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9 content="LLVM Assembly Language Reference Manual.">
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15 <h1>LLVM Language Reference Manual</h1>
17 <li><a href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li>
18 <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
19 <li><a href="#identifiers">Identifiers</a></li>
20 <li><a href="#highlevel">High Level Structure</a>
22 <li><a href="#modulestructure">Module Structure</a></li>
23 <li><a href="#linkage">Linkage Types</a>
25 <li><a href="#linkage_private">'<tt>private</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
26 <li><a href="#linkage_linker_private">'<tt>linker_private</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
27 <li><a href="#linkage_linker_private_weak">'<tt>linker_private_weak</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
28 <li><a href="#linkage_linker_private_weak_def_auto">'<tt>linker_private_weak_def_auto</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
29 <li><a href="#linkage_internal">'<tt>internal</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
30 <li><a href="#linkage_available_externally">'<tt>available_externally</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
31 <li><a href="#linkage_linkonce">'<tt>linkonce</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
32 <li><a href="#linkage_common">'<tt>common</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
33 <li><a href="#linkage_weak">'<tt>weak</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
34 <li><a href="#linkage_appending">'<tt>appending</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
35 <li><a href="#linkage_externweak">'<tt>extern_weak</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
36 <li><a href="#linkage_linkonce_odr">'<tt>linkonce_odr</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
37 <li><a href="#linkage_weak">'<tt>weak_odr</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
38 <li><a href="#linkage_external">'<tt>external</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
39 <li><a href="#linkage_dllimport">'<tt>dllimport</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
40 <li><a href="#linkage_dllexport">'<tt>dllexport</tt>' Linkage</a></li>
43 <li><a href="#callingconv">Calling Conventions</a></li>
44 <li><a href="#namedtypes">Named Types</a></li>
45 <li><a href="#globalvars">Global Variables</a></li>
46 <li><a href="#functionstructure">Functions</a></li>
47 <li><a href="#aliasstructure">Aliases</a></li>
48 <li><a href="#namedmetadatastructure">Named Metadata</a></li>
49 <li><a href="#paramattrs">Parameter Attributes</a></li>
50 <li><a href="#fnattrs">Function Attributes</a></li>
51 <li><a href="#gc">Garbage Collector Names</a></li>
52 <li><a href="#moduleasm">Module-Level Inline Assembly</a></li>
53 <li><a href="#datalayout">Data Layout</a></li>
54 <li><a href="#pointeraliasing">Pointer Aliasing Rules</a></li>
55 <li><a href="#volatile">Volatile Memory Accesses</a></li>
56 <li><a href="#memmodel">Memory Model for Concurrent Operations</a></li>
57 <li><a href="#ordering">Atomic Memory Ordering Constraints</a></li>
60 <li><a href="#typesystem">Type System</a>
62 <li><a href="#t_classifications">Type Classifications</a></li>
63 <li><a href="#t_primitive">Primitive Types</a>
65 <li><a href="#t_integer">Integer Type</a></li>
66 <li><a href="#t_floating">Floating Point Types</a></li>
67 <li><a href="#t_x86mmx">X86mmx Type</a></li>
68 <li><a href="#t_void">Void Type</a></li>
69 <li><a href="#t_label">Label Type</a></li>
70 <li><a href="#t_metadata">Metadata Type</a></li>
73 <li><a href="#t_derived">Derived Types</a>
75 <li><a href="#t_aggregate">Aggregate Types</a>
77 <li><a href="#t_array">Array Type</a></li>
78 <li><a href="#t_struct">Structure Type</a></li>
79 <li><a href="#t_opaque">Opaque Structure Types</a></li>
80 <li><a href="#t_vector">Vector Type</a></li>
83 <li><a href="#t_function">Function Type</a></li>
84 <li><a href="#t_pointer">Pointer Type</a></li>
89 <li><a href="#constants">Constants</a>
91 <li><a href="#simpleconstants">Simple Constants</a></li>
92 <li><a href="#complexconstants">Complex Constants</a></li>
93 <li><a href="#globalconstants">Global Variable and Function Addresses</a></li>
94 <li><a href="#undefvalues">Undefined Values</a></li>
95 <li><a href="#trapvalues">Trap Values</a></li>
96 <li><a href="#blockaddress">Addresses of Basic Blocks</a></li>
97 <li><a href="#constantexprs">Constant Expressions</a></li>
100 <li><a href="#othervalues">Other Values</a>
102 <li><a href="#inlineasm">Inline Assembler Expressions</a></li>
103 <li><a href="#metadata">Metadata Nodes and Metadata Strings</a>
105 <li><a href="#tbaa">'<tt>tbaa</tt>' Metadata</a></li>
106 <li><a href="#fpaccuracy">'<tt>fpaccuracy</tt>' Metadata</a></li>
111 <li><a href="#intrinsic_globals">Intrinsic Global Variables</a>
113 <li><a href="#intg_used">The '<tt>llvm.used</tt>' Global Variable</a></li>
114 <li><a href="#intg_compiler_used">The '<tt>llvm.compiler.used</tt>'
115 Global Variable</a></li>
116 <li><a href="#intg_global_ctors">The '<tt>llvm.global_ctors</tt>'
117 Global Variable</a></li>
118 <li><a href="#intg_global_dtors">The '<tt>llvm.global_dtors</tt>'
119 Global Variable</a></li>
122 <li><a href="#instref">Instruction Reference</a>
124 <li><a href="#terminators">Terminator Instructions</a>
126 <li><a href="#i_ret">'<tt>ret</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
127 <li><a href="#i_br">'<tt>br</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
128 <li><a href="#i_switch">'<tt>switch</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
129 <li><a href="#i_indirectbr">'<tt>indirectbr</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
130 <li><a href="#i_invoke">'<tt>invoke</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
131 <li><a href="#i_unwind">'<tt>unwind</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
132 <li><a href="#i_resume">'<tt>resume</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
133 <li><a href="#i_unreachable">'<tt>unreachable</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
136 <li><a href="#binaryops">Binary Operations</a>
138 <li><a href="#i_add">'<tt>add</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
139 <li><a href="#i_fadd">'<tt>fadd</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
140 <li><a href="#i_sub">'<tt>sub</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
141 <li><a href="#i_fsub">'<tt>fsub</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
142 <li><a href="#i_mul">'<tt>mul</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
143 <li><a href="#i_fmul">'<tt>fmul</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
144 <li><a href="#i_udiv">'<tt>udiv</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
145 <li><a href="#i_sdiv">'<tt>sdiv</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
146 <li><a href="#i_fdiv">'<tt>fdiv</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
147 <li><a href="#i_urem">'<tt>urem</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
148 <li><a href="#i_srem">'<tt>srem</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
149 <li><a href="#i_frem">'<tt>frem</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
152 <li><a href="#bitwiseops">Bitwise Binary Operations</a>
154 <li><a href="#i_shl">'<tt>shl</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
155 <li><a href="#i_lshr">'<tt>lshr</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
156 <li><a href="#i_ashr">'<tt>ashr</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
157 <li><a href="#i_and">'<tt>and</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
158 <li><a href="#i_or">'<tt>or</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
159 <li><a href="#i_xor">'<tt>xor</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
162 <li><a href="#vectorops">Vector Operations</a>
164 <li><a href="#i_extractelement">'<tt>extractelement</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
165 <li><a href="#i_insertelement">'<tt>insertelement</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
166 <li><a href="#i_shufflevector">'<tt>shufflevector</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
169 <li><a href="#aggregateops">Aggregate Operations</a>
171 <li><a href="#i_extractvalue">'<tt>extractvalue</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
172 <li><a href="#i_insertvalue">'<tt>insertvalue</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
175 <li><a href="#memoryops">Memory Access and Addressing Operations</a>
177 <li><a href="#i_alloca">'<tt>alloca</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
178 <li><a href="#i_load">'<tt>load</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
179 <li><a href="#i_store">'<tt>store</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
180 <li><a href="#i_fence">'<tt>fence</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
181 <li><a href="#i_cmpxchg">'<tt>cmpxchg</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
182 <li><a href="#i_atomicrmw">'<tt>atomicrmw</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
183 <li><a href="#i_getelementptr">'<tt>getelementptr</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
186 <li><a href="#convertops">Conversion Operations</a>
188 <li><a href="#i_trunc">'<tt>trunc .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
189 <li><a href="#i_zext">'<tt>zext .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
190 <li><a href="#i_sext">'<tt>sext .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
191 <li><a href="#i_fptrunc">'<tt>fptrunc .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
192 <li><a href="#i_fpext">'<tt>fpext .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
193 <li><a href="#i_fptoui">'<tt>fptoui .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
194 <li><a href="#i_fptosi">'<tt>fptosi .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
195 <li><a href="#i_uitofp">'<tt>uitofp .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
196 <li><a href="#i_sitofp">'<tt>sitofp .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
197 <li><a href="#i_ptrtoint">'<tt>ptrtoint .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
198 <li><a href="#i_inttoptr">'<tt>inttoptr .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
199 <li><a href="#i_bitcast">'<tt>bitcast .. to</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
202 <li><a href="#otherops">Other Operations</a>
204 <li><a href="#i_icmp">'<tt>icmp</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
205 <li><a href="#i_fcmp">'<tt>fcmp</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
206 <li><a href="#i_phi">'<tt>phi</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
207 <li><a href="#i_select">'<tt>select</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
208 <li><a href="#i_call">'<tt>call</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
209 <li><a href="#i_va_arg">'<tt>va_arg</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
210 <li><a href="#i_landingpad">'<tt>landingpad</tt>' Instruction</a></li>
215 <li><a href="#intrinsics">Intrinsic Functions</a>
217 <li><a href="#int_varargs">Variable Argument Handling Intrinsics</a>
219 <li><a href="#int_va_start">'<tt>llvm.va_start</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
220 <li><a href="#int_va_end">'<tt>llvm.va_end</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
221 <li><a href="#int_va_copy">'<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
224 <li><a href="#int_gc">Accurate Garbage Collection Intrinsics</a>
226 <li><a href="#int_gcroot">'<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
227 <li><a href="#int_gcread">'<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
228 <li><a href="#int_gcwrite">'<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
231 <li><a href="#int_codegen">Code Generator Intrinsics</a>
233 <li><a href="#int_returnaddress">'<tt>llvm.returnaddress</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
234 <li><a href="#int_frameaddress">'<tt>llvm.frameaddress</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
235 <li><a href="#int_stacksave">'<tt>llvm.stacksave</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
236 <li><a href="#int_stackrestore">'<tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
237 <li><a href="#int_prefetch">'<tt>llvm.prefetch</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
238 <li><a href="#int_pcmarker">'<tt>llvm.pcmarker</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
239 <li><a href="#int_readcyclecounter">'<tt>llvm.readcyclecounter</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
242 <li><a href="#int_libc">Standard C Library Intrinsics</a>
244 <li><a href="#int_memcpy">'<tt>llvm.memcpy.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
245 <li><a href="#int_memmove">'<tt>llvm.memmove.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
246 <li><a href="#int_memset">'<tt>llvm.memset.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
247 <li><a href="#int_sqrt">'<tt>llvm.sqrt.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
248 <li><a href="#int_powi">'<tt>llvm.powi.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
249 <li><a href="#int_sin">'<tt>llvm.sin.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
250 <li><a href="#int_cos">'<tt>llvm.cos.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
251 <li><a href="#int_pow">'<tt>llvm.pow.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
252 <li><a href="#int_exp">'<tt>llvm.exp.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
253 <li><a href="#int_log">'<tt>llvm.log.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
254 <li><a href="#int_fma">'<tt>llvm.fma.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
257 <li><a href="#int_manip">Bit Manipulation Intrinsics</a>
259 <li><a href="#int_bswap">'<tt>llvm.bswap.*</tt>' Intrinsics</a></li>
260 <li><a href="#int_ctpop">'<tt>llvm.ctpop.*</tt>' Intrinsic </a></li>
261 <li><a href="#int_ctlz">'<tt>llvm.ctlz.*</tt>' Intrinsic </a></li>
262 <li><a href="#int_cttz">'<tt>llvm.cttz.*</tt>' Intrinsic </a></li>
265 <li><a href="#int_overflow">Arithmetic with Overflow Intrinsics</a>
267 <li><a href="#int_sadd_overflow">'<tt>llvm.sadd.with.overflow.*</tt> Intrinsics</a></li>
268 <li><a href="#int_uadd_overflow">'<tt>llvm.uadd.with.overflow.*</tt> Intrinsics</a></li>
269 <li><a href="#int_ssub_overflow">'<tt>llvm.ssub.with.overflow.*</tt> Intrinsics</a></li>
270 <li><a href="#int_usub_overflow">'<tt>llvm.usub.with.overflow.*</tt> Intrinsics</a></li>
271 <li><a href="#int_smul_overflow">'<tt>llvm.smul.with.overflow.*</tt> Intrinsics</a></li>
272 <li><a href="#int_umul_overflow">'<tt>llvm.umul.with.overflow.*</tt> Intrinsics</a></li>
275 <li><a href="#int_fp16">Half Precision Floating Point Intrinsics</a>
277 <li><a href="#int_convert_to_fp16">'<tt>llvm.convert.to.fp16</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
278 <li><a href="#int_convert_from_fp16">'<tt>llvm.convert.from.fp16</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
281 <li><a href="#int_debugger">Debugger intrinsics</a></li>
282 <li><a href="#int_eh">Exception Handling intrinsics</a></li>
283 <li><a href="#int_trampoline">Trampoline Intrinsics</a>
285 <li><a href="#int_it">'<tt>llvm.init.trampoline</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
286 <li><a href="#int_at">'<tt>llvm.adjust.trampoline</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
289 <li><a href="#int_memorymarkers">Memory Use Markers</a>
291 <li><a href="#int_lifetime_start"><tt>llvm.lifetime.start</tt></a></li>
292 <li><a href="#int_lifetime_end"><tt>llvm.lifetime.end</tt></a></li>
293 <li><a href="#int_invariant_start"><tt>llvm.invariant.start</tt></a></li>
294 <li><a href="#int_invariant_end"><tt>llvm.invariant.end</tt></a></li>
297 <li><a href="#int_general">General intrinsics</a>
299 <li><a href="#int_var_annotation">
300 '<tt>llvm.var.annotation</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
301 <li><a href="#int_annotation">
302 '<tt>llvm.annotation.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
303 <li><a href="#int_trap">
304 '<tt>llvm.trap</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
305 <li><a href="#int_stackprotector">
306 '<tt>llvm.stackprotector</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
307 <li><a href="#int_objectsize">
308 '<tt>llvm.objectsize</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
309 <li><a href="#int_expect">
310 '<tt>llvm.expect</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
317 <div class="doc_author">
318 <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>
319 and <a href="mailto:vadve@cs.uiuc.edu">Vikram Adve</a></p>
322 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
323 <h2><a name="abstract">Abstract</a></h2>
324 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
328 <p>This document is a reference manual for the LLVM assembly language. LLVM is
329 a Static Single Assignment (SSA) based representation that provides type
330 safety, low-level operations, flexibility, and the capability of representing
331 'all' high-level languages cleanly. It is the common code representation
332 used throughout all phases of the LLVM compilation strategy.</p>
336 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
337 <h2><a name="introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
338 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
342 <p>The LLVM code representation is designed to be used in three different forms:
343 as an in-memory compiler IR, as an on-disk bitcode representation (suitable
344 for fast loading by a Just-In-Time compiler), and as a human readable
345 assembly language representation. This allows LLVM to provide a powerful
346 intermediate representation for efficient compiler transformations and
347 analysis, while providing a natural means to debug and visualize the
348 transformations. The three different forms of LLVM are all equivalent. This
349 document describes the human readable representation and notation.</p>
351 <p>The LLVM representation aims to be light-weight and low-level while being
352 expressive, typed, and extensible at the same time. It aims to be a
353 "universal IR" of sorts, by being at a low enough level that high-level ideas
354 may be cleanly mapped to it (similar to how microprocessors are "universal
355 IR's", allowing many source languages to be mapped to them). By providing
356 type information, LLVM can be used as the target of optimizations: for
357 example, through pointer analysis, it can be proven that a C automatic
358 variable is never accessed outside of the current function, allowing it to
359 be promoted to a simple SSA value instead of a memory location.</p>
361 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
363 <a name="wellformed">Well-Formedness</a>
368 <p>It is important to note that this document describes 'well formed' LLVM
369 assembly language. There is a difference between what the parser accepts and
370 what is considered 'well formed'. For example, the following instruction is
371 syntactically okay, but not well formed:</p>
373 <pre class="doc_code">
374 %x = <a href="#i_add">add</a> i32 1, %x
377 <p>because the definition of <tt>%x</tt> does not dominate all of its uses. The
378 LLVM infrastructure provides a verification pass that may be used to verify
379 that an LLVM module is well formed. This pass is automatically run by the
380 parser after parsing input assembly and by the optimizer before it outputs
381 bitcode. The violations pointed out by the verifier pass indicate bugs in
382 transformation passes or input to the parser.</p>
388 <!-- Describe the typesetting conventions here. -->
390 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
391 <h2><a name="identifiers">Identifiers</a></h2>
392 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
396 <p>LLVM identifiers come in two basic types: global and local. Global
397 identifiers (functions, global variables) begin with the <tt>'@'</tt>
398 character. Local identifiers (register names, types) begin with
399 the <tt>'%'</tt> character. Additionally, there are three different formats
400 for identifiers, for different purposes:</p>
403 <li>Named values are represented as a string of characters with their prefix.
404 For example, <tt>%foo</tt>, <tt>@DivisionByZero</tt>,
405 <tt>%a.really.long.identifier</tt>. The actual regular expression used is
406 '<tt>[%@][a-zA-Z$._][a-zA-Z$._0-9]*</tt>'. Identifiers which require
407 other characters in their names can be surrounded with quotes. Special
408 characters may be escaped using <tt>"\xx"</tt> where <tt>xx</tt> is the
409 ASCII code for the character in hexadecimal. In this way, any character
410 can be used in a name value, even quotes themselves.</li>
412 <li>Unnamed values are represented as an unsigned numeric value with their
413 prefix. For example, <tt>%12</tt>, <tt>@2</tt>, <tt>%44</tt>.</li>
415 <li>Constants, which are described in a <a href="#constants">section about
416 constants</a>, below.</li>
419 <p>LLVM requires that values start with a prefix for two reasons: Compilers
420 don't need to worry about name clashes with reserved words, and the set of
421 reserved words may be expanded in the future without penalty. Additionally,
422 unnamed identifiers allow a compiler to quickly come up with a temporary
423 variable without having to avoid symbol table conflicts.</p>
425 <p>Reserved words in LLVM are very similar to reserved words in other
426 languages. There are keywords for different opcodes
427 ('<tt><a href="#i_add">add</a></tt>',
428 '<tt><a href="#i_bitcast">bitcast</a></tt>',
429 '<tt><a href="#i_ret">ret</a></tt>', etc...), for primitive type names
430 ('<tt><a href="#t_void">void</a></tt>',
431 '<tt><a href="#t_primitive">i32</a></tt>', etc...), and others. These
432 reserved words cannot conflict with variable names, because none of them
433 start with a prefix character (<tt>'%'</tt> or <tt>'@'</tt>).</p>
435 <p>Here is an example of LLVM code to multiply the integer variable
436 '<tt>%X</tt>' by 8:</p>
440 <pre class="doc_code">
441 %result = <a href="#i_mul">mul</a> i32 %X, 8
444 <p>After strength reduction:</p>
446 <pre class="doc_code">
447 %result = <a href="#i_shl">shl</a> i32 %X, i8 3
450 <p>And the hard way:</p>
452 <pre class="doc_code">
453 %0 = <a href="#i_add">add</a> i32 %X, %X <i>; yields {i32}:%0</i>
454 %1 = <a href="#i_add">add</a> i32 %0, %0 <i>; yields {i32}:%1</i>
455 %result = <a href="#i_add">add</a> i32 %1, %1
458 <p>This last way of multiplying <tt>%X</tt> by 8 illustrates several important
459 lexical features of LLVM:</p>
462 <li>Comments are delimited with a '<tt>;</tt>' and go until the end of
465 <li>Unnamed temporaries are created when the result of a computation is not
466 assigned to a named value.</li>
468 <li>Unnamed temporaries are numbered sequentially</li>
471 <p>It also shows a convention that we follow in this document. When
472 demonstrating instructions, we will follow an instruction with a comment that
473 defines the type and name of value produced. Comments are shown in italic
478 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
479 <h2><a name="highlevel">High Level Structure</a></h2>
480 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
482 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
484 <a name="modulestructure">Module Structure</a>
489 <p>LLVM programs are composed of "Module"s, each of which is a translation unit
490 of the input programs. Each module consists of functions, global variables,
491 and symbol table entries. Modules may be combined together with the LLVM
492 linker, which merges function (and global variable) definitions, resolves
493 forward declarations, and merges symbol table entries. Here is an example of
494 the "hello world" module:</p>
496 <pre class="doc_code">
497 <i>; Declare the string constant as a global constant.</i>
498 <a href="#identifiers">@.LC0</a> = <a href="#linkage_internal">internal</a> <a href="#globalvars">constant</a> <a href="#t_array">[13 x i8]</a> c"hello world\0A\00" <i>; [13 x i8]*</i>
500 <i>; External declaration of the puts function</i>
501 <a href="#functionstructure">declare</a> i32 @puts(i8*) <i>; i32 (i8*)* </i>
503 <i>; Definition of main function</i>
504 define i32 @main() { <i>; i32()* </i>
505 <i>; Convert [13 x i8]* to i8 *...</i>
506 %cast210 = <a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a> [13 x i8]* @.LC0, i64 0, i64 0 <i>; i8*</i>
508 <i>; Call puts function to write out the string to stdout.</i>
509 <a href="#i_call">call</a> i32 @puts(i8* %cast210) <i>; i32</i>
510 <a href="#i_ret">ret</a> i32 0
513 <i>; Named metadata</i>
514 !1 = metadata !{i32 41}
518 <p>This example is made up of a <a href="#globalvars">global variable</a> named
519 "<tt>.LC0</tt>", an external declaration of the "<tt>puts</tt>" function,
520 a <a href="#functionstructure">function definition</a> for
521 "<tt>main</tt>" and <a href="#namedmetadatastructure">named metadata</a>
524 <p>In general, a module is made up of a list of global values, where both
525 functions and global variables are global values. Global values are
526 represented by a pointer to a memory location (in this case, a pointer to an
527 array of char, and a pointer to a function), and have one of the
528 following <a href="#linkage">linkage types</a>.</p>
532 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
534 <a name="linkage">Linkage Types</a>
539 <p>All Global Variables and Functions have one of the following types of
543 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_private">private</a></b></tt></dt>
544 <dd>Global values with "<tt>private</tt>" linkage are only directly accessible
545 by objects in the current module. In particular, linking code into a
546 module with an private global value may cause the private to be renamed as
547 necessary to avoid collisions. Because the symbol is private to the
548 module, all references can be updated. This doesn't show up in any symbol
549 table in the object file.</dd>
551 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_linker_private">linker_private</a></b></tt></dt>
552 <dd>Similar to <tt>private</tt>, but the symbol is passed through the
553 assembler and evaluated by the linker. Unlike normal strong symbols, they
554 are removed by the linker from the final linked image (executable or
555 dynamic library).</dd>
557 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_linker_private_weak">linker_private_weak</a></b></tt></dt>
558 <dd>Similar to "<tt>linker_private</tt>", but the symbol is weak. Note that
559 <tt>linker_private_weak</tt> symbols are subject to coalescing by the
560 linker. The symbols are removed by the linker from the final linked image
561 (executable or dynamic library).</dd>
563 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_linker_private_weak_def_auto">linker_private_weak_def_auto</a></b></tt></dt>
564 <dd>Similar to "<tt>linker_private_weak</tt>", but it's known that the address
565 of the object is not taken. For instance, functions that had an inline
566 definition, but the compiler decided not to inline it. Note,
567 unlike <tt>linker_private</tt> and <tt>linker_private_weak</tt>,
568 <tt>linker_private_weak_def_auto</tt> may have only <tt>default</tt>
569 visibility. The symbols are removed by the linker from the final linked
570 image (executable or dynamic library).</dd>
572 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_internal">internal</a></b></tt></dt>
573 <dd>Similar to private, but the value shows as a local symbol
574 (<tt>STB_LOCAL</tt> in the case of ELF) in the object file. This
575 corresponds to the notion of the '<tt>static</tt>' keyword in C.</dd>
577 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_available_externally">available_externally</a></b></tt></dt>
578 <dd>Globals with "<tt>available_externally</tt>" linkage are never emitted
579 into the object file corresponding to the LLVM module. They exist to
580 allow inlining and other optimizations to take place given knowledge of
581 the definition of the global, which is known to be somewhere outside the
582 module. Globals with <tt>available_externally</tt> linkage are allowed to
583 be discarded at will, and are otherwise the same as <tt>linkonce_odr</tt>.
