form when possible instead of always loading the value in a register.
302 This saves an instruction and reduces register use.</li>
303
304<li>Added support for PIC/GOT style tail calls on x86/32 and initial support
305 for tail calls on PowerPC 32 (it may also work on ppc64 but not
306 thoroughly tested).</li>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000307</ul>
308
309</div>
310
311
312<!--=========================================================================-->
313<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000314<a name="x86specific">X86/X86-64 Specific Improvements</a>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000315</div>
Chris Lattner727c3742007-05-18 06:33:02 +0000316
Chris Lattner89e761c2006-04-18 06:32:08 +0000317<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattnerdd6acc02008-02-10 08:17:19 +0000318<p>New target-specific features include:
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000319</p>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000320
321<ul>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000322<li>llvm-gcc's X86-64 ABI conformance is far improved, particularly in the
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000323 area of passing and returning structures by value. llvm-gcc compiled code
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000324 now interoperates very well on X86-64 systems with other compilers.</li>
325
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000326<li>Support for Win64 was added. This includes code generation itself, JIT
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000327 support and necessary changes to llvm-gcc.</li>
328
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000329<li>The LLVM X86 backend now supports the support SSE 4.1 instruction set, and
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000330 the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end supports the SSE 4.1 compiler builtins. Various
331 generic vector operations (insert/extract/shuffle) are much more efficient
332 when SSE 4.1 is enabled. The JIT automatically takes advantage of these
333 instructions, but llvm-gcc must be explicitly told to use them, e.g. with
334 <tt>-march=penryn</tt>.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000335
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000336<li>The X86 backend now does a number of optimizations that aim to avoid
337 converting numbers back and forth from SSE registers to the X87 floating
338 point stack.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000339
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000340<li>The X86 backend supports stack realignment, which is particularly useful for
341 vector code on OS's without 16-byte aligned stacks.</li>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000342
343<li>The X86 backend now supports the "sseregparm" options in GCC, which allow
344 functions to be tagged as passing floating point values in SSE
345 registers.</li>
346
347<li>Trampolines (taking the address of a nested function) now work on
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000348 Linux/X86-64.</li>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000349
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000350<li><tt>__builtin_prefetch</tt> is now compiled into the appropriate prefetch
351 instructions instead of being ignored.</li>
Chris Lattnerb7112222008-06-05 06:25:56 +0000352
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000353<li>128-bit integers are now supported on X86-64 targets.</li>
Dan Gohmanb0ec18b2008-06-05 16:15:39 +0000354
Chris Lattner7795ea92008-06-08 02:45:07 +0000355<li>The register allocator can now rematerialize PIC-base computations.</li>
356
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000357<li>The "t" and "f" inline assembly constraints for the X87 floating point stack
358 now work. However, the "u" constraint is still not fully supported.</li>
359
Chris Lattner8ce1ba42007-05-17 21:41:31 +0000360</ul>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000361
Chris Lattner8ce1ba42007-05-17 21:41:31 +0000362</div>
Chris Lattner72a269f2006-03-03 00:34:26 +0000363
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000364<!--=========================================================================-->
365<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000366<a name="targetspecific">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
367</div>
368
369<div class="doc_text">
370<p>New target-specific features include:
371</p>
372
373<ul>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000374<li>The LLVM C backend now supports vector code.</li>
Chris Lattner6cb64032008-06-05 08:02:49 +0000375</ul>
376
377</div>
378
379
380
381<!--=========================================================================-->
382<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000383<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
384</div>
385
386<div class="doc_text">
387<p>New features include:
388</p>
389
390<ul>
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000391<li>LLVM now builds with GCC 4.3.</li>
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000392<li>Bugpoint now supports running custom scripts (with the <tt>-run-custom</tt>
393 option) to determine how to execute the command and whether it is making
394 forward process.</li>
Chris Lattner0a1fd102007-09-21 03:54:09 +0000395</ul>
396
397</div>
Chris Lattner72a269f2006-03-03 00:34:26 +0000398
Chris Lattner62495762003-10-02 16:38:05 +0000399<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000400<div class="doc_section">
401 <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
402</div>
Chris Lattner62495762003-10-02 16:38:05 +0000403<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
404
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000405<div class="doc_text">
406
John Criswell64307722004-12-08 20:35:47 +0000407<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
Chris Lattner2c7b0872004-06-01 18:22:41 +0000408
409<ul>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000410<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32) running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
Reid Spencer9803b402005-05-17 02:47:27 +0000411 (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
Chris Lattner7422bce2008-02-06 06:30:34 +0000412<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 +0000413 64-bit modes.</li>
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000414<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000415<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
416 support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000417<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 10.</li>
John Criswelld5234922005-05-13 20:28:15 +0000418<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
Gabor Greif80ae8a72008-06-05 18:39:01 +0000419<li>Itanium-based (IA64) machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
Chris Lattner2c7b0872004-06-01 18:22:41 +0000420</ul>
421
Chris Lattner618a99f2008-06-05 06:57:39 +0000422<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses GNU autoconf to adapt itself
Brian Gaekee3e557e2004-05-09 05:28:35 +0000423to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
424porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
425portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000426
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000427</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000428
429<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000430<div class="doc_section">
431 <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
432</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000433<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
434
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000435<div class="doc_text">
436
437<p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000438component. As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
Chris Lattnerb84f3322003-12-12 21:22:16 +0000439sections. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
Chris Lattnera69595e2005-10-29 07:07:09 +0000440href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
Chris Lattnerb84f3322003-12-12 21:22:16 +0000441there isn't already one.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000442
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000443</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000444