584 This linkage type is only allowed on definitions, not declarations.</dd>
586 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_linkonce">linkonce</a></b></tt></dt>
587 <dd>Globals with "<tt>linkonce</tt>" linkage are merged with other globals of
588 the same name when linkage occurs. This can be used to implement
589 some forms of inline functions, templates, or other code which must be
590 generated in each translation unit that uses it, but where the body may
591 be overridden with a more definitive definition later. Unreferenced
592 <tt>linkonce</tt> globals are allowed to be discarded. Note that
593 <tt>linkonce</tt> linkage does not actually allow the optimizer to
594 inline the body of this function into callers because it doesn't know if
595 this definition of the function is the definitive definition within the
596 program or whether it will be overridden by a stronger definition.
597 To enable inlining and other optimizations, use "<tt>linkonce_odr</tt>"
600 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_weak">weak</a></b></tt></dt>
601 <dd>"<tt>weak</tt>" linkage has the same merging semantics as
602 <tt>linkonce</tt> linkage, except that unreferenced globals with
603 <tt>weak</tt> linkage may not be discarded. This is used for globals that
604 are declared "weak" in C source code.</dd>
606 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_common">common</a></b></tt></dt>
607 <dd>"<tt>common</tt>" linkage is most similar to "<tt>weak</tt>" linkage, but
608 they are used for tentative definitions in C, such as "<tt>int X;</tt>" at
610 Symbols with "<tt>common</tt>" linkage are merged in the same way as
611 <tt>weak symbols</tt>, and they may not be deleted if unreferenced.
612 <tt>common</tt> symbols may not have an explicit section,
613 must have a zero initializer, and may not be marked '<a
614 href="#globalvars"><tt>constant</tt></a>'. Functions and aliases may not
615 have common linkage.</dd>
618 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_appending">appending</a></b></tt></dt>
619 <dd>"<tt>appending</tt>" linkage may only be applied to global variables of
620 pointer to array type. When two global variables with appending linkage
621 are linked together, the two global arrays are appended together. This is
622 the LLVM, typesafe, equivalent of having the system linker append together
623 "sections" with identical names when .o files are linked.</dd>
625 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_externweak">extern_weak</a></b></tt></dt>
626 <dd>The semantics of this linkage follow the ELF object file model: the symbol
627 is weak until linked, if not linked, the symbol becomes null instead of
628 being an undefined reference.</dd>
630 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_linkonce_odr">linkonce_odr</a></b></tt></dt>
631 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_weak_odr">weak_odr</a></b></tt></dt>
632 <dd>Some languages allow differing globals to be merged, such as two functions
633 with different semantics. Other languages, such as <tt>C++</tt>, ensure
634 that only equivalent globals are ever merged (the "one definition rule"
635 — "ODR"). Such languages can use the <tt>linkonce_odr</tt>
636 and <tt>weak_odr</tt> linkage types to indicate that the global will only
637 be merged with equivalent globals. These linkage types are otherwise the
638 same as their non-<tt>odr</tt> versions.</dd>
640 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_external">external</a></b></tt></dt>
641 <dd>If none of the above identifiers are used, the global is externally
642 visible, meaning that it participates in linkage and can be used to
643 resolve external symbol references.</dd>
646 <p>The next two types of linkage are targeted for Microsoft Windows platform
647 only. They are designed to support importing (exporting) symbols from (to)
648 DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries).</p>
651 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_dllimport">dllimport</a></b></tt></dt>
652 <dd>"<tt>dllimport</tt>" linkage causes the compiler to reference a function
653 or variable via a global pointer to a pointer that is set up by the DLL
654 exporting the symbol. On Microsoft Windows targets, the pointer name is
655 formed by combining <code>__imp_</code> and the function or variable
658 <dt><tt><b><a name="linkage_dllexport">dllexport</a></b></tt></dt>
659 <dd>"<tt>dllexport</tt>" linkage causes the compiler to provide a global
660 pointer to a pointer in a DLL, so that it can be referenced with the
661 <tt>dllimport</tt> attribute. On Microsoft Windows targets, the pointer
662 name is formed by combining <code>__imp_</code> and the function or
666 <p>For example, since the "<tt>.LC0</tt>" variable is defined to be internal, if
667 another module defined a "<tt>.LC0</tt>" variable and was linked with this
668 one, one of the two would be renamed, preventing a collision. Since
669 "<tt>main</tt>" and "<tt>puts</tt>" are external (i.e., lacking any linkage
670 declarations), they are accessible outside of the current module.</p>
672 <p>It is illegal for a function <i>declaration</i> to have any linkage type
673 other than <tt>external</tt>, <tt>dllimport</tt>
674 or <tt>extern_weak</tt>.</p>
676 <p>Aliases can have only <tt>external</tt>, <tt>internal</tt>, <tt>weak</tt>
677 or <tt>weak_odr</tt> linkages.</p>
681 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
683 <a name="callingconv">Calling Conventions</a>
688 <p>LLVM <a href="#functionstructure">functions</a>, <a href="#i_call">calls</a>
689 and <a href="#i_invoke">invokes</a> can all have an optional calling
690 convention specified for the call. The calling convention of any pair of
691 dynamic caller/callee must match, or the behavior of the program is
692 undefined. The following calling conventions are supported by LLVM, and more
693 may be added in the future:</p>
696 <dt><b>"<tt>ccc</tt>" - The C calling convention</b>:</dt>
697 <dd>This calling convention (the default if no other calling convention is
698 specified) matches the target C calling conventions. This calling
699 convention supports varargs function calls and tolerates some mismatch in
700 the declared prototype and implemented declaration of the function (as
703 <dt><b>"<tt>fastcc</tt>" - The fast calling convention</b>:</dt>
704 <dd>This calling convention attempts to make calls as fast as possible
705 (e.g. by passing things in registers). This calling convention allows the
706 target to use whatever tricks it wants to produce fast code for the
707 target, without having to conform to an externally specified ABI
708 (Application Binary Interface).
709 <a href="CodeGenerator.html#tailcallopt">Tail calls can only be optimized
710 when this or the GHC convention is used.</a> This calling convention
711 does not support varargs and requires the prototype of all callees to
712 exactly match the prototype of the function definition.</dd>
714 <dt><b>"<tt>coldcc</tt>" - The cold calling convention</b>:</dt>
715 <dd>This calling convention attempts to make code in the caller as efficient
716 as possible under the assumption that the call is not commonly executed.
717 As such, these calls often preserve all registers so that the call does
718 not break any live ranges in the caller side. This calling convention
719 does not support varargs and requires the prototype of all callees to
720 exactly match the prototype of the function definition.</dd>
722 <dt><b>"<tt>cc <em>10</em></tt>" - GHC convention</b>:</dt>
723 <dd>This calling convention has been implemented specifically for use by the
724 <a href="http://www.haskell.org/ghc">Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC)</a>.
725 It passes everything in registers, going to extremes to achieve this by
726 disabling callee save registers. This calling convention should not be
727 used lightly but only for specific situations such as an alternative to
728 the <em>register pinning</em> performance technique often used when
729 implementing functional programming languages.At the moment only X86
730 supports this convention and it has the following limitations:
732 <li>On <em>X86-32</em> only supports up to 4 bit type parameters. No
733 floating point types are supported.</li>
734 <li>On <em>X86-64</em> only supports up to 10 bit type parameters and
735 6 floating point parameters.</li>
737 This calling convention supports
738 <a href="CodeGenerator.html#tailcallopt">tail call optimization</a> but
739 requires both the caller and callee are using it.
742 <dt><b>"<tt>cc <<em>n</em>></tt>" - Numbered convention</b>:</dt>
743 <dd>Any calling convention may be specified by number, allowing
744 target-specific calling conventions to be used. Target specific calling
745 conventions start at 64.</dd>
748 <p>More calling conventions can be added/defined on an as-needed basis, to
749 support Pascal conventions or any other well-known target-independent
754 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
756 <a name="visibility">Visibility Styles</a>
761 <p>All Global Variables and Functions have one of the following visibility
765 <dt><b>"<tt>default</tt>" - Default style</b>:</dt>
766 <dd>On targets that use the ELF object file format, default visibility means
767 that the declaration is visible to other modules and, in shared libraries,
768 means that the declared entity may be overridden. On Darwin, default
769 visibility means that the declaration is visible to other modules. Default
770 visibility corresponds to "external linkage" in the language.</dd>
772 <dt><b>"<tt>hidden</tt>" - Hidden style</b>:</dt>
773 <dd>Two declarations of an object with hidden visibility refer to the same
774 object if they are in the same shared object. Usually, hidden visibility
775 indicates that the symbol will not be placed into the dynamic symbol
776 table, so no other module (executable or shared library) can reference it
779 <dt><b>"<tt>protected</tt>" - Protected style</b>:</dt>
780 <dd>On ELF, protected visibility indicates that the symbol will be placed in
781 the dynamic symbol table, but that references within the defining module
782 will bind to the local symbol. That is, the symbol cannot be overridden by
788 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
790 <a name="namedtypes">Named Types</a>
795 <p>LLVM IR allows you to specify name aliases for certain types. This can make
796 it easier to read the IR and make the IR more condensed (particularly when
797 recursive types are involved). An example of a name specification is:</p>
799 <pre class="doc_code">
800 %mytype = type { %mytype*, i32 }
803 <p>You may give a name to any <a href="#typesystem">type</a> except
804 "<a href="#t_void">void</a>". Type name aliases may be used anywhere a type
805 is expected with the syntax "%mytype".</p>
807 <p>Note that type names are aliases for the structural type that they indicate,
808 and that you can therefore specify multiple names for the same type. This
809 often leads to confusing behavior when dumping out a .ll file. Since LLVM IR
810 uses structural typing, the name is not part of the type. When printing out
811 LLVM IR, the printer will pick <em>one name</em> to render all types of a
812 particular shape. This means that if you have code where two different
813 source types end up having the same LLVM type, that the dumper will sometimes
814 print the "wrong" or unexpected type. This is an important design point and
815 isn't going to change.</p>
819 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
821 <a name="globalvars">Global Variables</a>
826 <p>Global variables define regions of memory allocated at compilation time
827 instead of run-time. Global variables may optionally be initialized, may
828 have an explicit section to be placed in, and may have an optional explicit
829 alignment specified. A variable may be defined as "thread_local", which
830 means that it will not be shared by threads (each thread will have a
831 separated copy of the variable). A variable may be defined as a global
832 "constant," which indicates that the contents of the variable
833 will <b>never</b> be modified (enabling better optimization, allowing the
834 global data to be placed in the read-only section of an executable, etc).
835 Note that variables that need runtime initialization cannot be marked
836 "constant" as there is a store to the variable.</p>
838 <p>LLVM explicitly allows <em>declarations</em> of global variables to be marked
839 constant, even if the final definition of the global is not. This capability
840 can be used to enable slightly better optimization of the program, but
841 requires the language definition to guarantee that optimizations based on the
842 'constantness' are valid for the translation units that do not include the
845 <p>As SSA values, global variables define pointer values that are in scope
846 (i.e. they dominate) all basic blocks in the program. Global variables
847 always define a pointer to their "content" type because they describe a
848 region of memory, and all memory objects in LLVM are accessed through
851 <p>Global variables can be marked with <tt>unnamed_addr</tt> which indicates
852 that the address is not significant, only the content. Constants marked
853 like this can be merged with other constants if they have the same
854 initializer. Note that a constant with significant address <em>can</em>
855 be merged with a <tt>unnamed_addr</tt> constant, the result being a
856 constant whose address is significant.</p>
858 <p>A global variable may be declared to reside in a target-specific numbered
859 address space. For targets that support them, address spaces may affect how
860 optimizations are performed and/or what target instructions are used to
861 access the variable. The default address space is zero. The address space
862 qualifier must precede any other attributes.</p>
864 <p>LLVM allows an explicit section to be specified for globals. If the target
865 supports it, it will emit globals to the section specified.</p>
867 <p>An explicit alignment may be specified for a global, which must be a power
868 of 2. If not present, or if the alignment is set to zero, the alignment of
869 the global is set by the target to whatever it feels convenient. If an
870 explicit alignment is specified, the global is forced to have exactly that
871 alignment. Targets and optimizers are not allowed to over-align the global
872 if the global has an assigned section. In this case, the extra alignment
873 could be observable: for example, code could assume that the globals are
874 densely packed in their section and try to iterate over them as an array,
875 alignment padding would break this iteration.</p>
877 <p>For example, the following defines a global in a numbered address space with
878 an initializer, section, and alignment:</p>
880 <pre class="doc_code">
881 @G = addrspace(5) constant float 1.0, section "foo", align 4
887 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
889 <a name="functionstructure">Functions</a>
894 <p>LLVM function definitions consist of the "<tt>define</tt>" keyword, an
895 optional <a href="#linkage">linkage type</a>, an optional
896 <a href="#visibility">visibility style</a>, an optional
897 <a href="#callingconv">calling convention</a>,
898 an optional <tt>unnamed_addr</tt> attribute, a return type, an optional
899 <a href="#paramattrs">parameter attribute</a> for the return type, a function
900 name, a (possibly empty) argument list (each with optional
901 <a href="#paramattrs">parameter attributes</a>), optional
902 <a href="#fnattrs">function attributes</a>, an optional section, an optional
903 alignment, an optional <a href="#gc">garbage collector name</a>, an opening
904 curly brace, a list of basic blocks, and a closing curly brace.</p>
906 <p>LLVM function declarations consist of the "<tt>declare</tt>" keyword, an
907 optional <a href="#linkage">linkage type</a>, an optional
908 <a href="#visibility">visibility style</a>, an optional
909 <a href="#callingconv">calling convention</a>,
910 an optional <tt>unnamed_addr</tt> attribute, a return type, an optional
911 <a href="#paramattrs">parameter attribute</a> for the return type, a function
912 name, a possibly empty list of arguments, an optional alignment, and an
913 optional <a href="#gc">garbage collector name</a>.</p>
915 <p>A function definition contains a list of basic blocks, forming the CFG
916 (Control Flow Graph) for the function. Each basic block may optionally start
917 with a label (giving the basic block a symbol table entry), contains a list
918 of instructions, and ends with a <a href="#terminators">terminator</a>
919 instruction (such as a branch or function return).</p>
921 <p>The first basic block in a function is special in two ways: it is immediately
922 executed on entrance to the function, and it is not allowed to have
923 predecessor basic blocks (i.e. there can not be any branches to the entry
924 block of a function). Because the block can have no predecessors, it also
925 cannot have any <a href="#i_phi">PHI nodes</a>.</p>
927 <p>LLVM allows an explicit section to be specified for functions. If the target
928 supports it, it will emit functions to the section specified.</p>
930 <p>An explicit alignment may be specified for a function. If not present, or if
931 the alignment is set to zero, the alignment of the function is set by the
932 target to whatever it feels convenient. If an explicit alignment is
933 specified, the function is forced to have at least that much alignment. All
934 alignments must be a power of 2.</p>
936 <p>If the <tt>unnamed_addr</tt> attribute is given, the address is know to not
937 be significant and two identical functions can be merged.</p>
940 <pre class="doc_code">
941 define [<a href="#linkage">linkage</a>] [<a href="#visibility">visibility</a>]
942 [<a href="#callingconv">cconv</a>] [<a href="#paramattrs">ret attrs</a>]
943 <ResultType> @<FunctionName> ([argument list])
944 [<a href="#fnattrs">fn Attrs</a>] [section "name"] [align N]
945 [<a href="#gc">gc</a>] { ... }
950 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
952 <a name="aliasstructure">Aliases</a>
957 <p>Aliases act as "second name" for the aliasee value (which can be either
958 function, global variable, another alias or bitcast of global value). Aliases
959 may have an optional <a href="#linkage">linkage type</a>, and an
960 optional <a href="#visibility">visibility style</a>.</p>
963 <pre class="doc_code">
964 @<Name> = alias [Linkage] [Visibility] <AliaseeTy> @<Aliasee>
969 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
971 <a name="namedmetadatastructure">Named Metadata</a>
976 <p>Named metadata is a collection of metadata. <a href="#metadata">Metadata
977 nodes</a> (but not metadata strings) are the only valid operands for
978 a named metadata.</p>
981 <pre class="doc_code">
982 ; Some unnamed metadata nodes, which are referenced by the named metadata.
983 !0 = metadata !{metadata !"zero"}
984 !1 = metadata !{metadata !"one"}
985 !2 = metadata !{metadata !"two"}
987 !name = !{!0, !1, !2}
992 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
994 <a name="paramattrs">Parameter Attributes</a>
999 <p>The return type and each parameter of a function type may have a set of
1000 <i>parameter attributes</i> associated with them. Parameter attributes are
1001 used to communicate additional information about the result or parameters of
1002 a function. Parameter attributes are considered to be part of the function,
1003 not of the function type, so functions with different parameter attributes
1004 can have the same function type.</p>
1006 <p>Parameter attributes are simple keywords that follow the type specified. If
1007 multiple parameter attributes are needed, they are space separated. For
1010 <pre class="doc_code">
1011 declare i32 @printf(i8* noalias nocapture, ...)
1012 declare i32 @atoi(i8 zeroext)
1013 declare signext i8 @returns_signed_char()
1016 <p>Note that any attributes for the function result (<tt>nounwind</tt>,
1017 <tt>readonly</tt>) come immediately after the argument list.</p>
1019 <p>Currently, only the following parameter attributes are defined:</p>
1022 <dt><tt><b>zeroext</b></tt></dt>
1023 <dd>This indicates to the code generator that the parameter or return value
1024 should be zero-extended to the extent required by the target's ABI (which
1025 is usually 32-bits, but is 8-bits for a i1 on x86-64) by the caller (for a
1026 parameter) or the callee (for a return value).</dd>
1028 <dt><tt><b>signext</b></tt></dt>
1029 <dd>This indicates to the code generator that the parameter or return value
1030 should be sign-extended to the extent required by the target's ABI (which
1031 is usually 32-bits) by the caller (for a parameter) or the callee (for a
1034 <dt><tt><b>inreg</b></tt></dt>
1035 <dd>This indicates that this parameter or return value should be treated in a
1036 special target-dependent fashion during while emitting code for a function
1037 call or return (usually, by putting it in a register as opposed to memory,
1038 though some targets use it to distinguish between two different kinds of
1039 registers). Use of this attribute is target-specific.</dd>
1041 <dt><tt><b><a name="byval">byval</a></b></tt></dt>
1042 <dd><p>This indicates that the pointer parameter should really be passed by
1043 value to the function. The attribute implies that a hidden copy of the
1045 is made between the caller and the callee, so the callee is unable to
1046 modify the value in the callee. This attribute is only valid on LLVM
1047 pointer arguments. It is generally used to pass structs and arrays by
1048 value, but is also valid on pointers to scalars. The copy is considered
1049 to belong to the caller not the callee (for example,
1050 <tt><a href="#readonly">readonly</a></tt> functions should not write to
1051 <tt>byval</tt> parameters). This is not a valid attribute for return
1054 <p>The byval attribute also supports specifying an alignment with
1055 the align attribute. It indicates the alignment of the stack slot to
1056 form and the known alignment of the pointer specified to the call site. If
1057 the alignment is not specified, then the code generator makes a
1058 target-specific assumption.</p></dd>
1060 <dt><tt><b><a name="sret">sret</a></b></tt></dt>
1061 <dd>This indicates that the pointer parameter specifies the address of a
1062 structure that is the return value of the function in the source program.
1063 This pointer must be guaranteed by the caller to be valid: loads and
1064 stores to the structure may be assumed by the callee to not to trap. This
1065 may only be applied to the first parameter. This is not a valid attribute
1066 for return values. </dd>
1068 <dt><tt><b><a name="noalias">noalias</a></b></tt></dt>
1069 <dd>This indicates that pointer values
1070 <a href="#pointeraliasing"><i>based</i></a> on the argument or return
1071 value do not alias pointer values which are not <i>based</i> on it,
1072 ignoring certain "irrelevant" dependencies.
1073 For a call to the parent function, dependencies between memory
1074 references from before or after the call and from those during the call
1075 are "irrelevant" to the <tt>noalias</tt> keyword for the arguments and
1076 return value used in that call.
1077 The caller shares the responsibility with the callee for ensuring that
1078 these requirements are met.