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000445<!-- ======================================================================= -->
446<div class="doc_subsection">
447 <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
448</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000449
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000450<div class="doc_text">
451
Misha Brukmanfa50a222004-05-12 21:46:05 +0000452<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
453be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
454not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
455useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000456components, please contact us on the <a
457href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000458
459<ul>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000460<li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, SPU, and MIPS backends are experimental.</li>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000461<li>The llc "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported
Chris Lattner7422bce2008-02-06 06:30:34 +0000462 value for this option.</li>
Chris Lattnerb911de42004-03-14 02:03:02 +0000463</ul>
464
465</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000466
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000467<!-- ======================================================================= -->
468<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000469 <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
John Criswell3bdbd302005-11-08 21:11:33 +0000470</div>
471
472<div class="doc_text">
473
474<ul>
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000475 <li>The X86 backend does not yet support
476 all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86
477 floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not
478 'u'.</li>
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000479 <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured
480 to generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000481 <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we
Anton Korobeynikov486c7d32008-06-08 10:24:13 +0000482 expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build mingw64 runtime
483 currently due
484 to <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2255">several</a>
485 <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2257">bugs</a> in FP stackifier
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000486</ul>
487
488</div>
489
490<!-- ======================================================================= -->
491<div class="doc_subsection">
492 <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
493</div>
494
495<div class="doc_text">
496
497<ul>
Nicolas Geoffray77d99502007-05-15 09:21:28 +0000498<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000499compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000500</ul>
501
502</div>
503
504<!-- ======================================================================= -->
505<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000506 <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
507</div>
508
509<div class="doc_text">
510
511<ul>
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000512<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
Duncan Sands47fc0a22007-09-26 15:59:54 +0000513processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000514results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000515<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported, but not fully tested.
516</li>
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000517<li>There is a bug in QEMU-ARM (&lt;= 0.9.0) which causes it to incorrectly
518 execute
Chris Lattnerbee7b322007-05-23 04:39:32 +0000519programs compiled with LLVM. Please use more recent versions of QEMU.</li>
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000520</ul>
521
522</div>
523
524<!-- ======================================================================= -->
525<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000526 <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
527</div>
528
529<div class="doc_text">
530
531<ul>
532<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
533 support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
534</ul>
535
536</div>
537
538<!-- ======================================================================= -->
539<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000540 <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
541</div>
542
543<div class="doc_text">
544
545<ul>
546
547<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
548appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
549
John Criswell3bdbd302005-11-08 21:11:33 +0000550</ul>
551</div>
552
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000553<!-- ======================================================================= -->
554<div class="doc_subsection">
555 <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
556</div>
557
558<div class="doc_text">
559
560<ul>
561
562<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
563made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
564speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
565when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
566
567<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
568ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
569pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
570mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
571compilers.</li>
572
573<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
574output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
575programs.</li>
576
Duncan Sands0bc15262008-06-08 19:38:43 +0000577<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is OK).</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000578
Chris Lattner98a33492007-05-09 04:58:11 +0000579<li>The Itanium backend has bitrotted somewhat.</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000580</ul>
581
582</div>
583
584<!-- ======================================================================= -->
585<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000586 <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000587</div>
588
589<div class="doc_text">
590
591<ul>
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000592<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend has only basic support for
593 inline assembly code</a>.</li>
Chris Lattner8e061162007-09-26 06:01:35 +0000594<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
595 C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000596 C++ code compiled with llc or native compilers.</li>
Duncan Sandse09506a2008-02-10 13:40:55 +0000597<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
Chris Lattnerb81f10e2006-11-18 07:51:14 +0000598</ul>
599
600</div>
John Criswell3bdbd302005-11-08 21:11:33 +0000601
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000602
603<!-- ======================================================================= -->
604<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000605 <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C front-end</a>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000606</div>
Chris Lattner178f3db2003-10-02 05:07:23 +0000607
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000608<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
Chris Lattner5a8a7282003-12-14 05:03:43 +0000609<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000610
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000611<div class="doc_text">
Chris Lattner72a269f2006-03-03 00:34:26 +0000612
Chris Lattnercdc44ed2008-02-06 18:00:06 +0000613<p>llvm-gcc does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
614Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000615llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
Chris Lattner44124232006-08-08 17:27:28 +0000616
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000617<p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is
618 the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
619 are only supported on some targets. For example, trampolines are only
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000620 supported on some targets (these are used when you take the address of a
621 nested function).</p>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000622
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000623<p>If you run into GCC extensions which are not supported, please let us know.