1079 For further details, please see the discussion of the NoAlias response in
1080 <a href="AliasAnalysis.html#MustMayNo">alias analysis</a>.<br>
1082 Note that this definition of <tt>noalias</tt> is intentionally
1083 similar to the definition of <tt>restrict</tt> in C99 for function
1084 arguments, though it is slightly weaker.
1086 For function return values, C99's <tt>restrict</tt> is not meaningful,
1087 while LLVM's <tt>noalias</tt> is.
1090 <dt><tt><b><a name="nocapture">nocapture</a></b></tt></dt>
1091 <dd>This indicates that the callee does not make any copies of the pointer
1092 that outlive the callee itself. This is not a valid attribute for return
1095 <dt><tt><b><a name="nest">nest</a></b></tt></dt>
1096 <dd>This indicates that the pointer parameter can be excised using the
1097 <a href="#int_trampoline">trampoline intrinsics</a>. This is not a valid
1098 attribute for return values.</dd>
1103 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1105 <a name="gc">Garbage Collector Names</a>
1110 <p>Each function may specify a garbage collector name, which is simply a
1113 <pre class="doc_code">
1114 define void @f() gc "name" { ... }
1117 <p>The compiler declares the supported values of <i>name</i>. Specifying a
1118 collector which will cause the compiler to alter its output in order to
1119 support the named garbage collection algorithm.</p>
1123 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1125 <a name="fnattrs">Function Attributes</a>
1130 <p>Function attributes are set to communicate additional information about a
1131 function. Function attributes are considered to be part of the function, not
1132 of the function type, so functions with different parameter attributes can
1133 have the same function type.</p>
1135 <p>Function attributes are simple keywords that follow the type specified. If
1136 multiple attributes are needed, they are space separated. For example:</p>
1138 <pre class="doc_code">
1139 define void @f() noinline { ... }
1140 define void @f() alwaysinline { ... }
1141 define void @f() alwaysinline optsize { ... }
1142 define void @f() optsize { ... }
1146 <dt><tt><b>alignstack(<<em>n</em>>)</b></tt></dt>
1147 <dd>This attribute indicates that, when emitting the prologue and epilogue,
1148 the backend should forcibly align the stack pointer. Specify the
1149 desired alignment, which must be a power of two, in parentheses.
1151 <dt><tt><b>alwaysinline</b></tt></dt>
1152 <dd>This attribute indicates that the inliner should attempt to inline this
1153 function into callers whenever possible, ignoring any active inlining size
1154 threshold for this caller.</dd>
1156 <dt><tt><b>nonlazybind</b></tt></dt>
1157 <dd>This attribute suppresses lazy symbol binding for the function. This
1158 may make calls to the function faster, at the cost of extra program
1159 startup time if the function is not called during program startup.</dd>
1161 <dt><tt><b>inlinehint</b></tt></dt>
1162 <dd>This attribute indicates that the source code contained a hint that inlining
1163 this function is desirable (such as the "inline" keyword in C/C++). It
1164 is just a hint; it imposes no requirements on the inliner.</dd>
1166 <dt><tt><b>naked</b></tt></dt>
1167 <dd>This attribute disables prologue / epilogue emission for the function.
1168 This can have very system-specific consequences.</dd>
1170 <dt><tt><b>noimplicitfloat</b></tt></dt>
1171 <dd>This attributes disables implicit floating point instructions.</dd>
1173 <dt><tt><b>noinline</b></tt></dt>
1174 <dd>This attribute indicates that the inliner should never inline this
1175 function in any situation. This attribute may not be used together with
1176 the <tt>alwaysinline</tt> attribute.</dd>
1178 <dt><tt><b>noredzone</b></tt></dt>
1179 <dd>This attribute indicates that the code generator should not use a red
1180 zone, even if the target-specific ABI normally permits it.</dd>
1182 <dt><tt><b>noreturn</b></tt></dt>
1183 <dd>This function attribute indicates that the function never returns
1184 normally. This produces undefined behavior at runtime if the function
1185 ever does dynamically return.</dd>
1187 <dt><tt><b>nounwind</b></tt></dt>
1188 <dd>This function attribute indicates that the function never returns with an
1189 unwind or exceptional control flow. If the function does unwind, its
1190 runtime behavior is undefined.</dd>
1192 <dt><tt><b>optsize</b></tt></dt>
1193 <dd>This attribute suggests that optimization passes and code generator passes
1194 make choices that keep the code size of this function low, and otherwise
1195 do optimizations specifically to reduce code size.</dd>
1197 <dt><tt><b>readnone</b></tt></dt>
1198 <dd>This attribute indicates that the function computes its result (or decides
1199 to unwind an exception) based strictly on its arguments, without
1200 dereferencing any pointer arguments or otherwise accessing any mutable
1201 state (e.g. memory, control registers, etc) visible to caller functions.
1202 It does not write through any pointer arguments
1203 (including <tt><a href="#byval">byval</a></tt> arguments) and never
1204 changes any state visible to callers. This means that it cannot unwind
1205 exceptions by calling the <tt>C++</tt> exception throwing methods, but
1206 could use the <tt>unwind</tt> instruction.</dd>
1208 <dt><tt><b><a name="readonly">readonly</a></b></tt></dt>
1209 <dd>This attribute indicates that the function does not write through any
1210 pointer arguments (including <tt><a href="#byval">byval</a></tt>
1211 arguments) or otherwise modify any state (e.g. memory, control registers,
1212 etc) visible to caller functions. It may dereference pointer arguments
1213 and read state that may be set in the caller. A readonly function always
1214 returns the same value (or unwinds an exception identically) when called
1215 with the same set of arguments and global state. It cannot unwind an
1216 exception by calling the <tt>C++</tt> exception throwing methods, but may
1217 use the <tt>unwind</tt> instruction.</dd>
1219 <dt><tt><b><a name="ssp">ssp</a></b></tt></dt>
1220 <dd>This attribute indicates that the function should emit a stack smashing
1221 protector. It is in the form of a "canary"—a random value placed on
1222 the stack before the local variables that's checked upon return from the
1223 function to see if it has been overwritten. A heuristic is used to
1224 determine if a function needs stack protectors or not.<br>
1226 If a function that has an <tt>ssp</tt> attribute is inlined into a
1227 function that doesn't have an <tt>ssp</tt> attribute, then the resulting
1228 function will have an <tt>ssp</tt> attribute.</dd>
1230 <dt><tt><b>sspreq</b></tt></dt>
1231 <dd>This attribute indicates that the function should <em>always</em> emit a
1232 stack smashing protector. This overrides
1233 the <tt><a href="#ssp">ssp</a></tt> function attribute.<br>
1235 If a function that has an <tt>sspreq</tt> attribute is inlined into a
1236 function that doesn't have an <tt>sspreq</tt> attribute or which has
1237 an <tt>ssp</tt> attribute, then the resulting function will have
1238 an <tt>sspreq</tt> attribute.</dd>
1240 <dt><tt><b><a name="uwtable">uwtable</a></b></tt></dt>
1241 <dd>This attribute indicates that the ABI being targeted requires that
1242 an unwind table entry be produce for this function even if we can
1243 show that no exceptions passes by it. This is normally the case for
1244 the ELF x86-64 abi, but it can be disabled for some compilation
1247 <dt><tt><b><a name="returns_twice">returns_twice</a></b></tt></dt>
1248 <dd>This attribute indicates that this function can return
1249 twice. The C <code>setjmp</code> is an example of such a function.
1250 The compiler disables some optimizations (like tail calls) in the caller of
1251 these functions.</dd>
1256 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1258 <a name="moduleasm">Module-Level Inline Assembly</a>
1263 <p>Modules may contain "module-level inline asm" blocks, which corresponds to
1264 the GCC "file scope inline asm" blocks. These blocks are internally
1265 concatenated by LLVM and treated as a single unit, but may be separated in
1266 the <tt>.ll</tt> file if desired. The syntax is very simple:</p>
1268 <pre class="doc_code">
1269 module asm "inline asm code goes here"
1270 module asm "more can go here"
1273 <p>The strings can contain any character by escaping non-printable characters.
1274 The escape sequence used is simply "\xx" where "xx" is the two digit hex code
1277 <p>The inline asm code is simply printed to the machine code .s file when
1278 assembly code is generated.</p>
1282 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1284 <a name="datalayout">Data Layout</a>
1289 <p>A module may specify a target specific data layout string that specifies how
1290 data is to be laid out in memory. The syntax for the data layout is
1293 <pre class="doc_code">
1294 target datalayout = "<i>layout specification</i>"
1297 <p>The <i>layout specification</i> consists of a list of specifications
1298 separated by the minus sign character ('-'). Each specification starts with
1299 a letter and may include other information after the letter to define some
1300 aspect of the data layout. The specifications accepted are as follows:</p>
1304 <dd>Specifies that the target lays out data in big-endian form. That is, the
1305 bits with the most significance have the lowest address location.</dd>
1308 <dd>Specifies that the target lays out data in little-endian form. That is,
1309 the bits with the least significance have the lowest address
1312 <dt><tt>S<i>size</i></tt></dt>
1313 <dd>Specifies the natural alignment of the stack in bits. Alignment promotion
1314 of stack variables is limited to the natural stack alignment to avoid
1315 dynamic stack realignment. The stack alignment must be a multiple of
1316 8-bits. If omitted, the natural stack alignment defaults to "unspecified",
1317 which does not prevent any alignment promotions.</dd>
1319 <dt><tt>p:<i>size</i>:<i>abi</i>:<i>pref</i></tt></dt>
1320 <dd>This specifies the <i>size</i> of a pointer and its <i>abi</i> and
1321 <i>preferred</i> alignments. All sizes are in bits. Specifying
1322 the <i>pref</i> alignment is optional. If omitted, the
1323 preceding <tt>:</tt> should be omitted too.</dd>
1325 <dt><tt>i<i>size</i>:<i>abi</i>:<i>pref</i></tt></dt>
1326 <dd>This specifies the alignment for an integer type of a given bit
1327 <i>size</i>. The value of <i>size</i> must be in the range [1,2^23).</dd>
1329 <dt><tt>v<i>size</i>:<i>abi</i>:<i>pref</i></tt></dt>
1330 <dd>This specifies the alignment for a vector type of a given bit
1333 <dt><tt>f<i>size</i>:<i>abi</i>:<i>pref</i></tt></dt>
1334 <dd>This specifies the alignment for a floating point type of a given bit
1335 <i>size</i>. Only values of <i>size</i> that are supported by the target
1336 will work. 32 (float) and 64 (double) are supported on all targets;
1337 80 or 128 (different flavors of long double) are also supported on some
1340 <dt><tt>a<i>size</i>:<i>abi</i>:<i>pref</i></tt></dt>
1341 <dd>This specifies the alignment for an aggregate type of a given bit
1344 <dt><tt>s<i>size</i>:<i>abi</i>:<i>pref</i></tt></dt>
1345 <dd>This specifies the alignment for a stack object of a given bit
1348 <dt><tt>n<i>size1</i>:<i>size2</i>:<i>size3</i>...</tt></dt>
1349 <dd>This specifies a set of native integer widths for the target CPU
1350 in bits. For example, it might contain "n32" for 32-bit PowerPC,
1351 "n32:64" for PowerPC 64, or "n8:16:32:64" for X86-64. Elements of
1352 this set are considered to support most general arithmetic
1353 operations efficiently.</dd>
1356 <p>When constructing the data layout for a given target, LLVM starts with a
1357 default set of specifications which are then (possibly) overridden by the
1358 specifications in the <tt>datalayout</tt> keyword. The default specifications
1359 are given in this list:</p>
1362 <li><tt>E</tt> - big endian</li>
1363 <li><tt>p:64:64:64</tt> - 64-bit pointers with 64-bit alignment</li>
1364 <li><tt>i1:8:8</tt> - i1 is 8-bit (byte) aligned</li>
1365 <li><tt>i8:8:8</tt> - i8 is 8-bit (byte) aligned</li>
1366 <li><tt>i16:16:16</tt> - i16 is 16-bit aligned</li>
1367 <li><tt>i32:32:32</tt> - i32 is 32-bit aligned</li>
1368 <li><tt>i64:32:64</tt> - i64 has ABI alignment of 32-bits but preferred
1369 alignment of 64-bits</li>
1370 <li><tt>f32:32:32</tt> - float is 32-bit aligned</li>
1371 <li><tt>f64:64:64</tt> - double is 64-bit aligned</li>
1372 <li><tt>v64:64:64</tt> - 64-bit vector is 64-bit aligned</li>
1373 <li><tt>v128:128:128</tt> - 128-bit vector is 128-bit aligned</li>
1374 <li><tt>a0:0:1</tt> - aggregates are 8-bit aligned</li>
1375 <li><tt>s0:64:64</tt> - stack objects are 64-bit aligned</li>
1378 <p>When LLVM is determining the alignment for a given type, it uses the
1379 following rules:</p>
1382 <li>If the type sought is an exact match for one of the specifications, that
1383 specification is used.</li>
1385 <li>If no match is found, and the type sought is an integer type, then the
1386 smallest integer type that is larger than the bitwidth of the sought type
1387 is used. If none of the specifications are larger than the bitwidth then
1388 the the largest integer type is used. For example, given the default
1389 specifications above, the i7 type will use the alignment of i8 (next
1390 largest) while both i65 and i256 will use the alignment of i64 (largest
1393 <li>If no match is found, and the type sought is a vector type, then the
1394 largest vector type that is smaller than the sought vector type will be
1395 used as a fall back. This happens because <128 x double> can be
1396 implemented in terms of 64 <2 x double>, for example.</li>
1399 <p>The function of the data layout string may not be what you expect. Notably,
1400 this is not a specification from the frontend of what alignment the code
1401 generator should use.</p>
1403 <p>Instead, if specified, the target data layout is required to match what the
1404 ultimate <em>code generator</em> expects. This string is used by the
1405 mid-level optimizers to
1406 improve code, and this only works if it matches what the ultimate code
1407 generator uses. If you would like to generate IR that does not embed this
1408 target-specific detail into the IR, then you don't have to specify the
1409 string. This will disable some optimizations that require precise layout
1410 information, but this also prevents those optimizations from introducing
1411 target specificity into the IR.</p>
1417 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1419 <a name="pointeraliasing">Pointer Aliasing Rules</a>
1424 <p>Any memory access must be done through a pointer value associated
1425 with an address range of the memory access, otherwise the behavior
1426 is undefined. Pointer values are associated with address ranges
1427 according to the following rules:</p>
1430 <li>A pointer value is associated with the addresses associated with
1431 any value it is <i>based</i> on.
1432 <li>An address of a global variable is associated with the address
1433 range of the variable's storage.</li>
1434 <li>The result value of an allocation instruction is associated with
1435 the address range of the allocated storage.</li>
1436 <li>A null pointer in the default address-space is associated with
1438 <li>An integer constant other than zero or a pointer value returned
1439 from a function not defined within LLVM may be associated with address
1440 ranges allocated through mechanisms other than those provided by
1441 LLVM. Such ranges shall not overlap with any ranges of addresses
1442 allocated by mechanisms provided by LLVM.</li>
1445 <p>A pointer value is <i>based</i> on another pointer value according
1446 to the following rules:</p>
1449 <li>A pointer value formed from a
1450 <tt><a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a></tt> operation
1451 is <i>based</i> on the first operand of the <tt>getelementptr</tt>.</li>
1452 <li>The result value of a
1453 <tt><a href="#i_bitcast">bitcast</a></tt> is <i>based</i> on the operand
1454 of the <tt>bitcast</tt>.</li>
1455 <li>A pointer value formed by an
1456 <tt><a href="#i_inttoptr">inttoptr</a></tt> is <i>based</i> on all
1457 pointer values that contribute (directly or indirectly) to the
1458 computation of the pointer's value.</li>
1459 <li>The "<i>based</i> on" relationship is transitive.</li>
1462 <p>Note that this definition of <i>"based"</i> is intentionally
1463 similar to the definition of <i>"based"</i> in C99, though it is
1464 slightly weaker.</p>
1466 <p>LLVM IR does not associate types with memory. The result type of a
1467 <tt><a href="#i_load">load</a></tt> merely indicates the size and
1468 alignment of the memory from which to load, as well as the
1469 interpretation of the value. The first operand type of a
1470 <tt><a href="#i_store">store</a></tt> similarly only indicates the size
1471 and alignment of the store.</p>
1473 <p>Consequently, type-based alias analysis, aka TBAA, aka
1474 <tt>-fstrict-aliasing</tt>, is not applicable to general unadorned
1475 LLVM IR. <a href="#metadata">Metadata</a> may be used to encode
1476 additional information which specialized optimization passes may use
1477 to implement type-based alias analysis.</p>
1481 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1483 <a name="volatile">Volatile Memory Accesses</a>
1488 <p>Certain memory accesses, such as <a href="#i_load"><tt>load</tt></a>s, <a
1489 href="#i_store"><tt>store</tt></a>s, and <a
1490 href="#int_memcpy"><tt>llvm.memcpy</tt></a>s may be marked <tt>volatile</tt>.
1491 The optimizers must not change the number of volatile operations or change their
1492 order of execution relative to other volatile operations. The optimizers
1493 <i>may</i> change the order of volatile operations relative to non-volatile
1494 operations. This is not Java's "volatile" and has no cross-thread
1495 synchronization behavior.</p>
1499 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1501 <a name="memmodel">Memory Model for Concurrent Operations</a>
1506 <p>The LLVM IR does not define any way to start parallel threads of execution
1507 or to register signal handlers. Nonetheless, there are platform-specific
1508 ways to create them, and we define LLVM IR's behavior in their presence. This
1509 model is inspired by the C++0x memory model.</p>
1511 <p>For a more informal introduction to this model, see the
1512 <a href="Atomics.html">LLVM Atomic Instructions and Concurrency Guide</a>.
1514 <p>We define a <i>happens-before</i> partial order as the least partial order
1517 <li>Is a superset of single-thread program order, and</li>
1518 <li>When a <i>synchronizes-with</i> <tt>b</tt>, includes an edge from
1519 <tt>a</tt> to <tt>b</tt>. <i>Synchronizes-with</i> pairs are introduced
1520 by platform-specific techniques, like pthread locks, thread
1521 creation, thread joining, etc., and by atomic instructions.
1522 (See also <a href="#ordering">Atomic Memory Ordering Constraints</a>).
1526 <p>Note that program order does not introduce <i>happens-before</i> edges
1527 between a thread and signals executing inside that thread.</p>
1529 <p>Every (defined) read operation (load instructions, memcpy, atomic
1530 loads/read-modify-writes, etc.) <var>R</var> reads a series of bytes written by
1531 (defined) write operations (store instructions, atomic
1532 stores/read-modify-writes, memcpy, etc.). For the purposes of this section,
1533 initialized globals are considered to have a write of the initializer which is
1534 atomic and happens before any other read or write of the memory in question.
1535 For each byte of a read <var>R</var>, <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> may see
1536 any write to the same byte, except:</p>
1539 <li>If <var>write<sub>1</sub></var> happens before
1540 <var>write<sub>2</sub></var>, and <var>write<sub>2</sub></var> happens
1541 before <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var>, then <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var>
1542 does not see <var>write<sub>1</sub></var>.
1543 <li>If <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> happens before
1544 <var>write<sub>3</sub></var>, then <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> does not
1545 see <var>write<sub>3</sub></var>.
1548 <p>Given that definition, <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> is defined as follows:
1550 <li>If <var>R</var> is volatile, the result is target-dependent. (Volatile
1551 is supposed to give guarantees which can support
1552 <code>sig_atomic_t</code> in C/C++, and may be used for accesses to
1553 addresses which do not behave like normal memory. It does not generally
1554 provide cross-thread synchronization.)
1555 <li>Otherwise, if there is no write to the same byte that happens before
1556 <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var>, <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> returns
1557 <tt>undef</tt> for that byte.
1558 <li>Otherwise, if <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> may see exactly one write,
1559 <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> returns the value written by that
1561 <li>Otherwise, if <var>R</var> is atomic, and all the writes
1562 <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> may see are atomic, it chooses one of the
1563 values written. See the <a href="#ordering">Atomic Memory Ordering
1564 Constraints</a> section for additional constraints on how the choice
1566 <li>Otherwise <var>R<sub>byte</sub></var> returns <tt>undef</tt>.</li>
1569 <p><var>R</var> returns the value composed of the series of bytes it read.
1570 This implies that some bytes within the value may be <tt>undef</tt>
1571 <b>without</b> the entire value being <tt>undef</tt>. Note that this only
1572 defines the semantics of the operation; it doesn't mean that targets will
1573 emit more than one instruction to read the series of bytes.</p>
1575 <p>Note that in cases where none of the atomic intrinsics are used, this model
1576 places only one restriction on IR transformations on top of what is required
1577 for single-threaded execution: introducing a store to a byte which might not
1578 otherwise be stored is not allowed in general. (Specifically, in the case
1579 where another thread might write to and read from an address, introducing a
1580 store can change a load that may see exactly one write into a load that may
1581 see multiple writes.)</p>
1583 <!-- FIXME: This model assumes all targets where concurrency is relevant have
1584 a byte-size store which doesn't affect adjacent bytes. As far as I can tell,
1585 none of the backends currently in the tree fall into this category; however,
1586 there might be targets which care. If there are, we want a paragraph
1589 Targets may specify that stores narrower than a certain width are not
1590 available; on such a target, for the purposes of this model, treat any
1591 non-atomic write with an alignment or width less than the minimum width
1592 as if it writes to the relevant surrounding bytes.
1597 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1599 <a name="ordering">Atomic Memory Ordering Constraints</a>
1604 <p>Atomic instructions (<a href="#i_cmpxchg"><code>cmpxchg</code></a>,
1605 <a href="#i_atomicrmw"><code>atomicrmw</code></a>,
1606 <a href="#i_fence"><code>fence</code></a>,
1607 <a href="#i_load"><code>atomic load</code></a>, and
1608 <a href="#i_store"><code>atomic store</code></a>) take an ordering parameter
1609 that determines which other atomic instructions on the same address they
1610 <i>synchronize with</i>. These semantics are borrowed from Java and C++0x,
1611 but are somewhat more colloquial. If these descriptions aren't precise enough,
1612 check those specs (see spec references in the
1613 <a href="Atomic.html#introduction">atomics guide</a>).
1614 <a href="#i_fence"><code>fence</code></a> instructions
1615 treat these orderings somewhat differently since they don't take an address.
1616 See that instruction's documentation for details.</p>
1618 <p>For a simpler introduction to the ordering constraints, see the
1619 <a href="Atomics.html">LLVM Atomic Instructions and Concurrency Guide</a>.</p>
1622 <dt><code>unordered</code></dt>
1623 <dd>The set of values that can be read is governed by the happens-before
1624 partial order. A value cannot be read unless some operation wrote it.
1625 This is intended to provide a guarantee strong enough to model Java's
1626 non-volatile shared variables. This ordering cannot be specified for
1627 read-modify-write operations; it is not strong enough to make them atomic
1628 in any interesting way.</dd>
1629 <dt><code>monotonic</code></dt>
1630 <dd>In addition to the guarantees of <code>unordered</code>, there is a single
1631 total order for modifications by <code>monotonic</code> operations on each
1632 address. All modification orders must be compatible with the happens-before
1633 order. There is no guarantee that the modification orders can be combined to
1634 a global total order for the whole program (and this often will not be
1635 possible). The read in an atomic read-modify-write operation
1636 (<a href="#i_cmpxchg"><code>cmpxchg</code></a> and
1637 <a href="#i_atomicrmw"><code>atomicrmw</code></a>)
1638 reads the value in the modification order immediately before the value it
1639 writes. If one atomic read happens before another atomic read of the same
1640 address, the later read must see the same value or a later value in the
1641 address's modification order. This disallows reordering of
1642 <code>monotonic</code> (or stronger) operations on the same address. If an
1643 address is written <code>monotonic</code>ally by one thread, and other threads
1644 <code>monotonic</code>ally read that address repeatedly, the other threads must
1645 eventually see the write. This corresponds to the C++0x/C1x
1646 <code>memory_order_relaxed</code>.</dd>
1647 <dt><code>acquire</code></dt>
1648 <dd>In addition to the guarantees of <code>monotonic</code>,
1649 a <i>synchronizes-with</i> edge may be formed with a <code>release</code>
1650 operation. This is intended to model C++'s <code>memory_order_acquire</code>.</dd>
1651 <dt><code>release</code></dt>
1652 <dd>In addition to the guarantees of <code>monotonic</code>, if this operation
1653 writes a value which is subsequently read by an <code>acquire</code> operation,
1654 it <i>synchronizes-with</i> that operation. (This isn't a complete
1655 description; see the C++0x definition of a release sequence.) This corresponds
1656 to the C++0x/C1x <code>memory_order_release</code>.</dd>
1657 <dt><code>acq_rel</code> (acquire+release)</dt><dd>Acts as both an
1658 <code>acquire</code> and <code>release</code> operation on its address.
1659 This corresponds to the C++0x/C1x <code>memory_order_acq_rel</code>.</dd>
1660 <dt><code>seq_cst</code> (sequentially consistent)</dt><dd>
1661 <dd>In addition to the guarantees of <code>acq_rel</code>
1662 (<code>acquire</code> for an operation which only reads, <code>release</code>
1663 for an operation which only writes), there is a global total order on all
1664 sequentially-consistent operations on all addresses, which is consistent with
1665 the <i>happens-before</i> partial order and with the modification orders of
1666 all the affected addresses. Each sequentially-consistent read sees the last
1667 preceding write to the same address in this global order. This corresponds
1668 to the C++0x/C1x <code>memory_order_seq_cst</code> and Java volatile.</dd>
1671 <p id="singlethread">If an atomic operation is marked <code>singlethread</code>,
1672 it only <i>synchronizes with</i> or participates in modification and seq_cst
1673 total orderings with other operations running in the same thread (for example,
1674 in signal handlers).</p>
1680 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1681 <h2><a name="typesystem">Type System</a></h2>
1682 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
1686 <p>The LLVM type system is one of the most important features of the
1687 intermediate representation. Being typed enables a number of optimizations
1688 to be performed on the intermediate representation directly, without having
1689 to do extra analyses on the side before the transformation. A strong type
1690 system makes it easier to read the generated code and enables novel analyses
1691 and transformations that are not feasible to perform on normal three address
1692 code representations.</p>
1694 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1696 <a name="t_classifications">Type Classifications</a>
1701 <p>The types fall into a few useful classifications:</p>
1703 <table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
1705 <tr><th>Classification</th><th>Types</th></tr>
1707 <td><a href="#t_integer">integer</a></td>
1708 <td><tt>i1, i2, i3, ... i8, ... i16, ... i32, ... i64, ... </tt></td>
1711 <td><a href="#t_floating">floating point</a></td>
1712 <td><tt>float, double, x86_fp80, fp128, ppc_fp128</tt></td>
1715 <td><a name="t_firstclass">first class</a></td>
1716 <td><a href="#t_integer">integer</a>,
1717 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a>,
1718 <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a>,
1719 <a href="#t_vector">vector</a>,
1720 <a href="#t_struct">structure</a>,
1721 <a href="#t_array">array</a>,
1722 <a href="#t_label">label</a>,
1723 <a href="#t_metadata">metadata</a>.
1727 <td><a href="#t_primitive">primitive</a></td>
1728 <td><a href="#t_label">label</a>,
1729 <a href="#t_void">void</a>,
1730 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a>,
1731 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a>,
1732 <a href="#t_x86mmx">x86mmx</a>,
1733 <a href="#t_metadata">metadata</a>.</td>
1736 <td><a href="#t_derived">derived</a></td>
1737 <td><a href="#t_array">array</a>,
1738 <a href="#t_function">function</a>,
1739 <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a>,
1740 <a href="#t_struct">structure</a>,
1741 <a href="#t_vector">vector</a>,
1742 <a href="#t_opaque">opaque</a>.
1748 <p>The <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> types are perhaps the most
1749 important. Values of these types are the only ones which can be produced by
1754 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1756 <a name="t_primitive">Primitive Types</a>
1761 <p>The primitive types are the fundamental building blocks of the LLVM
1764 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1766 <a name="t_integer">Integer Type</a>
1772 <p>The integer type is a very simple type that simply specifies an arbitrary
1773 bit width for the integer type desired. Any bit width from 1 bit to
1774 2<sup>23</sup>-1 (about 8 million) can be specified.</p>
1781 <p>The number of bits the integer will occupy is specified by the <tt>N</tt>
1785 <table class="layout">
1787 <td class="left"><tt>i1</tt></td>
1788 <td class="left">a single-bit integer.</td>
1791 <td class="left"><tt>i32</tt></td>
1792 <td class="left">a 32-bit integer.</td>
1795 <td class="left"><tt>i1942652</tt></td>
1796 <td class="left">a really big integer of over 1 million bits.</td>
1802 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1804 <a name="t_floating">Floating Point Types</a>
1811 <tr><th>Type</th><th>Description</th></tr>
1812 <tr><td><tt>float</tt></td><td>32-bit floating point value</td></tr>
1813 <tr><td><tt>double</tt></td><td>64-bit floating point value</td></tr>
1814 <tr><td><tt>fp128</tt></td><td>128-bit floating point value (112-bit mantissa)</td></tr>
1815 <tr><td><tt>x86_fp80</tt></td><td>80-bit floating point value (X87)</td></tr>
1816 <tr><td><tt>ppc_fp128</tt></td><td>128-bit floating point value (two 64-bits)</td></tr>
1822 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1824 <a name="t_x86mmx">X86mmx Type</a>
1830 <p>The x86mmx type represents a value held in an MMX register on an x86 machine. The operations allowed on it are quite limited: parameters and return values, load and store, and bitcast. User-specified MMX instructions are represented as intrinsic or asm calls with arguments and/or results of this type. There are no arrays, vectors or constants of this type.</p>
1839 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1841 <a name="t_void">Void Type</a>
1847 <p>The void type does not represent any value and has no size.</p>
1856 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1858 <a name="t_label">Label Type</a>
1864 <p>The label type represents code labels.</p>
1873 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1875 <a name="t_metadata">Metadata Type</a>
1881 <p>The metadata type represents embedded metadata. No derived types may be
1882 created from metadata except for <a href="#t_function">function</a>
1894 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
1896 <a name="t_derived">Derived Types</a>
1901 <p>The real power in LLVM comes from the derived types in the system. This is
1902 what allows a programmer to represent arrays, functions, pointers, and other
1903 useful types. Each of these types contain one or more element types which
1904 may be a primitive type, or another derived type. For example, it is
1905 possible to have a two dimensional array, using an array as the element type
1906 of another array.</p>
1908 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1910 <a name="t_aggregate">Aggregate Types</a>
1915 <p>Aggregate Types are a subset of derived types that can contain multiple
1916 member types. <a href="#t_array">Arrays</a>,
1917 <a href="#t_struct">structs</a>, and <a href="#t_vector">vectors</a> are
1918 aggregate types.</p>
1922 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1924 <a name="t_array">Array Type</a>
1930 <p>The array type is a very simple derived type that arranges elements
1931 sequentially in memory. The array type requires a size (number of elements)
1932 and an underlying data type.</p>
1936 [<# elements> x <elementtype>]
1939 <p>The number of elements is a constant integer value; <tt>elementtype</tt> may
1940 be any type with a size.</p>
1943 <table class="layout">
1945 <td class="left"><tt>[40 x i32]</tt></td>
1946 <td class="left">Array of 40 32-bit integer values.</td>
1949 <td class="left"><tt>[41 x i32]</tt></td>
1950 <td class="left">Array of 41 32-bit integer values.</td>
1953 <td class="left"><tt>[4 x i8]</tt></td>
1954 <td class="left">Array of 4 8-bit integer values.</td>
1957 <p>Here are some examples of multidimensional arrays:</p>
1958 <table class="layout">
1960 <td class="left"><tt>[3 x [4 x i32]]</tt></td>
1961 <td class="left">3x4 array of 32-bit integer values.</td>
1964 <td class="left"><tt>[12 x [10 x float]]</tt></td>
1965 <td class="left">12x10 array of single precision floating point values.</td>
1968 <td class="left"><tt>[2 x [3 x [4 x i16]]]</tt></td>
1969 <td class="left">2x3x4 array of 16-bit integer values.</td>
1973 <p>There is no restriction on indexing beyond the end of the array implied by
1974 a static type (though there are restrictions on indexing beyond the bounds
1975 of an allocated object in some cases). This means that single-dimension
1976 'variable sized array' addressing can be implemented in LLVM with a zero
1977 length array type. An implementation of 'pascal style arrays' in LLVM could
1978 use the type "<tt>{ i32, [0 x float]}</tt>", for example.</p>
1982 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
1984 <a name="t_function">Function Type</a>
1990 <p>The function type can be thought of as a function signature. It consists of
1991 a return type and a list of formal parameter types. The return type of a
1992 function type is a first class type or a void type.</p>
1996 <returntype> (<parameter list>)
1999 <p>...where '<tt><parameter list></tt>' is a comma-separated list of type
2000 specifiers. Optionally, the parameter list may include a type <tt>...</tt>,
2001 which indicates that the function takes a variable number of arguments.
2002 Variable argument functions can access their arguments with
2003 the <a href="#int_varargs">variable argument handling intrinsic</a>
2004 functions. '<tt><returntype></tt>' is any type except
2005 <a href="#t_label">label</a>.</p>
2008 <table class="layout">
2010 <td class="left"><tt>i32 (i32)</tt></td>
2011 <td class="left">function taking an <tt>i32</tt>, returning an <tt>i32</tt>
2013 </tr><tr class="layout">
2014 <td class="left"><tt>float (i16, i32 *) *
2016 <td class="left"><a href="#t_pointer">Pointer</a> to a function that takes
2017 an <tt>i16</tt> and a <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> to <tt>i32</tt>,
2018 returning <tt>float</tt>.
2020 </tr><tr class="layout">
2021 <td class="left"><tt>i32 (i8*, ...)</tt></td>
2022 <td class="left">A vararg function that takes at least one
2023 <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> to <tt>i8 </tt> (char in C),
2024 which returns an integer. This is the signature for <tt>printf</tt> in
2027 </tr><tr class="layout">
2028 <td class="left"><tt>{i32, i32} (i32)</tt></td>
2029 <td class="left">A function taking an <tt>i32</tt>, returning a
2030 <a href="#t_struct">structure</a> containing two <tt>i32</tt> values
2037 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2039 <a name="t_struct">Structure Type</a>
2045 <p>The structure type is used to represent a collection of data members together
2046 in memory. The elements of a structure may be any type that has a size.</p>
2048 <p>Structures in memory are accessed using '<tt><a href="#i_load">load</a></tt>'
2049 and '<tt><a href="#i_store">store</a></tt>' by getting a pointer to a field
2050 with the '<tt><a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a></tt>' instruction.
2051 Structures in registers are accessed using the
2052 '<tt><a href="#i_extractvalue">extractvalue</a></tt>' and
2053 '<tt><a href="#i_insertvalue">insertvalue</a></tt>' instructions.</p>
2055 <p>Structures may optionally be "packed" structures, which indicate that the
2056 alignment of the struct is one byte, and that there is no padding between
2057 the elements. In non-packed structs, padding between field types is inserted
2058 as defined by the TargetData string in the module, which is required to match
2059 what the underlying code generator expects.</p>
2061 <p>Structures can either be "literal" or "identified". A literal structure is
2062 defined inline with other types (e.g. <tt>{i32, i32}*</tt>) whereas identified
2063 types are always defined at the top level with a name. Literal types are
2064 uniqued by their contents and can never be recursive or opaque since there is
2065 no way to write one. Identified types can be recursive, can be opaqued, and are
2071 %T1 = type { <type list> } <i>; Identified normal struct type</i>
2072 %T2 = type <{ <type list> }> <i>; Identified packed struct type</i>
2076 <table class="layout">
2078 <td class="left"><tt>{ i32, i32, i32 }</tt></td>
2079 <td class="left">A triple of three <tt>i32</tt> values</td>
2082 <td class="left"><tt>{ float, i32 (i32) * }</tt></td>
2083 <td class="left">A pair, where the first element is a <tt>float</tt> and the
2084 second element is a <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> to a
2085 <a href="#t_function">function</a> that takes an <tt>i32</tt>, returning
2086 an <tt>i32</tt>.</td>
2089 <td class="left"><tt><{ i8, i32 }></tt></td>
2090 <td class="left">A packed struct known to be 5 bytes in size.</td>
2096 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2098 <a name="t_opaque">Opaque Structure Types</a>
2104 <p>Opaque structure types are used to represent named structure types that do
2105 not have a body specified. This corresponds (for example) to the C notion of
2106 a forward declared structure.</p>
2115 <table class="layout">
2117 <td class="left"><tt>opaque</tt></td>
2118 <td class="left">An opaque type.</td>
2126 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2128 <a name="t_pointer">Pointer Type</a>
2134 <p>The pointer type is used to specify memory locations.
2135 Pointers are commonly used to reference objects in memory.</p>
2137 <p>Pointer types may have an optional address space attribute defining the
2138 numbered address space where the pointed-to object resides. The default
2139 address space is number zero. The semantics of non-zero address
2140 spaces are target-specific.</p>
2142 <p>Note that LLVM does not permit pointers to void (<tt>void*</tt>) nor does it
2143 permit pointers to labels (<tt>label*</tt>). Use <tt>i8*</tt> instead.</p>
2151 <table class="layout">
2153 <td class="left"><tt>[4 x i32]*</tt></td>
2154 <td class="left">A <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> to <a
2155 href="#t_array">array</a> of four <tt>i32</tt> values.</td>
2158 <td class="left"><tt>i32 (i32*) *</tt></td>
2159 <td class="left"> A <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> to a <a
2160 href="#t_function">function</a> that takes an <tt>i32*</tt>, returning an
2164 <td class="left"><tt>i32 addrspace(5)*</tt></td>
2165 <td class="left">A <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> to an <tt>i32</tt> value
2166 that resides in address space #5.</td>
2172 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2174 <a name="t_vector">Vector Type</a>
2180 <p>A vector type is a simple derived type that represents a vector of elements.
2181 Vector types are used when multiple primitive data are operated in parallel
2182 using a single instruction (SIMD). A vector type requires a size (number of
2183 elements) and an underlying primitive data type. Vector types are considered
2184 <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a>.</p>
2188 < <# elements> x <elementtype> >
2191 <p>The number of elements is a constant integer value larger than 0; elementtype
2192 may be any integer or floating point type. Vectors of size zero are not
2193 allowed, and pointers are not allowed as the element type.</p>
2196 <table class="layout">
2198 <td class="left"><tt><4 x i32></tt></td>
2199 <td class="left">Vector of 4 32-bit integer values.</td>
2202 <td class="left"><tt><8 x float></tt></td>
2203 <td class="left">Vector of 8 32-bit floating-point values.</td>
2206 <td class="left"><tt><2 x i64></tt></td>
2207 <td class="left">Vector of 2 64-bit integer values.</td>
2217 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
2218 <h2><a name="constants">Constants</a></h2>
2219 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
2223 <p>LLVM has several different basic types of constants. This section describes
2224 them all and their syntax.</p>
2226 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2228 <a name="simpleconstants">Simple Constants</a>
2234 <dt><b>Boolean constants</b></dt>
2235 <dd>The two strings '<tt>true</tt>' and '<tt>false</tt>' are both valid
2236 constants of the <tt><a href="#t_integer">i1</a></tt> type.</dd>
2238 <dt><b>Integer constants</b></dt>
2239 <dd>Standard integers (such as '4') are constants of
2240 the <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> type. Negative numbers may be used
2241 with integer types.</dd>
2243 <dt><b>Floating point constants</b></dt>
2244 <dd>Floating point constants use standard decimal notation (e.g. 123.421),
2245 exponential notation (e.g. 1.23421e+2), or a more precise hexadecimal
2246 notation (see below). The assembler requires the exact decimal value of a
2247 floating-point constant. For example, the assembler accepts 1.25 but
2248 rejects 1.3 because 1.3 is a repeating decimal in binary. Floating point
2249 constants must have a <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type. </dd>
2251 <dt><b>Null pointer constants</b></dt>
2252 <dd>The identifier '<tt>null</tt>' is recognized as a null pointer constant
2253 and must be of <a href="#t_pointer">pointer type</a>.</dd>
2256 <p>The one non-intuitive notation for constants is the hexadecimal form of
2257 floating point constants. For example, the form '<tt>double
2258 0x432ff973cafa8000</tt>' is equivalent to (but harder to read than)
2259 '<tt>double 4.5e+15</tt>'. The only time hexadecimal floating point
2260 constants are required (and the only time that they are generated by the
2261 disassembler) is when a floating point constant must be emitted but it cannot
2262 be represented as a decimal floating point number in a reasonable number of
2263 digits. For example, NaN's, infinities, and other special values are
2264 represented in their IEEE hexadecimal format so that assembly and disassembly
2265 do not cause any bits to change in the constants.</p>
2267 <p>When using the hexadecimal form, constants of types float and double are
2268 represented using the 16-digit form shown above (which matches the IEEE754
2269 representation for double); float values must, however, be exactly
2270 representable as IEE754 single precision. Hexadecimal format is always used
2271 for long double, and there are three forms of long double. The 80-bit format
2272 used by x86 is represented as <tt>0xK</tt> followed by 20 hexadecimal digits.
2273 The 128-bit format used by PowerPC (two adjacent doubles) is represented
2274 by <tt>0xM</tt> followed by 32 hexadecimal digits. The IEEE 128-bit format
2275 is represented by <tt>0xL</tt> followed by 32 hexadecimal digits; no
2276 currently supported target uses this format. Long doubles will only work if
2277 they match the long double format on your target. All hexadecimal formats
2278 are big-endian (sign bit at the left).</p>
2280 <p>There are no constants of type x86mmx.</p>
2283 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2285 <a name="aggregateconstants"></a> <!-- old anchor -->
2286 <a name="complexconstants">Complex Constants</a>
2291 <p>Complex constants are a (potentially recursive) combination of simple
2292 constants and smaller complex constants.</p>
2295 <dt><b>Structure constants</b></dt>
2296 <dd>Structure constants are represented with notation similar to structure
2297 type definitions (a comma separated list of elements, surrounded by braces
2298 (<tt>{}</tt>)). For example: "<tt>{ i32 4, float 17.0, i32* @G }</tt>",
2299 where "<tt>@G</tt>" is declared as "<tt>@G = external global i32</tt>".
2300 Structure constants must have <a href="#t_struct">structure type</a>, and
2301 the number and types of elements must match those specified by the
2304 <dt><b>Array constants</b></dt>
2305 <dd>Array constants are represented with notation similar to array type
2306 definitions (a comma separated list of elements, surrounded by square
2307 brackets (<tt>[]</tt>)). For example: "<tt>[ i32 42, i32 11, i32 74
2308 ]</tt>". Array constants must have <a href="#t_array">array type</a>, and
2309 the number and types of elements must match those specified by the
2312 <dt><b>Vector constants</b></dt>
2313 <dd>Vector constants are represented with notation similar to vector type
2314 definitions (a comma separated list of elements, surrounded by
2315 less-than/greater-than's (<tt><></tt>)). For example: "<tt>< i32
2316 42, i32 11, i32 74, i32 100 ></tt>". Vector constants must
2317 have <a href="#t_vector">vector type</a>, and the number and types of
2318 elements must match those specified by the type.</dd>
2320 <dt><b>Zero initialization</b></dt>
2321 <dd>The string '<tt>zeroinitializer</tt>' can be used to zero initialize a
2322 value to zero of <em>any</em> type, including scalar and
2323 <a href="#t_aggregate">aggregate</a> types.
2324 This is often used to avoid having to print large zero initializers
2325 (e.g. for large arrays) and is always exactly equivalent to using explicit
2326 zero initializers.</dd>
2328 <dt><b>Metadata node</b></dt>
2329 <dd>A metadata node is a structure-like constant with
2330 <a href="#t_metadata">metadata type</a>. For example: "<tt>metadata !{
2331 i32 0, metadata !"test" }</tt>". Unlike other constants that are meant to
2332 be interpreted as part of the instruction stream, metadata is a place to
2333 attach additional information such as debug info.</dd>
2338 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2340 <a name="globalconstants">Global Variable and Function Addresses</a>
2345 <p>The addresses of <a href="#globalvars">global variables</a>
2346 and <a href="#functionstructure">functions</a> are always implicitly valid
2347 (link-time) constants. These constants are explicitly referenced when
2348 the <a href="#identifiers">identifier for the global</a> is used and always
2349 have <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> type. For example, the following is a
2350 legal LLVM file:</p>
2352 <pre class="doc_code">
2355 @Z = global [2 x i32*] [ i32* @X, i32* @Y ]
2360 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2362 <a name="undefvalues">Undefined Values</a>
2367 <p>The string '<tt>undef</tt>' can be used anywhere a constant is expected, and
2368 indicates that the user of the value may receive an unspecified bit-pattern.