624</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000625
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000626</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000627
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000628<!-- ======================================================================= -->
629<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000630 <a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc C++ front-end</a>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000631</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000632
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000633<div class="doc_text">
634
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000635<p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully
Chris Lattnerb5bb5972004-12-07 08:04:13 +0000636tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
Chris Lattner97beb512007-05-14 06:56:09 +0000637itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000638
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000639<ul>
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000640<li>Exception handling works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets, including
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000641X86-64 darwin. This works when linking to a libstdc++ compiled by GCC. It is
642supported on X86-64 linux, but that is disabled by default in this release.</li>
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000643</ul>
Chris Lattner46ecf612003-10-07 22:14:37 +0000644
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000645</div>
646
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000647
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000648<!-- ======================================================================= -->
649<div class="doc_subsection">
Chris Lattnera1a4c9a2008-06-05 06:35:40 +0000650 <a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Ada front-end</a>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000651</div>
652
653<div class="doc_text">
654The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well, however this is not a mature
655technology and problems should be expected.
656<ul>
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000657<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000658to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms,
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000659however it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000660which does support trampolines.</li>
661<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
662Workaround: configure with --disable-bootstrap.</li>
663<li>The c380004 and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> ACATS tests
Duncan Sands56448462008-06-08 20:18:35 +0000664fail (c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline). When built at -O3, the
665<a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS test also fails.</li>
666<li>Some gcc specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler. The testsuite
667reports most tests as having failed even though they pass.</li>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000668<li>The -E binder option (exception backtraces)
669<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
670crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use -E.</li>
671<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
672or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
673or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
674starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
Chris Lattnerb076b002008-06-08 21:19:07 +0000675<li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers
676'main' as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
677Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and
678<tt>envp</tt> rather than integers.</li>
679<li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is
680ignored</a>.</li>
Chris Lattnere38ac152008-02-12 06:29:45 +0000681</ul>
682</div>
683
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000684<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000685<div class="doc_section">
686 <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
687</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000688<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
689
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000690<div class="doc_text">
691
Chris Lattnercb5596d2005-05-16 17:13:10 +0000692<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
Chris Lattnere0c1df42007-05-18 00:44:29 +0000693href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
694href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
Reid Spencerc7f87f22007-07-09 08:04:31 +0000695contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
696Subversion version of the source code.
Misha Brukman96158092005-03-30 19:14:24 +0000697You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
698into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000699
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000700<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
Chris Lattnera69595e2005-10-29 07:07:09 +0000701us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
Chris Lattnerb84f3322003-12-12 21:22:16 +0000702lists</a>.</p>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000703
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000704</div>
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000705
706<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Chris Lattner3d482502003-10-02 04:57:28 +0000707
Misha Brukman80731b92003-11-22 00:38:41 +0000708<hr>
Misha Brukman68aab3b2003-11-22 01:23:39 +0000709<address>
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712 <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
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Misha Brukman68aab3b2003-11-22 01:23:39 +0000714
Chris Lattnere0c1df42007-05-18 00:44:29 +0000715 <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
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Misha Brukman68aab3b2003-11-22 01:23:39 +0000717</address>
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