2369 Undefined values may be of any type (other than '<tt>label</tt>'
2370 or '<tt>void</tt>') and be used anywhere a constant is permitted.</p>
2372 <p>Undefined values are useful because they indicate to the compiler that the
2373 program is well defined no matter what value is used. This gives the
2374 compiler more freedom to optimize. Here are some examples of (potentially
2375 surprising) transformations that are valid (in pseudo IR):</p>
2378 <pre class="doc_code">
2388 <p>This is safe because all of the output bits are affected by the undef bits.
2389 Any output bit can have a zero or one depending on the input bits.</p>
2391 <pre class="doc_code">
2402 <p>These logical operations have bits that are not always affected by the input.
2403 For example, if <tt>%X</tt> has a zero bit, then the output of the
2404 '<tt>and</tt>' operation will always be a zero for that bit, no matter what
2405 the corresponding bit from the '<tt>undef</tt>' is. As such, it is unsafe to
2406 optimize or assume that the result of the '<tt>and</tt>' is '<tt>undef</tt>'.
2407 However, it is safe to assume that all bits of the '<tt>undef</tt>' could be
2408 0, and optimize the '<tt>and</tt>' to 0. Likewise, it is safe to assume that
2409 all the bits of the '<tt>undef</tt>' operand to the '<tt>or</tt>' could be
2410 set, allowing the '<tt>or</tt>' to be folded to -1.</p>
2412 <pre class="doc_code">
2413 %A = select undef, %X, %Y
2414 %B = select undef, 42, %Y
2415 %C = select %X, %Y, undef
2426 <p>This set of examples shows that undefined '<tt>select</tt>' (and conditional
2427 branch) conditions can go <em>either way</em>, but they have to come from one
2428 of the two operands. In the <tt>%A</tt> example, if <tt>%X</tt> and
2429 <tt>%Y</tt> were both known to have a clear low bit, then <tt>%A</tt> would
2430 have to have a cleared low bit. However, in the <tt>%C</tt> example, the
2431 optimizer is allowed to assume that the '<tt>undef</tt>' operand could be the
2432 same as <tt>%Y</tt>, allowing the whole '<tt>select</tt>' to be
2435 <pre class="doc_code">
2436 %A = xor undef, undef
2454 <p>This example points out that two '<tt>undef</tt>' operands are not
2455 necessarily the same. This can be surprising to people (and also matches C
2456 semantics) where they assume that "<tt>X^X</tt>" is always zero, even
2457 if <tt>X</tt> is undefined. This isn't true for a number of reasons, but the
2458 short answer is that an '<tt>undef</tt>' "variable" can arbitrarily change
2459 its value over its "live range". This is true because the variable doesn't
2460 actually <em>have a live range</em>. Instead, the value is logically read
2461 from arbitrary registers that happen to be around when needed, so the value
2462 is not necessarily consistent over time. In fact, <tt>%A</tt> and <tt>%C</tt>
2463 need to have the same semantics or the core LLVM "replace all uses with"
2464 concept would not hold.</p>
2466 <pre class="doc_code">
2474 <p>These examples show the crucial difference between an <em>undefined
2475 value</em> and <em>undefined behavior</em>. An undefined value (like
2476 '<tt>undef</tt>') is allowed to have an arbitrary bit-pattern. This means that
2477 the <tt>%A</tt> operation can be constant folded to '<tt>undef</tt>', because
2478 the '<tt>undef</tt>' could be an SNaN, and <tt>fdiv</tt> is not (currently)
2479 defined on SNaN's. However, in the second example, we can make a more
2480 aggressive assumption: because the <tt>undef</tt> is allowed to be an
2481 arbitrary value, we are allowed to assume that it could be zero. Since a
2482 divide by zero has <em>undefined behavior</em>, we are allowed to assume that
2483 the operation does not execute at all. This allows us to delete the divide and
2484 all code after it. Because the undefined operation "can't happen", the
2485 optimizer can assume that it occurs in dead code.</p>
2487 <pre class="doc_code">
2488 a: store undef -> %X
2489 b: store %X -> undef
2495 <p>These examples reiterate the <tt>fdiv</tt> example: a store <em>of</em> an
2496 undefined value can be assumed to not have any effect; we can assume that the
2497 value is overwritten with bits that happen to match what was already there.
2498 However, a store <em>to</em> an undefined location could clobber arbitrary
2499 memory, therefore, it has undefined behavior.</p>
2503 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2505 <a name="trapvalues">Trap Values</a>
2510 <p>Trap values are similar to <a href="#undefvalues">undef values</a>, however
2511 instead of representing an unspecified bit pattern, they represent the
2512 fact that an instruction or constant expression which cannot evoke side
2513 effects has nevertheless detected a condition which results in undefined
2516 <p>There is currently no way of representing a trap value in the IR; they
2517 only exist when produced by operations such as
2518 <a href="#i_add"><tt>add</tt></a> with the <tt>nsw</tt> flag.</p>
2520 <p>Trap value behavior is defined in terms of value <i>dependence</i>:</p>
2523 <li>Values other than <a href="#i_phi"><tt>phi</tt></a> nodes depend on
2524 their operands.</li>
2526 <li><a href="#i_phi"><tt>Phi</tt></a> nodes depend on the operand corresponding
2527 to their dynamic predecessor basic block.</li>
2529 <li>Function arguments depend on the corresponding actual argument values in
2530 the dynamic callers of their functions.</li>
2532 <li><a href="#i_call"><tt>Call</tt></a> instructions depend on the
2533 <a href="#i_ret"><tt>ret</tt></a> instructions that dynamically transfer
2534 control back to them.</li>
2536 <li><a href="#i_invoke"><tt>Invoke</tt></a> instructions depend on the
2537 <a href="#i_ret"><tt>ret</tt></a>, <a href="#i_unwind"><tt>unwind</tt></a>,
2538 or exception-throwing call instructions that dynamically transfer control
2541 <li>Non-volatile loads and stores depend on the most recent stores to all of the
2542 referenced memory addresses, following the order in the IR
2543 (including loads and stores implied by intrinsics such as
2544 <a href="#int_memcpy"><tt>@llvm.memcpy</tt></a>.)</li>
2546 <!-- TODO: In the case of multiple threads, this only applies if the store
2547 "happens-before" the load or store. -->
2549 <!-- TODO: floating-point exception state -->
2551 <li>An instruction with externally visible side effects depends on the most
2552 recent preceding instruction with externally visible side effects, following
2553 the order in the IR. (This includes
2554 <a href="#volatile">volatile operations</a>.)</li>
2556 <li>An instruction <i>control-depends</i> on a
2557 <a href="#terminators">terminator instruction</a>
2558 if the terminator instruction has multiple successors and the instruction
2559 is always executed when control transfers to one of the successors, and
2560 may not be executed when control is transferred to another.</li>
2562 <li>Additionally, an instruction also <i>control-depends</i> on a terminator
2563 instruction if the set of instructions it otherwise depends on would be
2564 different if the terminator had transferred control to a different
2567 <li>Dependence is transitive.</li>
2571 <p>Whenever a trap value is generated, all values which depend on it evaluate
2572 to trap. If they have side effects, they evoke their side effects as if each
2573 operand with a trap value were undef. If they have externally-visible side
2574 effects, the behavior is undefined.</p>
2576 <p>Here are some examples:</p>
2578 <pre class="doc_code">
2580 %trap = sub nuw i32 0, 1 ; Results in a trap value.
2581 %still_trap = and i32 %trap, 0 ; Whereas (and i32 undef, 0) would return 0.
2582 %trap_yet_again = getelementptr i32* @h, i32 %still_trap
2583 store i32 0, i32* %trap_yet_again ; undefined behavior
2585 store i32 %trap, i32* @g ; Trap value conceptually stored to memory.
2586 %trap2 = load i32* @g ; Returns a trap value, not just undef.
2588 store volatile i32 %trap, i32* @g ; External observation; undefined behavior.
2590 %narrowaddr = bitcast i32* @g to i16*
2591 %wideaddr = bitcast i32* @g to i64*
2592 %trap3 = load i16* %narrowaddr ; Returns a trap value.
2593 %trap4 = load i64* %wideaddr ; Returns a trap value.
2595 %cmp = icmp slt i32 %trap, 0 ; Returns a trap value.
2596 br i1 %cmp, label %true, label %end ; Branch to either destination.
2599 store volatile i32 0, i32* @g ; This is control-dependent on %cmp, so
2600 ; it has undefined behavior.
2604 %p = phi i32 [ 0, %entry ], [ 1, %true ]
2605 ; Both edges into this PHI are
2606 ; control-dependent on %cmp, so this
2607 ; always results in a trap value.
2609 store volatile i32 0, i32* @g ; This would depend on the store in %true
2610 ; if %cmp is true, or the store in %entry
2611 ; otherwise, so this is undefined behavior.
2613 br i1 %cmp, label %second_true, label %second_end
2614 ; The same branch again, but this time the
2615 ; true block doesn't have side effects.
2622 store volatile i32 0, i32* @g ; This time, the instruction always depends
2623 ; on the store in %end. Also, it is
2624 ; control-equivalent to %end, so this is
2625 ; well-defined (again, ignoring earlier
2626 ; undefined behavior in this example).
2631 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2633 <a name="blockaddress">Addresses of Basic Blocks</a>
2638 <p><b><tt>blockaddress(@function, %block)</tt></b></p>
2640 <p>The '<tt>blockaddress</tt>' constant computes the address of the specified
2641 basic block in the specified function, and always has an i8* type. Taking
2642 the address of the entry block is illegal.</p>
2644 <p>This value only has defined behavior when used as an operand to the
2645 '<a href="#i_indirectbr"><tt>indirectbr</tt></a>' instruction, or for
2646 comparisons against null. Pointer equality tests between labels addresses
2647 results in undefined behavior — though, again, comparison against null
2648 is ok, and no label is equal to the null pointer. This may be passed around
2649 as an opaque pointer sized value as long as the bits are not inspected. This
2650 allows <tt>ptrtoint</tt> and arithmetic to be performed on these values so
2651 long as the original value is reconstituted before the <tt>indirectbr</tt>
2654 <p>Finally, some targets may provide defined semantics when using the value as
2655 the operand to an inline assembly, but that is target specific.</p>
2660 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2662 <a name="constantexprs">Constant Expressions</a>
2667 <p>Constant expressions are used to allow expressions involving other constants
2668 to be used as constants. Constant expressions may be of
2669 any <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type and may involve any LLVM
2670 operation that does not have side effects (e.g. load and call are not
2671 supported). The following is the syntax for constant expressions:</p>
2674 <dt><b><tt>trunc (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2675 <dd>Truncate a constant to another type. The bit size of CST must be larger
2676 than the bit size of TYPE. Both types must be integers.</dd>
2678 <dt><b><tt>zext (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2679 <dd>Zero extend a constant to another type. The bit size of CST must be
2680 smaller than the bit size of TYPE. Both types must be integers.</dd>
2682 <dt><b><tt>sext (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2683 <dd>Sign extend a constant to another type. The bit size of CST must be
2684 smaller than the bit size of TYPE. Both types must be integers.</dd>
2686 <dt><b><tt>fptrunc (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2687 <dd>Truncate a floating point constant to another floating point type. The
2688 size of CST must be larger than the size of TYPE. Both types must be
2689 floating point.</dd>
2691 <dt><b><tt>fpext (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2692 <dd>Floating point extend a constant to another type. The size of CST must be
2693 smaller or equal to the size of TYPE. Both types must be floating
2696 <dt><b><tt>fptoui (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2697 <dd>Convert a floating point constant to the corresponding unsigned integer
2698 constant. TYPE must be a scalar or vector integer type. CST must be of
2699 scalar or vector floating point type. Both CST and TYPE must be scalars,
2700 or vectors of the same number of elements. If the value won't fit in the
2701 integer type, the results are undefined.</dd>
2703 <dt><b><tt>fptosi (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2704 <dd>Convert a floating point constant to the corresponding signed integer
2705 constant. TYPE must be a scalar or vector integer type. CST must be of
2706 scalar or vector floating point type. Both CST and TYPE must be scalars,
2707 or vectors of the same number of elements. If the value won't fit in the
2708 integer type, the results are undefined.</dd>
2710 <dt><b><tt>uitofp (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2711 <dd>Convert an unsigned integer constant to the corresponding floating point
2712 constant. TYPE must be a scalar or vector floating point type. CST must be
2713 of scalar or vector integer type. Both CST and TYPE must be scalars, or
2714 vectors of the same number of elements. If the value won't fit in the
2715 floating point type, the results are undefined.</dd>
2717 <dt><b><tt>sitofp (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2718 <dd>Convert a signed integer constant to the corresponding floating point
2719 constant. TYPE must be a scalar or vector floating point type. CST must be
2720 of scalar or vector integer type. Both CST and TYPE must be scalars, or
2721 vectors of the same number of elements. If the value won't fit in the
2722 floating point type, the results are undefined.</dd>
2724 <dt><b><tt>ptrtoint (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2725 <dd>Convert a pointer typed constant to the corresponding integer constant
2726 <tt>TYPE</tt> must be an integer type. <tt>CST</tt> must be of pointer
2727 type. The <tt>CST</tt> value is zero extended, truncated, or unchanged to
2728 make it fit in <tt>TYPE</tt>.</dd>
2730 <dt><b><tt>inttoptr (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2731 <dd>Convert a integer constant to a pointer constant. TYPE must be a pointer
2732 type. CST must be of integer type. The CST value is zero extended,
2733 truncated, or unchanged to make it fit in a pointer size. This one is
2734 <i>really</i> dangerous!</dd>
2736 <dt><b><tt>bitcast (CST to TYPE)</tt></b></dt>
2737 <dd>Convert a constant, CST, to another TYPE. The constraints of the operands
2738 are the same as those for the <a href="#i_bitcast">bitcast
2739 instruction</a>.</dd>
2741 <dt><b><tt>getelementptr (CSTPTR, IDX0, IDX1, ...)</tt></b></dt>
2742 <dt><b><tt>getelementptr inbounds (CSTPTR, IDX0, IDX1, ...)</tt></b></dt>
2743 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr operation</a> on
2744 constants. As with the <a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a>
2745 instruction, the index list may have zero or more indexes, which are
2746 required to make sense for the type of "CSTPTR".</dd>
2748 <dt><b><tt>select (COND, VAL1, VAL2)</tt></b></dt>
2749 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_select">select operation</a> on constants.</dd>
2751 <dt><b><tt>icmp COND (VAL1, VAL2)</tt></b></dt>
2752 <dd>Performs the <a href="#i_icmp">icmp operation</a> on constants.</dd>
2754 <dt><b><tt>fcmp COND (VAL1, VAL2)</tt></b></dt>
2755 <dd>Performs the <a href="#i_fcmp">fcmp operation</a> on constants.</dd>
2757 <dt><b><tt>extractelement (VAL, IDX)</tt></b></dt>
2758 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_extractelement">extractelement operation</a> on
2761 <dt><b><tt>insertelement (VAL, ELT, IDX)</tt></b></dt>
2762 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_insertelement">insertelement operation</a> on
2765 <dt><b><tt>shufflevector (VEC1, VEC2, IDXMASK)</tt></b></dt>
2766 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_shufflevector">shufflevector operation</a> on
2769 <dt><b><tt>extractvalue (VAL, IDX0, IDX1, ...)</tt></b></dt>
2770 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_extractvalue">extractvalue operation</a> on
2771 constants. The index list is interpreted in a similar manner as indices in
2772 a '<a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a>' operation. At least one
2773 index value must be specified.</dd>
2775 <dt><b><tt>insertvalue (VAL, ELT, IDX0, IDX1, ...)</tt></b></dt>
2776 <dd>Perform the <a href="#i_insertvalue">insertvalue operation</a> on
2777 constants. The index list is interpreted in a similar manner as indices in
2778 a '<a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a>' operation. At least one
2779 index value must be specified.</dd>
2781 <dt><b><tt>OPCODE (LHS, RHS)</tt></b></dt>
2782 <dd>Perform the specified operation of the LHS and RHS constants. OPCODE may
2783 be any of the <a href="#binaryops">binary</a>
2784 or <a href="#bitwiseops">bitwise binary</a> operations. The constraints
2785 on operands are the same as those for the corresponding instruction
2786 (e.g. no bitwise operations on floating point values are allowed).</dd>
2793 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
2794 <h2><a name="othervalues">Other Values</a></h2>
2795 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
2797 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2799 <a name="inlineasm">Inline Assembler Expressions</a>
2804 <p>LLVM supports inline assembler expressions (as opposed
2805 to <a href="#moduleasm">Module-Level Inline Assembly</a>) through the use of
2806 a special value. This value represents the inline assembler as a string
2807 (containing the instructions to emit), a list of operand constraints (stored
2808 as a string), a flag that indicates whether or not the inline asm
2809 expression has side effects, and a flag indicating whether the function
2810 containing the asm needs to align its stack conservatively. An example
2811 inline assembler expression is:</p>
2813 <pre class="doc_code">
2814 i32 (i32) asm "bswap $0", "=r,r"
2817 <p>Inline assembler expressions may <b>only</b> be used as the callee operand of
2818 a <a href="#i_call"><tt>call</tt> instruction</a>. Thus, typically we
2821 <pre class="doc_code">
2822 %X = call i32 asm "<a href="#int_bswap">bswap</a> $0", "=r,r"(i32 %Y)
2825 <p>Inline asms with side effects not visible in the constraint list must be
2826 marked as having side effects. This is done through the use of the
2827 '<tt>sideeffect</tt>' keyword, like so:</p>
2829 <pre class="doc_code">
2830 call void asm sideeffect "eieio", ""()
2833 <p>In some cases inline asms will contain code that will not work unless the
2834 stack is aligned in some way, such as calls or SSE instructions on x86,
2835 yet will not contain code that does that alignment within the asm.
2836 The compiler should make conservative assumptions about what the asm might
2837 contain and should generate its usual stack alignment code in the prologue
2838 if the '<tt>alignstack</tt>' keyword is present:</p>
2840 <pre class="doc_code">
2841 call void asm alignstack "eieio", ""()
2844 <p>If both keywords appear the '<tt>sideeffect</tt>' keyword must come
2848 <p>TODO: The format of the asm and constraints string still need to be
2849 documented here. Constraints on what can be done (e.g. duplication, moving,
2850 etc need to be documented). This is probably best done by reference to
2851 another document that covers inline asm from a holistic perspective.</p>
2854 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2856 <a name="inlineasm_md">Inline Asm Metadata</a>
2861 <p>The call instructions that wrap inline asm nodes may have a
2862 "<tt>!srcloc</tt>" MDNode attached to it that contains a list of constant
2863 integers. If present, the code generator will use the integer as the
2864 location cookie value when report errors through the <tt>LLVMContext</tt>
2865 error reporting mechanisms. This allows a front-end to correlate backend
2866 errors that occur with inline asm back to the source code that produced it.
2869 <pre class="doc_code">
2870 call void asm sideeffect "something bad", ""()<b>, !srcloc !42</b>
2872 !42 = !{ i32 1234567 }
2875 <p>It is up to the front-end to make sense of the magic numbers it places in the
2876 IR. If the MDNode contains multiple constants, the code generator will use
2877 the one that corresponds to the line of the asm that the error occurs on.</p>
2883 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
2885 <a name="metadata">Metadata Nodes and Metadata Strings</a>
2890 <p>LLVM IR allows metadata to be attached to instructions in the program that
2891 can convey extra information about the code to the optimizers and code
2892 generator. One example application of metadata is source-level debug
2893 information. There are two metadata primitives: strings and nodes. All
2894 metadata has the <tt>metadata</tt> type and is identified in syntax by a
2895 preceding exclamation point ('<tt>!</tt>').</p>
2897 <p>A metadata string is a string surrounded by double quotes. It can contain
2898 any character by escaping non-printable characters with "<tt>\xx</tt>" where
2899 "<tt>xx</tt>" is the two digit hex code. For example:
2900 "<tt>!"test\00"</tt>".</p>
2902 <p>Metadata nodes are represented with notation similar to structure constants
2903 (a comma separated list of elements, surrounded by braces and preceded by an
2904 exclamation point). Metadata nodes can have any values as their operand. For
2907 <div class="doc_code">
2909 !{ metadata !"test\00", i32 10}
2913 <p>A <a href="#namedmetadatastructure">named metadata</a> is a collection of
2914 metadata nodes, which can be looked up in the module symbol table. For
2917 <div class="doc_code">
2919 !foo = metadata !{!4, !3}
2923 <p>Metadata can be used as function arguments. Here <tt>llvm.dbg.value</tt>
2924 function is using two metadata arguments:</p>
2926 <div class="doc_code">
2928 call void @llvm.dbg.value(metadata !24, i64 0, metadata !25)
2932 <p>Metadata can be attached with an instruction. Here metadata <tt>!21</tt> is
2933 attached to the <tt>add</tt> instruction using the <tt>!dbg</tt>
2936 <div class="doc_code">
2938 %indvar.next = add i64 %indvar, 1, !dbg !21
2942 <p>More information about specific metadata nodes recognized by the optimizers
2943 and code generator is found below.</p>
2945 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2947 <a name="tbaa">'<tt>tbaa</tt>' Metadata</a>
2952 <p>In LLVM IR, memory does not have types, so LLVM's own type system is not
2953 suitable for doing TBAA. Instead, metadata is added to the IR to describe
2954 a type system of a higher level language. This can be used to implement
2955 typical C/C++ TBAA, but it can also be used to implement custom alias
2956 analysis behavior for other languages.</p>
2958 <p>The current metadata format is very simple. TBAA metadata nodes have up to
2959 three fields, e.g.:</p>
2961 <div class="doc_code">
2963 !0 = metadata !{ metadata !"an example type tree" }
2964 !1 = metadata !{ metadata !"int", metadata !0 }
2965 !2 = metadata !{ metadata !"float", metadata !0 }
2966 !3 = metadata !{ metadata !"const float", metadata !2, i64 1 }
2970 <p>The first field is an identity field. It can be any value, usually
2971 a metadata string, which uniquely identifies the type. The most important
2972 name in the tree is the name of the root node. Two trees with
2973 different root node names are entirely disjoint, even if they
2974 have leaves with common names.</p>
2976 <p>The second field identifies the type's parent node in the tree, or
2977 is null or omitted for a root node. A type is considered to alias
2978 all of its descendants and all of its ancestors in the tree. Also,
2979 a type is considered to alias all types in other trees, so that
2980 bitcode produced from multiple front-ends is handled conservatively.</p>
2982 <p>If the third field is present, it's an integer which if equal to 1
2983 indicates that the type is "constant" (meaning
2984 <tt>pointsToConstantMemory</tt> should return true; see
2985 <a href="AliasAnalysis.html#OtherItfs">other useful
2986 <tt>AliasAnalysis</tt> methods</a>).</p>
2990 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
2992 <a name="fpaccuracy">'<tt>fpaccuracy</tt>' Metadata</a>
2997 <p><tt>fpaccuracy</tt> metadata may be attached to any instruction of floating
2998 point type. It expresses the maximum relative error of the result of
2999 that instruction, in ULPs. ULP is defined as follows:</p>
3003 <p>If <tt>x</tt> is a real number that lies between two finite consecutive
3004 floating-point numbers <tt>a</tt> and <tt>b</tt>, without being equal to one
3005 of them, then <tt>ulp(x) = |b - a|</tt>, otherwise <tt>ulp(x)</tt> is the
3006 distance between the two non-equal finite floating-point numbers nearest
3007 <tt>x</tt>. Moreover, <tt>ulp(NaN)</tt> is <tt>NaN</tt>.</p>
3011 <p>The maximum relative error may be any rational number. The metadata node
3012 shall consist of a pair of unsigned integers respectively representing
3013 the numerator and denominator. For example, 2.5 ULP:</p>
3015 <div class="doc_code">
3017 !0 = metadata !{ i32 5, i32 2 }
3027 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
3029 <a name="intrinsic_globals">Intrinsic Global Variables</a>
3031 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
3033 <p>LLVM has a number of "magic" global variables that contain data that affect
3034 code generation or other IR semantics. These are documented here. All globals
3035 of this sort should have a section specified as "<tt>llvm.metadata</tt>". This
3036 section and all globals that start with "<tt>llvm.</tt>" are reserved for use
3039 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
3041 <a name="intg_used">The '<tt>llvm.used</tt>' Global Variable</a>
3046 <p>The <tt>@llvm.used</tt> global is an array with i8* element type which has <a
3047 href="#linkage_appending">appending linkage</a>. This array contains a list of
3048 pointers to global variables and functions which may optionally have a pointer
3049 cast formed of bitcast or getelementptr. For example, a legal use of it is:</p>
3051 <div class="doc_code">
3056 @llvm.used = appending global [2 x i8*] [
3058 i8* bitcast (i32* @Y to i8*)
3059 ], section "llvm.metadata"
3063 <p>If a global variable appears in the <tt>@llvm.used</tt> list, then the
3064 compiler, assembler, and linker are required to treat the symbol as if there
3065 is a reference to the global that it cannot see. For example, if a variable
3066 has internal linkage and no references other than that from
3067 the <tt>@llvm.used</tt> list, it cannot be deleted. This is commonly used to
3068 represent references from inline asms and other things the compiler cannot
3069 "see", and corresponds to "<tt>attribute((used))</tt>" in GNU C.</p>
3071 <p>On some targets, the code generator must emit a directive to the assembler or
3072 object file to prevent the assembler and linker from molesting the
3077 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
3079 <a name="intg_compiler_used">
3080 The '<tt>llvm.compiler.used</tt>' Global Variable
3086 <p>The <tt>@llvm.compiler.used</tt> directive is the same as the
3087 <tt>@llvm.used</tt> directive, except that it only prevents the compiler from
3088 touching the symbol. On targets that support it, this allows an intelligent
3089 linker to optimize references to the symbol without being impeded as it would
3090 be by <tt>@llvm.used</tt>.</p>
3092 <p>This is a rare construct that should only be used in rare circumstances, and
3093 should not be exposed to source languages.</p>
3097 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
3099 <a name="intg_global_ctors">The '<tt>llvm.global_ctors</tt>' Global Variable</a>
3104 <div class="doc_code">
3106 %0 = type { i32, void ()* }
3107 @llvm.global_ctors = appending global [1 x %0] [%0 { i32 65535, void ()* @ctor }]
3111 <p>The <tt>@llvm.global_ctors</tt> array contains a list of constructor
3112 functions and associated priorities. The functions referenced by this array
3113 will be called in ascending order of priority (i.e. lowest first) when the
3114 module is loaded. The order of functions with the same priority is not
3119 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
3121 <a name="intg_global_dtors">The '<tt>llvm.global_dtors</tt>' Global Variable</a>
3126 <div class="doc_code">
3128 %0 = type { i32, void ()* }
3129 @llvm.global_dtors = appending global [1 x %0] [%0 { i32 65535, void ()* @dtor }]
3133 <p>The <tt>@llvm.global_dtors</tt> array contains a list of destructor functions
3134 and associated priorities. The functions referenced by this array will be
3135 called in descending order of priority (i.e. highest first) when the module
3136 is loaded. The order of functions with the same priority is not defined.</p>
3142 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
3143 <h2><a name="instref">Instruction Reference</a></h2>
3144 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
3148 <p>The LLVM instruction set consists of several different classifications of
3149 instructions: <a href="#terminators">terminator
3150 instructions</a>, <a href="#binaryops">binary instructions</a>,
3151 <a href="#bitwiseops">bitwise binary instructions</a>,
3152 <a href="#memoryops">memory instructions</a>, and
3153 <a href="#otherops">other instructions</a>.</p>
3155 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
3157 <a name="terminators">Terminator Instructions</a>
3162 <p>As mentioned <a href="#functionstructure">previously</a>, every basic block
3163 in a program ends with a "Terminator" instruction, which indicates which
3164 block should be executed after the current block is finished. These
3165 terminator instructions typically yield a '<tt>void</tt>' value: they produce
3166 control flow, not values (the one exception being the
3167 '<a href="#i_invoke"><tt>invoke</tt></a>' instruction).</p>
3169 <p>The terminator instructions are:
3170 '<a href="#i_ret"><tt>ret</tt></a>',
3171 '<a href="#i_br"><tt>br</tt></a>',
3172 '<a href="#i_switch"><tt>switch</tt></a>',
3173 '<a href="#i_indirectbr"><tt>indirectbr</tt></a>',
3174 '<a href="#i_invoke"><tt>invoke</tt></a>',
3175 '<a href="#i_unwind"><tt>unwind</tt></a>',
3176 '<a href="#i_resume"><tt>resume</tt></a>', and
3177 '<a href="#i_unreachable"><tt>unreachable</tt></a>'.</p>
3179 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3181 <a name="i_ret">'<tt>ret</tt>' Instruction</a>
3188 ret <type> <value> <i>; Return a value from a non-void function</i>
3189 ret void <i>; Return from void function</i>
3193 <p>The '<tt>ret</tt>' instruction is used to return control flow (and optionally
3194 a value) from a function back to the caller.</p>
3196 <p>There are two forms of the '<tt>ret</tt>' instruction: one that returns a
3197 value and then causes control flow, and one that just causes control flow to
3201 <p>The '<tt>ret</tt>' instruction optionally accepts a single argument, the
3202 return value. The type of the return value must be a
3203 '<a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a>' type.</p>
3205 <p>A function is not <a href="#wellformed">well formed</a> if it it has a
3206 non-void return type and contains a '<tt>ret</tt>' instruction with no return
3207 value or a return value with a type that does not match its type, or if it
3208 has a void return type and contains a '<tt>ret</tt>' instruction with a
3212 <p>When the '<tt>ret</tt>' instruction is executed, control flow returns back to
3213 the calling function's context. If the caller is a
3214 "<a href="#i_call"><tt>call</tt></a>" instruction, execution continues at the
3215 instruction after the call. If the caller was an
3216 "<a href="#i_invoke"><tt>invoke</tt></a>" instruction, execution continues at
3217 the beginning of the "normal" destination block. If the instruction returns
3218 a value, that value shall set the call or invoke instruction's return
3223 ret i32 5 <i>; Return an integer value of 5</i>
3224 ret void <i>; Return from a void function</i>
3225 ret { i32, i8 } { i32 4, i8 2 } <i>; Return a struct of values 4 and 2</i>
3229 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3231 <a name="i_br">'<tt>br</tt>' Instruction</a>
3238 br i1 <cond>, label <iftrue>, label <iffalse>
3239 br label <dest> <i>; Unconditional branch</i>
3243 <p>The '<tt>br</tt>' instruction is used to cause control flow to transfer to a
3244 different basic block in the current function. There are two forms of this
3245 instruction, corresponding to a conditional branch and an unconditional
3249 <p>The conditional branch form of the '<tt>br</tt>' instruction takes a single
3250 '<tt>i1</tt>' value and two '<tt>label</tt>' values. The unconditional form
3251 of the '<tt>br</tt>' instruction takes a single '<tt>label</tt>' value as a
3255 <p>Upon execution of a conditional '<tt>br</tt>' instruction, the '<tt>i1</tt>'
3256 argument is evaluated. If the value is <tt>true</tt>, control flows to the
3257 '<tt>iftrue</tt>' <tt>label</tt> argument. If "cond" is <tt>false</tt>,
3258 control flows to the '<tt>iffalse</tt>' <tt>label</tt> argument.</p>
3263 %cond = <a href="#i_icmp">icmp</a> eq i32 %a, %b
3264 br i1 %cond, label %IfEqual, label %IfUnequal
3266 <a href="#i_ret">ret</a> i32 1
3268 <a href="#i_ret">ret</a> i32 0
3273 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3275 <a name="i_switch">'<tt>switch</tt>' Instruction</a>
3282 switch <intty> <value>, label <defaultdest> [ <intty> <val>, label <dest> ... ]
3286 <p>The '<tt>switch</tt>' instruction is used to transfer control flow to one of
3287 several different places. It is a generalization of the '<tt>br</tt>'
3288 instruction, allowing a branch to occur to one of many possible
3292 <p>The '<tt>switch</tt>' instruction uses three parameters: an integer
3293 comparison value '<tt>value</tt>', a default '<tt>label</tt>' destination,
3294 and an array of pairs of comparison value constants and '<tt>label</tt>'s.
3295 The table is not allowed to contain duplicate constant entries.</p>
3298 <p>The <tt>switch</tt> instruction specifies a table of values and
3299 destinations. When the '<tt>switch</tt>' instruction is executed, this table
3300 is searched for the given value. If the value is found, control flow is
3301 transferred to the corresponding destination; otherwise, control flow is
3302 transferred to the default destination.</p>
3304 <h5>Implementation:</h5>
3305 <p>Depending on properties of the target machine and the particular
3306 <tt>switch</tt> instruction, this instruction may be code generated in
3307 different ways. For example, it could be generated as a series of chained
3308 conditional branches or with a lookup table.</p>
3312 <i>; Emulate a conditional br instruction</i>
3313 %Val = <a href="#i_zext">zext</a> i1 %value to i32
3314 switch i32 %Val, label %truedest [ i32 0, label %falsedest ]
3316 <i>; Emulate an unconditional br instruction</i>
3317 switch i32 0, label %dest [ ]
3319 <i>; Implement a jump table:</i>
3320 switch i32 %val, label %otherwise [ i32 0, label %onzero
3322 i32 2, label %ontwo ]
3328 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3330 <a name="i_indirectbr">'<tt>indirectbr</tt>' Instruction</a>
3337 indirectbr <somety>* <address>, [ label <dest1>, label <dest2>, ... ]
3342 <p>The '<tt>indirectbr</tt>' instruction implements an indirect branch to a label
3343 within the current function, whose address is specified by
3344 "<tt>address</tt>". Address must be derived from a <a
3345 href="#blockaddress">blockaddress</a> constant.</p>
3349 <p>The '<tt>address</tt>' argument is the address of the label to jump to. The
3350 rest of the arguments indicate the full set of possible destinations that the
3351 address may point to. Blocks are allowed to occur multiple times in the
3352 destination list, though this isn't particularly useful.</p>
3354 <p>This destination list is required so that dataflow analysis has an accurate
3355 understanding of the CFG.</p>
3359 <p>Control transfers to the block specified in the address argument. All
3360 possible destination blocks must be listed in the label list, otherwise this
3361 instruction has undefined behavior. This implies that jumps to labels
3362 defined in other functions have undefined behavior as well.</p>
3364 <h5>Implementation:</h5>
3366 <p>This is typically implemented with a jump through a register.</p>
3370 indirectbr i8* %Addr, [ label %bb1, label %bb2, label %bb3 ]
3376 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3378 <a name="i_invoke">'<tt>invoke</tt>' Instruction</a>
3385 <result> = invoke [<a href="#callingconv">cconv</a>] [<a href="#paramattrs">ret attrs</a>] <ptr to function ty> <function ptr val>(<function args>) [<a href="#fnattrs">fn attrs</a>]
3386 to label <normal label> unwind label <exception label>
3390 <p>The '<tt>invoke</tt>' instruction causes control to transfer to a specified
3391 function, with the possibility of control flow transfer to either the
3392 '<tt>normal</tt>' label or the '<tt>exception</tt>' label. If the callee
3393 function returns with the "<tt><a href="#i_ret">ret</a></tt>" instruction,
3394 control flow will return to the "normal" label. If the callee (or any
3395 indirect callees) returns with the "<a href="#i_unwind"><tt>unwind</tt></a>"
3396 instruction, control is interrupted and continued at the dynamically nearest
3397 "exception" label.</p>
3399 <p>The '<tt>exception</tt>' label is a
3400 <i><a href="ExceptionHandling.html#overview">landing pad</a></i> for the
3401 exception. As such, '<tt>exception</tt>' label is required to have the
3402 "<a href="#i_landingpad"><tt>landingpad</tt></a>" instruction, which contains
3403 the information about about the behavior of the program after unwinding
3404 happens, as its first non-PHI instruction. The restrictions on the
3405 "<tt>landingpad</tt>" instruction's tightly couples it to the
3406 "<tt>invoke</tt>" instruction, so that the important information contained
3407 within the "<tt>landingpad</tt>" instruction can't be lost through normal
3411 <p>This instruction requires several arguments:</p>
3414 <li>The optional "cconv" marker indicates which <a href="#callingconv">calling
3415 convention</a> the call should use. If none is specified, the call
3416 defaults to using C calling conventions.</li>
3418 <li>The optional <a href="#paramattrs">Parameter Attributes</a> list for
3419 return values. Only '<tt>zeroext</tt>', '<tt>signext</tt>', and
3420 '<tt>inreg</tt>' attributes are valid here.</li>
3422 <li>'<tt>ptr to function ty</tt>': shall be the signature of the pointer to
3423 function value being invoked. In most cases, this is a direct function
3424 invocation, but indirect <tt>invoke</tt>s are just as possible, branching
3425 off an arbitrary pointer to function value.</li>
3427 <li>'<tt>function ptr val</tt>': An LLVM value containing a pointer to a
3428 function to be invoked. </li>
3430 <li>'<tt>function args</tt>': argument list whose types match the function
3431 signature argument types and parameter attributes. All arguments must be
3432 of <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type. If the function
3433 signature indicates the function accepts a variable number of arguments,
3434 the extra arguments can be specified.</li>
3436 <li>'<tt>normal label</tt>': the label reached when the called function
3437 executes a '<tt><a href="#i_ret">ret</a></tt>' instruction. </li>
3439 <li>'<tt>exception label</tt>': the label reached when a callee returns with
3440 the <a href="#i_unwind"><tt>unwind</tt></a> instruction. </li>
3442 <li>The optional <a href="#fnattrs">function attributes</a> list. Only
3443 '<tt>noreturn</tt>', '<tt>nounwind</tt>', '<tt>readonly</tt>' and
3444 '<tt>readnone</tt>' attributes are valid here.</li>
3448 <p>This instruction is designed to operate as a standard
3449 '<tt><a href="#i_call">call</a></tt>' instruction in most regards. The
3450 primary difference is that it establishes an association with a label, which
3451 is used by the runtime library to unwind the stack.</p>
3453 <p>This instruction is used in languages with destructors to ensure that proper
3454 cleanup is performed in the case of either a <tt>longjmp</tt> or a thrown
3455 exception. Additionally, this is important for implementation of
3456 '<tt>catch</tt>' clauses in high-level languages that support them.</p>
3458 <p>For the purposes of the SSA form, the definition of the value returned by the
3459 '<tt>invoke</tt>' instruction is deemed to occur on the edge from the current
3460 block to the "normal" label. If the callee unwinds then no return value is
3463 <p>Note that the code generator does not yet completely support unwind, and
3464 that the invoke/unwind semantics are likely to change in future versions.</p>
3468 %retval = invoke i32 @Test(i32 15) to label %Continue
3469 unwind label %TestCleanup <i>; {i32}:retval set</i>
3470 %retval = invoke <a href="#callingconv">coldcc</a> i32 %Testfnptr(i32 15) to label %Continue
3471 unwind label %TestCleanup <i>; {i32}:retval set</i>
3476 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3479 <a name="i_unwind">'<tt>unwind</tt>' Instruction</a>
3490 <p>The '<tt>unwind</tt>' instruction unwinds the stack, continuing control flow
3491 at the first callee in the dynamic call stack which used
3492 an <a href="#i_invoke"><tt>invoke</tt></a> instruction to perform the call.
3493 This is primarily used to implement exception handling.</p>
3496 <p>The '<tt>unwind</tt>' instruction causes execution of the current function to
3497 immediately halt. The dynamic call stack is then searched for the
3498 first <a href="#i_invoke"><tt>invoke</tt></a> instruction on the call stack.
3499 Once found, execution continues at the "exceptional" destination block
3500 specified by the <tt>invoke</tt> instruction. If there is no <tt>invoke</tt>
3501 instruction in the dynamic call chain, undefined behavior results.</p>
3503 <p>Note that the code generator does not yet completely support unwind, and
3504 that the invoke/unwind semantics are likely to change in future versions.</p>
3508 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3511 <a name="i_resume">'<tt>resume</tt>' Instruction</a>
3518 resume <type> <value>
3522 <p>The '<tt>resume</tt>' instruction is a terminator instruction that has no
3526 <p>The '<tt>resume</tt>' instruction requires one argument, which must have the
3527 same type as the result of any '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction in the same
3531 <p>The '<tt>resume</tt>' instruction resumes propagation of an existing
3532 (in-flight) exception whose unwinding was interrupted with
3533 a <a href="#i_landingpad"><tt>landingpad</tt></a> instruction.</p>
3537 resume { i8*, i32 } %exn
3542 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3545 <a name="i_unreachable">'<tt>unreachable</tt>' Instruction</a>
3556 <p>The '<tt>unreachable</tt>' instruction has no defined semantics. This
3557 instruction is used to inform the optimizer that a particular portion of the
3558 code is not reachable. This can be used to indicate that the code after a
3559 no-return function cannot be reached, and other facts.</p>
3562 <p>The '<tt>unreachable</tt>' instruction has no defined semantics.</p>
3568 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
3570 <a name="binaryops">Binary Operations</a>
3575 <p>Binary operators are used to do most of the computation in a program. They
3576 require two operands of the same type, execute an operation on them, and
3577 produce a single value. The operands might represent multiple data, as is
3578 the case with the <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> data type. The result value
3579 has the same type as its operands.</p>
3581 <p>There are several different binary operators:</p>
3583 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3585 <a name="i_add">'<tt>add</tt>' Instruction</a>
3592 <result> = add <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3593 <result> = add nuw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3594 <result> = add nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3595 <result> = add nuw nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3599 <p>The '<tt>add</tt>' instruction returns the sum of its two operands.</p>
3602 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>add</tt>' instruction must
3603 be <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3604 integer values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3607 <p>The value produced is the integer sum of the two operands.</p>
3609 <p>If the sum has unsigned overflow, the result returned is the mathematical
3610 result modulo 2<sup>n</sup>, where n is the bit width of the result.</p>
3612 <p>Because LLVM integers use a two's complement representation, this instruction
3613 is appropriate for both signed and unsigned integers.</p>
3615 <p><tt>nuw</tt> and <tt>nsw</tt> stand for "No Unsigned Wrap"
3616 and "No Signed Wrap", respectively. If the <tt>nuw</tt> and/or
3617 <tt>nsw</tt> keywords are present, the result value of the <tt>add</tt>
3618 is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if unsigned and/or signed overflow,
3619 respectively, occurs.</p>
3623 <result> = add i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 + %var</i>
3628 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3630 <a name="i_fadd">'<tt>fadd</tt>' Instruction</a>
3637 <result> = fadd <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3641 <p>The '<tt>fadd</tt>' instruction returns the sum of its two operands.</p>
3644 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>fadd</tt>' instruction must be
3645 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3646 floating point values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3649 <p>The value produced is the floating point sum of the two operands.</p>
3653 <result> = fadd float 4.0, %var <i>; yields {float}:result = 4.0 + %var</i>
3658 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3660 <a name="i_sub">'<tt>sub</tt>' Instruction</a>
3667 <result> = sub <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3668 <result> = sub nuw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3669 <result> = sub nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3670 <result> = sub nuw nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3674 <p>The '<tt>sub</tt>' instruction returns the difference of its two
3677 <p>Note that the '<tt>sub</tt>' instruction is used to represent the
3678 '<tt>neg</tt>' instruction present in most other intermediate
3679 representations.</p>
3682 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>sub</tt>' instruction must
3683 be <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3684 integer values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3687 <p>The value produced is the integer difference of the two operands.</p>
3689 <p>If the difference has unsigned overflow, the result returned is the
3690 mathematical result modulo 2<sup>n</sup>, where n is the bit width of the
3693 <p>Because LLVM integers use a two's complement representation, this instruction
3694 is appropriate for both signed and unsigned integers.</p>
3696 <p><tt>nuw</tt> and <tt>nsw</tt> stand for "No Unsigned Wrap"
3697 and "No Signed Wrap", respectively. If the <tt>nuw</tt> and/or
3698 <tt>nsw</tt> keywords are present, the result value of the <tt>sub</tt>
3699 is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if unsigned and/or signed overflow,
3700 respectively, occurs.</p>
3704 <result> = sub i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 - %var</i>
3705 <result> = sub i32 0, %val <i>; yields {i32}:result = -%var</i>
3710 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3712 <a name="i_fsub">'<tt>fsub</tt>' Instruction</a>
3719 <result> = fsub <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3723 <p>The '<tt>fsub</tt>' instruction returns the difference of its two
3726 <p>Note that the '<tt>fsub</tt>' instruction is used to represent the
3727 '<tt>fneg</tt>' instruction present in most other intermediate
3728 representations.</p>
3731 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>fsub</tt>' instruction must be
3732 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3733 floating point values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3736 <p>The value produced is the floating point difference of the two operands.</p>
3740 <result> = fsub float 4.0, %var <i>; yields {float}:result = 4.0 - %var</i>
3741 <result> = fsub float -0.0, %val <i>; yields {float}:result = -%var</i>
3746 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3748 <a name="i_mul">'<tt>mul</tt>' Instruction</a>
3755 <result> = mul <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3756 <result> = mul nuw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3757 <result> = mul nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3758 <result> = mul nuw nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3762 <p>The '<tt>mul</tt>' instruction returns the product of its two operands.</p>
3765 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>mul</tt>' instruction must
3766 be <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3767 integer values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3770 <p>The value produced is the integer product of the two operands.</p>
3772 <p>If the result of the multiplication has unsigned overflow, the result
3773 returned is the mathematical result modulo 2<sup>n</sup>, where n is the bit
3774 width of the result.</p>
3776 <p>Because LLVM integers use a two's complement representation, and the result
3777 is the same width as the operands, this instruction returns the correct
3778 result for both signed and unsigned integers. If a full product
3779 (e.g. <tt>i32</tt>x<tt>i32</tt>-><tt>i64</tt>) is needed, the operands should
3780 be sign-extended or zero-extended as appropriate to the width of the full
3783 <p><tt>nuw</tt> and <tt>nsw</tt> stand for "No Unsigned Wrap"
3784 and "No Signed Wrap", respectively. If the <tt>nuw</tt> and/or
3785 <tt>nsw</tt> keywords are present, the result value of the <tt>mul</tt>
3786 is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if unsigned and/or signed overflow,
3787 respectively, occurs.</p>
3791 <result> = mul i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 * %var</i>
3796 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3798 <a name="i_fmul">'<tt>fmul</tt>' Instruction</a>
3805 <result> = fmul <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3809 <p>The '<tt>fmul</tt>' instruction returns the product of its two operands.</p>
3812 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>fmul</tt>' instruction must be
3813 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3814 floating point values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3817 <p>The value produced is the floating point product of the two operands.</p>
3821 <result> = fmul float 4.0, %var <i>; yields {float}:result = 4.0 * %var</i>
3826 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3828 <a name="i_udiv">'<tt>udiv</tt>' Instruction</a>
3835 <result> = udiv <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3836 <result> = udiv exact <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3840 <p>The '<tt>udiv</tt>' instruction returns the quotient of its two operands.</p>
3843 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>udiv</tt>' instruction must be
3844 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
3845 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3848 <p>The value produced is the unsigned integer quotient of the two operands.</p>
3850 <p>Note that unsigned integer division and signed integer division are distinct
3851 operations; for signed integer division, use '<tt>sdiv</tt>'.</p>
3853 <p>Division by zero leads to undefined behavior.</p>
3855 <p>If the <tt>exact</tt> keyword is present, the result value of the
3856 <tt>udiv</tt> is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if %op1 is not a
3857 multiple of %op2 (as such, "((a udiv exact b) mul b) == a").</p>
3862 <result> = udiv i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 / %var</i>
3867 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3869 <a name="i_sdiv">'<tt>sdiv</tt>' Instruction</a>
3876 <result> = sdiv <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3877 <result> = sdiv exact <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3881 <p>The '<tt>sdiv</tt>' instruction returns the quotient of its two operands.</p>
3884 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>sdiv</tt>' instruction must be
3885 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
3886 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3889 <p>The value produced is the signed integer quotient of the two operands rounded
3892 <p>Note that signed integer division and unsigned integer division are distinct
3893 operations; for unsigned integer division, use '<tt>udiv</tt>'.</p>
3895 <p>Division by zero leads to undefined behavior. Overflow also leads to
3896 undefined behavior; this is a rare case, but can occur, for example, by doing
3897 a 32-bit division of -2147483648 by -1.</p>
3899 <p>If the <tt>exact</tt> keyword is present, the result value of the
3900 <tt>sdiv</tt> is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if the result would
3905 <result> = sdiv i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 / %var</i>
3910 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3912 <a name="i_fdiv">'<tt>fdiv</tt>' Instruction</a>
3919 <result> = fdiv <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3923 <p>The '<tt>fdiv</tt>' instruction returns the quotient of its two operands.</p>
3926 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>fdiv</tt>' instruction must be
3927 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
3928 floating point values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3931 <p>The value produced is the floating point quotient of the two operands.</p>
3935 <result> = fdiv float 4.0, %var <i>; yields {float}:result = 4.0 / %var</i>
3940 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3942 <a name="i_urem">'<tt>urem</tt>' Instruction</a>
3949 <result> = urem <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3953 <p>The '<tt>urem</tt>' instruction returns the remainder from the unsigned
3954 division of its two arguments.</p>
3957 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>urem</tt>' instruction must be
3958 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
3959 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
3962 <p>This instruction returns the unsigned integer <i>remainder</i> of a division.
3963 This instruction always performs an unsigned division to get the
3966 <p>Note that unsigned integer remainder and signed integer remainder are
3967 distinct operations; for signed integer remainder, use '<tt>srem</tt>'.</p>
3969 <p>Taking the remainder of a division by zero leads to undefined behavior.</p>
3973 <result> = urem i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 % %var</i>
3978 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
3980 <a name="i_srem">'<tt>srem</tt>' Instruction</a>
3987 <result> = srem <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
3991 <p>The '<tt>srem</tt>' instruction returns the remainder from the signed
3992 division of its two operands. This instruction can also take
3993 <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> versions of the values in which case the
3994 elements must be integers.</p>
3997 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>srem</tt>' instruction must be
3998 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
3999 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
4002 <p>This instruction returns the <i>remainder</i> of a division (where the result
4003 is either zero or has the same sign as the dividend, <tt>op1</tt>), not the
4004 <i>modulo</i> operator (where the result is either zero or has the same sign
4005 as the divisor, <tt>op2</tt>) of a value.
4006 For more information about the difference,
4007 see <a href="http://mathforum.org/dr.math/problems/anne.4.28.99.html">The
4008 Math Forum</a>. For a table of how this is implemented in various languages,
4009 please see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulo_operation">
4010 Wikipedia: modulo operation</a>.</p>
4012 <p>Note that signed integer remainder and unsigned integer remainder are
4013 distinct operations; for unsigned integer remainder, use '<tt>urem</tt>'.</p>
4015 <p>Taking the remainder of a division by zero leads to undefined behavior.
4016 Overflow also leads to undefined behavior; this is a rare case, but can
4017 occur, for example, by taking the remainder of a 32-bit division of
4018 -2147483648 by -1. (The remainder doesn't actually overflow, but this rule
4019 lets srem be implemented using instructions that return both the result of
4020 the division and the remainder.)</p>
4024 <result> = srem i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 % %var</i>
4029 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4031 <a name="i_frem">'<tt>frem</tt>' Instruction</a>
4038 <result> = frem <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4042 <p>The '<tt>frem</tt>' instruction returns the remainder from the division of
4043 its two operands.</p>
4046 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>frem</tt>' instruction must be
4047 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
4048 floating point values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
4051 <p>This instruction returns the <i>remainder</i> of a division. The remainder
4052 has the same sign as the dividend.</p>
4056 <result> = frem float 4.0, %var <i>; yields {float}:result = 4.0 % %var</i>
4063 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
4065 <a name="bitwiseops">Bitwise Binary Operations</a>
4070 <p>Bitwise binary operators are used to do various forms of bit-twiddling in a
4071 program. They are generally very efficient instructions and can commonly be
4072 strength reduced from other instructions. They require two operands of the
4073 same type, execute an operation on them, and produce a single value. The
4074 resulting value is the same type as its operands.</p>
4076 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4078 <a name="i_shl">'<tt>shl</tt>' Instruction</a>
4085 <result> = shl <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4086 <result> = shl nuw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4087 <result> = shl nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4088 <result> = shl nuw nsw <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4092 <p>The '<tt>shl</tt>' instruction returns the first operand shifted to the left
4093 a specified number of bits.</p>
4096 <p>Both arguments to the '<tt>shl</tt>' instruction must be the
4097 same <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of
4098 integer type. '<tt>op2</tt>' is treated as an unsigned value.</p>
4101 <p>The value produced is <tt>op1</tt> * 2<sup><tt>op2</tt></sup> mod
4102 2<sup>n</sup>, where <tt>n</tt> is the width of the result. If <tt>op2</tt>
4103 is (statically or dynamically) negative or equal to or larger than the number
4104 of bits in <tt>op1</tt>, the result is undefined. If the arguments are
4105 vectors, each vector element of <tt>op1</tt> is shifted by the corresponding
4106 shift amount in <tt>op2</tt>.</p>
4108 <p>If the <tt>nuw</tt> keyword is present, then the shift produces a
4109 <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if it shifts out any non-zero bits. If
4110 the <tt>nsw</tt> keyword is present, then the shift produces a
4111 <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if it shifts out any bits that disagree
4112 with the resultant sign bit. As such, NUW/NSW have the same semantics as
4113 they would if the shift were expressed as a mul instruction with the same
4114 nsw/nuw bits in (mul %op1, (shl 1, %op2)).</p>
4118 <result> = shl i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}: 4 << %var</i>
4119 <result> = shl i32 4, 2 <i>; yields {i32}: 16</i>
4120 <result> = shl i32 1, 10 <i>; yields {i32}: 1024</i>
4121 <result> = shl i32 1, 32 <i>; undefined</i>
4122 <result> = shl <2 x i32> < i32 1, i32 1>, < i32 1, i32 2> <i>; yields: result=<2 x i32> < i32 2, i32 4></i>
4127 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4129 <a name="i_lshr">'<tt>lshr</tt>' Instruction</a>
4136 <result> = lshr <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4137 <result> = lshr exact <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4141 <p>The '<tt>lshr</tt>' instruction (logical shift right) returns the first
4142 operand shifted to the right a specified number of bits with zero fill.</p>
4145 <p>Both arguments to the '<tt>lshr</tt>' instruction must be the same
4146 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
4147 type. '<tt>op2</tt>' is treated as an unsigned value.</p>
4150 <p>This instruction always performs a logical shift right operation. The most
4151 significant bits of the result will be filled with zero bits after the shift.
4152 If <tt>op2</tt> is (statically or dynamically) equal to or larger than the
4153 number of bits in <tt>op1</tt>, the result is undefined. If the arguments are
4154 vectors, each vector element of <tt>op1</tt> is shifted by the corresponding
4155 shift amount in <tt>op2</tt>.</p>
4157 <p>If the <tt>exact</tt> keyword is present, the result value of the
4158 <tt>lshr</tt> is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if any of the bits
4159 shifted out are non-zero.</p>
4164 <result> = lshr i32 4, 1 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 2</i>
4165 <result> = lshr i32 4, 2 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 1</i>
4166 <result> = lshr i8 4, 3 <i>; yields {i8}:result = 0</i>
4167 <result> = lshr i8 -2, 1 <i>; yields {i8}:result = 0x7FFFFFFF </i>
4168 <result> = lshr i32 1, 32 <i>; undefined</i>
4169 <result> = lshr <2 x i32> < i32 -2, i32 4>, < i32 1, i32 2> <i>; yields: result=<2 x i32> < i32 0x7FFFFFFF, i32 1></i>
4174 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4176 <a name="i_ashr">'<tt>ashr</tt>' Instruction</a>
4183 <result> = ashr <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4184 <result> = ashr exact <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4188 <p>The '<tt>ashr</tt>' instruction (arithmetic shift right) returns the first
4189 operand shifted to the right a specified number of bits with sign
4193 <p>Both arguments to the '<tt>ashr</tt>' instruction must be the same
4194 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
4195 type. '<tt>op2</tt>' is treated as an unsigned value.</p>
4198 <p>This instruction always performs an arithmetic shift right operation, The
4199 most significant bits of the result will be filled with the sign bit
4200 of <tt>op1</tt>. If <tt>op2</tt> is (statically or dynamically) equal to or
4201 larger than the number of bits in <tt>op1</tt>, the result is undefined. If
4202 the arguments are vectors, each vector element of <tt>op1</tt> is shifted by
4203 the corresponding shift amount in <tt>op2</tt>.</p>
4205 <p>If the <tt>exact</tt> keyword is present, the result value of the
4206 <tt>ashr</tt> is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if any of the bits
4207 shifted out are non-zero.</p>
4211 <result> = ashr i32 4, 1 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 2</i>
4212 <result> = ashr i32 4, 2 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 1</i>
4213 <result> = ashr i8 4, 3 <i>; yields {i8}:result = 0</i>
4214 <result> = ashr i8 -2, 1 <i>; yields {i8}:result = -1</i>
4215 <result> = ashr i32 1, 32 <i>; undefined</i>
4216 <result> = ashr <2 x i32> < i32 -2, i32 4>, < i32 1, i32 3> <i>; yields: result=<2 x i32> < i32 -1, i32 0></i>
4221 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4223 <a name="i_and">'<tt>and</tt>' Instruction</a>
4230 <result> = and <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4234 <p>The '<tt>and</tt>' instruction returns the bitwise logical and of its two
4238 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>and</tt>' instruction must be
4239 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
4240 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
4243 <p>The truth table used for the '<tt>and</tt>' instruction is:</p>
4245 <table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
4277 <result> = and i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 & %var</i>
4278 <result> = and i32 15, 40 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 8</i>
4279 <result> = and i32 4, 8 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 0</i>
4282 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4284 <a name="i_or">'<tt>or</tt>' Instruction</a>
4291 <result> = or <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4295 <p>The '<tt>or</tt>' instruction returns the bitwise logical inclusive or of its
4299 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>or</tt>' instruction must be
4300 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
4301 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
4304 <p>The truth table used for the '<tt>or</tt>' instruction is:</p>
4306 <table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
4338 <result> = or i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 | %var</i>
4339 <result> = or i32 15, 40 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 47</i>
4340 <result> = or i32 4, 8 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 12</i>
4345 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4347 <a name="i_xor">'<tt>xor</tt>' Instruction</a>
4354 <result> = xor <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {ty}:result</i>
4358 <p>The '<tt>xor</tt>' instruction returns the bitwise logical exclusive or of
4359 its two operands. The <tt>xor</tt> is used to implement the "one's
4360 complement" operation, which is the "~" operator in C.</p>
4363 <p>The two arguments to the '<tt>xor</tt>' instruction must be
4364 <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of integer
4365 values. Both arguments must have identical types.</p>
4368 <p>The truth table used for the '<tt>xor</tt>' instruction is:</p>
4370 <table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
4402 <result> = xor i32 4, %var <i>; yields {i32}:result = 4 ^ %var</i>
4403 <result> = xor i32 15, 40 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 39</i>
4404 <result> = xor i32 4, 8 <i>; yields {i32}:result = 12</i>
4405 <result> = xor i32 %V, -1 <i>; yields {i32}:result = ~%V</i>
4412 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
4414 <a name="vectorops">Vector Operations</a>
4419 <p>LLVM supports several instructions to represent vector operations in a
4420 target-independent manner. These instructions cover the element-access and
4421 vector-specific operations needed to process vectors effectively. While LLVM
4422 does directly support these vector operations, many sophisticated algorithms
4423 will want to use target-specific intrinsics to take full advantage of a
4424 specific target.</p>
4426 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4428 <a name="i_extractelement">'<tt>extractelement</tt>' Instruction</a>
4435 <result> = extractelement <n x <ty>> <val>, i32 <idx> <i>; yields <ty></i>
4439 <p>The '<tt>extractelement</tt>' instruction extracts a single scalar element
4440 from a vector at a specified index.</p>
4444 <p>The first operand of an '<tt>extractelement</tt>' instruction is a value
4445 of <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> type. The second operand is an index
4446 indicating the position from which to extract the element. The index may be
4450 <p>The result is a scalar of the same type as the element type of
4451 <tt>val</tt>. Its value is the value at position <tt>idx</tt> of
4452 <tt>val</tt>. If <tt>idx</tt> exceeds the length of <tt>val</tt>, the
4453 results are undefined.</p>
4457 <result> = extractelement <4 x i32> %vec, i32 0 <i>; yields i32</i>
4462 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4464 <a name="i_insertelement">'<tt>insertelement</tt>' Instruction</a>
4471 <result> = insertelement <n x <ty>> <val>, <ty> <elt>, i32 <idx> <i>; yields <n x <ty>></i>
4475 <p>The '<tt>insertelement</tt>' instruction inserts a scalar element into a
4476 vector at a specified index.</p>
4479 <p>The first operand of an '<tt>insertelement</tt>' instruction is a value
4480 of <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> type. The second operand is a scalar value
4481 whose type must equal the element type of the first operand. The third
4482 operand is an index indicating the position at which to insert the value.
4483 The index may be a variable.</p>
4486 <p>The result is a vector of the same type as <tt>val</tt>. Its element values
4487 are those of <tt>val</tt> except at position <tt>idx</tt>, where it gets the
4488 value <tt>elt</tt>. If <tt>idx</tt> exceeds the length of <tt>val</tt>, the
4489 results are undefined.</p>
4493 <result> = insertelement <4 x i32> %vec, i32 1, i32 0 <i>; yields <4 x i32></i>
4498 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4500 <a name="i_shufflevector">'<tt>shufflevector</tt>' Instruction</a>
4507 <result> = shufflevector <n x <ty>> <v1>, <n x <ty>> <v2>, <m x i32> <mask> <i>; yields <m x <ty>></i>
4511 <p>The '<tt>shufflevector</tt>' instruction constructs a permutation of elements
4512 from two input vectors, returning a vector with the same element type as the
4513 input and length that is the same as the shuffle mask.</p>
4516 <p>The first two operands of a '<tt>shufflevector</tt>' instruction are vectors
4517 with types that match each other. The third argument is a shuffle mask whose
4518 element type is always 'i32'. The result of the instruction is a vector
4519 whose length is the same as the shuffle mask and whose element type is the
4520 same as the element type of the first two operands.</p>
4522 <p>The shuffle mask operand is required to be a constant vector with either
4523 constant integer or undef values.</p>
4526 <p>The elements of the two input vectors are numbered from left to right across
4527 both of the vectors. The shuffle mask operand specifies, for each element of
4528 the result vector, which element of the two input vectors the result element
4529 gets. The element selector may be undef (meaning "don't care") and the
4530 second operand may be undef if performing a shuffle from only one vector.</p>
4534 <result> = shufflevector <4 x i32> %v1, <4 x i32> %v2,
4535 <4 x i32> <i32 0, i32 4, i32 1, i32 5> <i>; yields <4 x i32></i>
4536 <result> = shufflevector <4 x i32> %v1, <4 x i32> undef,
4537 <4 x i32> <i32 0, i32 1, i32 2, i32 3> <i>; yields <4 x i32></i> - Identity shuffle.
4538 <result> = shufflevector <8 x i32> %v1, <8 x i32> undef,
4539 <4 x i32> <i32 0, i32 1, i32 2, i32 3> <i>; yields <4 x i32></i>
4540 <result> = shufflevector <4 x i32> %v1, <4 x i32> %v2,
4541 <8 x i32> <i32 0, i32 1, i32 2, i32 3, i32 4, i32 5, i32 6, i32 7 > <i>; yields <8 x i32></i>
4548 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
4550 <a name="aggregateops">Aggregate Operations</a>
4555 <p>LLVM supports several instructions for working with
4556 <a href="#t_aggregate">aggregate</a> values.</p>
4558 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4560 <a name="i_extractvalue">'<tt>extractvalue</tt>' Instruction</a>
4567 <result> = extractvalue <aggregate type> <val>, <idx>{, <idx>}*
4571 <p>The '<tt>extractvalue</tt>' instruction extracts the value of a member field
4572 from an <a href="#t_aggregate">aggregate</a> value.</p>
4575 <p>The first operand of an '<tt>extractvalue</tt>' instruction is a value
4576 of <a href="#t_struct">struct</a> or
4577 <a href="#t_array">array</a> type. The operands are constant indices to
4578 specify which value to extract in a similar manner as indices in a
4579 '<tt><a href="#i_getelementptr">getelementptr</a></tt>' instruction.</p>
4580 <p>The major differences to <tt>getelementptr</tt> indexing are:</p>
4582 <li>Since the value being indexed is not a pointer, the first index is
4583 omitted and assumed to be zero.</li>
4584 <li>At least one index must be specified.</li>
4585 <li>Not only struct indices but also array indices must be in
4590 <p>The result is the value at the position in the aggregate specified by the
4595 <result> = extractvalue {i32, float} %agg, 0 <i>; yields i32</i>
4600 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4602 <a name="i_insertvalue">'<tt>insertvalue</tt>' Instruction</a>
4609 <result> = insertvalue <aggregate type> <val>, <ty> <elt>, <idx>{, <idx>}* <i>; yields <aggregate type></i>
4613 <p>The '<tt>insertvalue</tt>' instruction inserts a value into a member field
4614 in an <a href="#t_aggregate">aggregate</a> value.</p>
4617 <p>The first operand of an '<tt>insertvalue</tt>' instruction is a value
4618 of <a href="#t_struct">struct</a> or
4619 <a href="#t_array">array</a> type. The second operand is a first-class
4620 value to insert. The following operands are constant indices indicating
4621 the position at which to insert the value in a similar manner as indices in a
4622 '<tt><a href="#i_extractvalue">extractvalue</a></tt>' instruction. The
4623 value to insert must have the same type as the value identified by the
4627 <p>The result is an aggregate of the same type as <tt>val</tt>. Its value is
4628 that of <tt>val</tt> except that the value at the position specified by the
4629 indices is that of <tt>elt</tt>.</p>
4633 %agg1 = insertvalue {i32, float} undef, i32 1, 0 <i>; yields {i32 1, float undef}</i>
4634 %agg2 = insertvalue {i32, float} %agg1, float %val, 1 <i>; yields {i32 1, float %val}</i>
4635 %agg3 = insertvalue {i32, {float}} %agg1, float %val, 1, 0 <i>; yields {i32 1, float %val}</i>
4642 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
4644 <a name="memoryops">Memory Access and Addressing Operations</a>
4649 <p>A key design point of an SSA-based representation is how it represents
4650 memory. In LLVM, no memory locations are in SSA form, which makes things
4651 very simple. This section describes how to read, write, and allocate
4654 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4656 <a name="i_alloca">'<tt>alloca</tt>' Instruction</a>
4663 <result> = alloca <type>[, <ty> <NumElements>][, align <alignment>] <i>; yields {type*}:result</i>
4667 <p>The '<tt>alloca</tt>' instruction allocates memory on the stack frame of the
4668 currently executing function, to be automatically released when this function
4669 returns to its caller. The object is always allocated in the generic address
4670 space (address space zero).</p>
4673 <p>The '<tt>alloca</tt>' instruction
4674 allocates <tt>sizeof(<type>)*NumElements</tt> bytes of memory on the
4675 runtime stack, returning a pointer of the appropriate type to the program.
4676 If "NumElements" is specified, it is the number of elements allocated,
4677 otherwise "NumElements" is defaulted to be one. If a constant alignment is
4678 specified, the value result of the allocation is guaranteed to be aligned to
4679 at least that boundary. If not specified, or if zero, the target can choose
4680 to align the allocation on any convenient boundary compatible with the
4683 <p>'<tt>type</tt>' may be any sized type.</p>
4686 <p>Memory is allocated; a pointer is returned. The operation is undefined if
4687 there is insufficient stack space for the allocation. '<tt>alloca</tt>'d
4688 memory is automatically released when the function returns. The
4689 '<tt>alloca</tt>' instruction is commonly used to represent automatic
4690 variables that must have an address available. When the function returns
4691 (either with the <tt><a href="#i_ret">ret</a></tt>
4692 or <tt><a href="#i_unwind">unwind</a></tt> instructions), the memory is
4693 reclaimed. Allocating zero bytes is legal, but the result is undefined.</p>
4697 %ptr = alloca i32 <i>; yields {i32*}:ptr</i>
4698 %ptr = alloca i32, i32 4 <i>; yields {i32*}:ptr</i>
4699 %ptr = alloca i32, i32 4, align 1024 <i>; yields {i32*}:ptr</i>
4700 %ptr = alloca i32, align 1024 <i>; yields {i32*}:ptr</i>
4705 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4707 <a name="i_load">'<tt>load</tt>' Instruction</a>
4714 <result> = load [volatile] <ty>* <pointer>[, align <alignment>][, !nontemporal !<index>]
4715 <result> = load atomic [volatile] <ty>* <pointer> [singlethread] <ordering>, align <alignment>
4716 !<index> = !{ i32 1 }
4720 <p>The '<tt>load</tt>' instruction is used to read from memory.</p>
4723 <p>The argument to the '<tt>load</tt>' instruction specifies the memory address
4724 from which to load. The pointer must point to
4725 a <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type. If the <tt>load</tt> is
4726 marked as <tt>volatile</tt>, then the optimizer is not allowed to modify the
4727 number or order of execution of this <tt>load</tt> with other <a
4728 href="#volatile">volatile operations</a>.</p>
4730 <p>If the <code>load</code> is marked as <code>atomic</code>, it takes an extra
4731 <a href="#ordering">ordering</a> and optional <code>singlethread</code>
4732 argument. The <code>release</code> and <code>acq_rel</code> orderings are
4733 not valid on <code>load</code> instructions. Atomic loads produce <a
4734 href="#memorymodel">defined</a> results when they may see multiple atomic
4735 stores. The type of the pointee must be an integer type whose bit width
4736 is a power of two greater than or equal to eight and less than or equal
4737 to a target-specific size limit. <code>align</code> must be explicitly
4738 specified on atomic loads, and the load has undefined behavior if the
4739 alignment is not set to a value which is at least the size in bytes of
4740 the pointee. <code>!nontemporal</code> does not have any defined semantics
4741 for atomic loads.</p>
4743 <p>The optional constant <tt>align</tt> argument specifies the alignment of the
4744 operation (that is, the alignment of the memory address). A value of 0 or an
4745 omitted <tt>align</tt> argument means that the operation has the preferential
4746 alignment for the target. It is the responsibility of the code emitter to
4747 ensure that the alignment information is correct. Overestimating the
4748 alignment results in undefined behavior. Underestimating the alignment may
4749 produce less efficient code. An alignment of 1 is always safe.</p>
4751 <p>The optional <tt>!nontemporal</tt> metadata must reference a single
4752 metatadata name <index> corresponding to a metadata node with
4753 one <tt>i32</tt> entry of value 1. The existence of
4754 the <tt>!nontemporal</tt> metatadata on the instruction tells the optimizer
4755 and code generator that this load is not expected to be reused in the cache.
4756 The code generator may select special instructions to save cache bandwidth,
4757 such as the <tt>MOVNT</tt> instruction on x86.</p>
4760 <p>The location of memory pointed to is loaded. If the value being loaded is of
4761 scalar type then the number of bytes read does not exceed the minimum number
4762 of bytes needed to hold all bits of the type. For example, loading an
4763 <tt>i24</tt> reads at most three bytes. When loading a value of a type like
4764 <tt>i20</tt> with a size that is not an integral number of bytes, the result
4765 is undefined if the value was not originally written using a store of the
4770 %ptr = <a href="#i_alloca">alloca</a> i32 <i>; yields {i32*}:ptr</i>
4771 <a href="#i_store">store</a> i32 3, i32* %ptr <i>; yields {void}</i>
4772 %val = load i32* %ptr <i>; yields {i32}:val = i32 3</i>
4777 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4779 <a name="i_store">'<tt>store</tt>' Instruction</a>
4786 store [volatile] <ty> <value>, <ty>* <pointer>[, align <alignment>][, !nontemporal !<index>] <i>; yields {void}</i>
4787 store atomic [volatile] <ty> <value>, <ty>* <pointer> [singlethread] <ordering>, align <alignment> <i>; yields {void}</i>
4791 <p>The '<tt>store</tt>' instruction is used to write to memory.</p>
4794 <p>There are two arguments to the '<tt>store</tt>' instruction: a value to store
4795 and an address at which to store it. The type of the
4796 '<tt><pointer></tt>' operand must be a pointer to
4797 the <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type of the
4798 '<tt><value></tt>' operand. If the <tt>store</tt> is marked as
4799 <tt>volatile</tt>, then the optimizer is not allowed to modify the number or
4800 order of execution of this <tt>store</tt> with other <a
4801 href="#volatile">volatile operations</a>.</p>
4803 <p>If the <code>store</code> is marked as <code>atomic</code>, it takes an extra
4804 <a href="#ordering">ordering</a> and optional <code>singlethread</code>
4805 argument. The <code>acquire</code> and <code>acq_rel</code> orderings aren't
4806 valid on <code>store</code> instructions. Atomic loads produce <a
4807 href="#memorymodel">defined</a> results when they may see multiple atomic
4808 stores. The type of the pointee must be an integer type whose bit width
4809 is a power of two greater than or equal to eight and less than or equal
4810 to a target-specific size limit. <code>align</code> must be explicitly
4811 specified on atomic stores, and the store has undefined behavior if the
4812 alignment is not set to a value which is at least the size in bytes of
4813 the pointee. <code>!nontemporal</code> does not have any defined semantics
4814 for atomic stores.</p>
4816 <p>The optional constant "align" argument specifies the alignment of the
4817 operation (that is, the alignment of the memory address). A value of 0 or an
4818 omitted "align" argument means that the operation has the preferential
4819 alignment for the target. It is the responsibility of the code emitter to
4820 ensure that the alignment information is correct. Overestimating the
4821 alignment results in an undefined behavior. Underestimating the alignment may
4822 produce less efficient code. An alignment of 1 is always safe.</p>
4824 <p>The optional !nontemporal metadata must reference a single metatadata
4825 name <index> corresponding to a metadata node with one i32 entry of
4826 value 1. The existence of the !nontemporal metatadata on the
4827 instruction tells the optimizer and code generator that this load is
4828 not expected to be reused in the cache. The code generator may
4829 select special instructions to save cache bandwidth, such as the
4830 MOVNT instruction on x86.</p>
4834 <p>The contents of memory are updated to contain '<tt><value></tt>' at the
4835 location specified by the '<tt><pointer></tt>' operand. If
4836 '<tt><value></tt>' is of scalar type then the number of bytes written
4837 does not exceed the minimum number of bytes needed to hold all bits of the
4838 type. For example, storing an <tt>i24</tt> writes at most three bytes. When
4839 writing a value of a type like <tt>i20</tt> with a size that is not an
4840 integral number of bytes, it is unspecified what happens to the extra bits
4841 that do not belong to the type, but they will typically be overwritten.</p>
4845 %ptr = <a href="#i_alloca">alloca</a> i32 <i>; yields {i32*}:ptr</i>
4846 store i32 3, i32* %ptr <i>; yields {void}</i>
4847 %val = <a href="#i_load">load</a> i32* %ptr <i>; yields {i32}:val = i32 3</i>
4852 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4854 <a name="i_fence">'<tt>fence</tt>' Instruction</a>
4861 fence [singlethread] <ordering> <i>; yields {void}</i>
4865 <p>The '<tt>fence</tt>' instruction is used to introduce happens-before edges
4866 between operations.</p>
4868 <h5>Arguments:</h5> <p>'<code>fence</code>' instructions take an <a
4869 href="#ordering">ordering</a> argument which defines what
4870 <i>synchronizes-with</i> edges they add. They can only be given
4871 <code>acquire</code>, <code>release</code>, <code>acq_rel</code>, and
4872 <code>seq_cst</code> orderings.</p>
4875 <p>A fence <var>A</var> which has (at least) <code>release</code> ordering
4876 semantics <i>synchronizes with</i> a fence <var>B</var> with (at least)
4877 <code>acquire</code> ordering semantics if and only if there exist atomic
4878 operations <var>X</var> and <var>Y</var>, both operating on some atomic object
4879 <var>M</var>, such that <var>A</var> is sequenced before <var>X</var>,
4880 <var>X</var> modifies <var>M</var> (either directly or through some side effect
4881 of a sequence headed by <var>X</var>), <var>Y</var> is sequenced before
4882 <var>B</var>, and <var>Y</var> observes <var>M</var>. This provides a
4883 <i>happens-before</i> dependency between <var>A</var> and <var>B</var>. Rather
4884 than an explicit <code>fence</code>, one (but not both) of the atomic operations
4885 <var>X</var> or <var>Y</var> might provide a <code>release</code> or
4886 <code>acquire</code> (resp.) ordering constraint and still
4887 <i>synchronize-with</i> the explicit <code>fence</code> and establish the
4888 <i>happens-before</i> edge.</p>
4890 <p>A <code>fence</code> which has <code>seq_cst</code> ordering, in addition to
4891 having both <code>acquire</code> and <code>release</code> semantics specified
4892 above, participates in the global program order of other <code>seq_cst</code>
4893 operations and/or fences.</p>
4895 <p>The optional "<a href="#singlethread"><code>singlethread</code></a>" argument
4896 specifies that the fence only synchronizes with other fences in the same
4897 thread. (This is useful for interacting with signal handlers.)</p>
4901 fence acquire <i>; yields {void}</i>
4902 fence singlethread seq_cst <i>; yields {void}</i>
4907 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4909 <a name="i_cmpxchg">'<tt>cmpxchg</tt>' Instruction</a>
4916 cmpxchg [volatile] <ty>* <pointer>, <ty> <cmp>, <ty> <new> [singlethread] <ordering> <i>; yields {ty}</i>
4920 <p>The '<tt>cmpxchg</tt>' instruction is used to atomically modify memory.
4921 It loads a value in memory and compares it to a given value. If they are
4922 equal, it stores a new value into the memory.</p>
4925 <p>There are three arguments to the '<code>cmpxchg</code>' instruction: an
4926 address to operate on, a value to compare to the value currently be at that
4927 address, and a new value to place at that address if the compared values are
4928 equal. The type of '<var><cmp></var>' must be an integer type whose
4929 bit width is a power of two greater than or equal to eight and less than
4930 or equal to a target-specific size limit. '<var><cmp></var>' and
4931 '<var><new></var>' must have the same type, and the type of
4932 '<var><pointer></var>' must be a pointer to that type. If the
4933 <code>cmpxchg</code> is marked as <code>volatile</code>, then the
4934 optimizer is not allowed to modify the number or order of execution
4935 of this <code>cmpxchg</code> with other <a href="#volatile">volatile
4938 <!-- FIXME: Extend allowed types. -->
4940 <p>The <a href="#ordering"><var>ordering</var></a> argument specifies how this
4941 <code>cmpxchg</code> synchronizes with other atomic operations.</p>
4943 <p>The optional "<code>singlethread</code>" argument declares that the
4944 <code>cmpxchg</code> is only atomic with respect to code (usually signal
4945 handlers) running in the same thread as the <code>cmpxchg</code>. Otherwise the
4946 cmpxchg is atomic with respect to all other code in the system.</p>
4948 <p>The pointer passed into cmpxchg must have alignment greater than or equal to
4949 the size in memory of the operand.
4952 <p>The contents of memory at the location specified by the
4953 '<tt><pointer></tt>' operand is read and compared to
4954 '<tt><cmp></tt>'; if the read value is the equal,
4955 '<tt><new></tt>' is written. The original value at the location
4958 <p>A successful <code>cmpxchg</code> is a read-modify-write instruction for the
4959 purpose of identifying <a href="#release_sequence">release sequences</a>. A
4960 failed <code>cmpxchg</code> is equivalent to an atomic load with an ordering
4961 parameter determined by dropping any <code>release</code> part of the
4962 <code>cmpxchg</code>'s ordering.</p>
4965 FIXME: Is compare_exchange_weak() necessary? (Consider after we've done
4966 optimization work on ARM.)
4968 FIXME: Is a weaker ordering constraint on failure helpful in practice?
4974 %orig = atomic <a href="#i_load">load</a> i32* %ptr unordered <i>; yields {i32}</i>
4975 <a href="#i_br">br</a> label %loop
4978 %cmp = <a href="#i_phi">phi</a> i32 [ %orig, %entry ], [%old, %loop]
4979 %squared = <a href="#i_mul">mul</a> i32 %cmp, %cmp
4980 %old = cmpxchg i32* %ptr, i32 %cmp, i32 %squared <i>; yields {i32}</i>
4981 %success = <a href="#i_icmp">icmp</a> eq i32 %cmp, %old
4982 <a href="#i_br">br</a> i1 %success, label %done, label %loop
4990 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
4992 <a name="i_atomicrmw">'<tt>atomicrmw</tt>' Instruction</a>
4999 atomicrmw [volatile] <operation> <ty>* <pointer>, <ty> <value> [singlethread] <ordering> <i>; yields {ty}</i>
5003 <p>The '<tt>atomicrmw</tt>' instruction is used to atomically modify memory.</p>
5006 <p>There are three arguments to the '<code>atomicrmw</code>' instruction: an
5007 operation to apply, an address whose value to modify, an argument to the
5008 operation. The operation must be one of the following keywords:</p>
5023 <p>The type of '<var><value></var>' must be an integer type whose
5024 bit width is a power of two greater than or equal to eight and less than
5025 or equal to a target-specific size limit. The type of the
5026 '<code><pointer></code>' operand must be a pointer to that type.
5027 If the <code>atomicrmw</code> is marked as <code>volatile</code>, then the
5028 optimizer is not allowed to modify the number or order of execution of this
5029 <code>atomicrmw</code> with other <a href="#volatile">volatile
5032 <!-- FIXME: Extend allowed types. -->
5035 <p>The contents of memory at the location specified by the
5036 '<tt><pointer></tt>' operand are atomically read, modified, and written
5037 back. The original value at the location is returned. The modification is
5038 specified by the <var>operation</var> argument:</p>
5041 <li>xchg: <code>*ptr = val</code></li>
5042 <li>add: <code>*ptr = *ptr + val</code></li>
5043 <li>sub: <code>*ptr = *ptr - val</code></li>
5044 <li>and: <code>*ptr = *ptr & val</code></li>
5045 <li>nand: <code>*ptr = ~(*ptr & val)</code></li>
5046 <li>or: <code>*ptr = *ptr | val</code></li>
5047 <li>xor: <code>*ptr = *ptr ^ val</code></li>
5048 <li>max: <code>*ptr = *ptr > val ? *ptr : val</code> (using a signed comparison)</li>
5049 <li>min: <code>*ptr = *ptr < val ? *ptr : val</code> (using a signed comparison)</li>
5050 <li>umax: <code>*ptr = *ptr > val ? *ptr : val</code> (using an unsigned comparison)</li>
5051 <li>umin: <code>*ptr = *ptr < val ? *ptr : val</code> (using an unsigned comparison)</li>
5056 %old = atomicrmw add i32* %ptr, i32 1 acquire <i>; yields {i32}</i>
5061 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5063 <a name="i_getelementptr">'<tt>getelementptr</tt>' Instruction</a>
5070 <result> = getelementptr <pty>* <ptrval>{, <ty> <idx>}*
5071 <result> = getelementptr inbounds <pty>* <ptrval>{, <ty> <idx>}*
5075 <p>The '<tt>getelementptr</tt>' instruction is used to get the address of a
5076 subelement of an <a href="#t_aggregate">aggregate</a> data structure.
5077 It performs address calculation only and does not access memory.</p>
5080 <p>The first argument is always a pointer, and forms the basis of the
5081 calculation. The remaining arguments are indices that indicate which of the
5082 elements of the aggregate object are indexed. The interpretation of each
5083 index is dependent on the type being indexed into. The first index always
5084 indexes the pointer value given as the first argument, the second index
5085 indexes a value of the type pointed to (not necessarily the value directly
5086 pointed to, since the first index can be non-zero), etc. The first type
5087 indexed into must be a pointer value, subsequent types can be arrays,
5088 vectors, and structs. Note that subsequent types being indexed into
5089 can never be pointers, since that would require loading the pointer before
5090 continuing calculation.</p>
5092 <p>The type of each index argument depends on the type it is indexing into.
5093 When indexing into a (optionally packed) structure, only <tt>i32</tt>
5094 integer <b>constants</b> are allowed. When indexing into an array, pointer
5095 or vector, integers of any width are allowed, and they are not required to be
5096 constant. These integers are treated as signed values where relevant.</p>
5098 <p>For example, let's consider a C code fragment and how it gets compiled to
5101 <pre class="doc_code">
5113 int *foo(struct ST *s) {
5114 return &s[1].Z.B[5][13];
5118 <p>The LLVM code generated by the GCC frontend is:</p>
5120 <pre class="doc_code">
5121 %RT = <a href="#namedtypes">type</a> { i8 , [10 x [20 x i32]], i8 }
5122 %ST = <a href="#namedtypes">type</a> { i32, double, %RT }
5124 define i32* @foo(%ST* %s) {
5126 %reg = getelementptr %ST* %s, i32 1, i32 2, i32 1, i32 5, i32 13
5132 <p>In the example above, the first index is indexing into the '<tt>%ST*</tt>'
5133 type, which is a pointer, yielding a '<tt>%ST</tt>' = '<tt>{ i32, double, %RT
5134 }</tt>' type, a structure. The second index indexes into the third element
5135 of the structure, yielding a '<tt>%RT</tt>' = '<tt>{ i8 , [10 x [20 x i32]],
5136 i8 }</tt>' type, another structure. The third index indexes into the second
5137 element of the structure, yielding a '<tt>[10 x [20 x i32]]</tt>' type, an
5138 array. The two dimensions of the array are subscripted into, yielding an
5139 '<tt>i32</tt>' type. The '<tt>getelementptr</tt>' instruction returns a
5140 pointer to this element, thus computing a value of '<tt>i32*</tt>' type.</p>
5142 <p>Note that it is perfectly legal to index partially through a structure,
5143 returning a pointer to an inner element. Because of this, the LLVM code for
5144 the given testcase is equivalent to:</p>
5147 define i32* @foo(%ST* %s) {
5148 %t1 = getelementptr %ST* %s, i32 1 <i>; yields %ST*:%t1</i>
5149 %t2 = getelementptr %ST* %t1, i32 0, i32 2 <i>; yields %RT*:%t2</i>
5150 %t3 = getelementptr %RT* %t2, i32 0, i32 1 <i>; yields [10 x [20 x i32]]*:%t3</i>
5151 %t4 = getelementptr [10 x [20 x i32]]* %t3, i32 0, i32 5 <i>; yields [20 x i32]*:%t4</i>
5152 %t5 = getelementptr [20 x i32]* %t4, i32 0, i32 13 <i>; yields i32*:%t5</i>
5157 <p>If the <tt>inbounds</tt> keyword is present, the result value of the
5158 <tt>getelementptr</tt> is a <a href="#trapvalues">trap value</a> if the
5159 base pointer is not an <i>in bounds</i> address of an allocated object,
5160 or if any of the addresses that would be formed by successive addition of
5161 the offsets implied by the indices to the base address with infinitely
5162 precise signed arithmetic are not an <i>in bounds</i> address of that
5163 allocated object. The <i>in bounds</i> addresses for an allocated object
5164 are all the addresses that point into the object, plus the address one
5165 byte past the end.</p>
5167 <p>If the <tt>inbounds</tt> keyword is not present, the offsets are added to
5168 the base address with silently-wrapping two's complement arithmetic. If the
5169 offsets have a different width from the pointer, they are sign-extended or
5170 truncated to the width of the pointer. The result value of the
5171 <tt>getelementptr</tt> may be outside the object pointed to by the base
5172 pointer. The result value may not necessarily be used to access memory
5173 though, even if it happens to point into allocated storage. See the
5174 <a href="#pointeraliasing">Pointer Aliasing Rules</a> section for more
5177 <p>The getelementptr instruction is often confusing. For some more insight into
5178 how it works, see <a href="GetElementPtr.html">the getelementptr FAQ</a>.</p>
5182 <i>; yields [12 x i8]*:aptr</i>
5183 %aptr = getelementptr {i32, [12 x i8]}* %saptr, i64 0, i32 1
5184 <i>; yields i8*:vptr</i>
5185 %vptr = getelementptr {i32, <2 x i8>}* %svptr, i64 0, i32 1, i32 1
5186 <i>; yields i8*:eptr</i>
5187 %eptr = getelementptr [12 x i8]* %aptr, i64 0, i32 1
5188 <i>; yields i32*:iptr</i>
5189 %iptr = getelementptr [10 x i32]* @arr, i16 0, i16 0
5196 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
5198 <a name="convertops">Conversion Operations</a>
5203 <p>The instructions in this category are the conversion instructions (casting)
5204 which all take a single operand and a type. They perform various bit
5205 conversions on the operand.</p>
5207 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5209 <a name="i_trunc">'<tt>trunc .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5216 <result> = trunc <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5220 <p>The '<tt>trunc</tt>' instruction truncates its operand to the
5221 type <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5224 <p>The '<tt>trunc</tt>' instruction takes a value to trunc, and a type to trunc it to.
5225 Both types must be of <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> types, or vectors
5226 of the same number of integers.
5227 The bit size of the <tt>value</tt> must be larger than
5228 the bit size of the destination type, <tt>ty2</tt>.
5229 Equal sized types are not allowed.</p>
5232 <p>The '<tt>trunc</tt>' instruction truncates the high order bits
5233 in <tt>value</tt> and converts the remaining bits to <tt>ty2</tt>. Since the
5234 source size must be larger than the destination size, <tt>trunc</tt> cannot
5235 be a <i>no-op cast</i>. It will always truncate bits.</p>
5239 %X = trunc i32 257 to i8 <i>; yields i8:1</i>
5240 %Y = trunc i32 123 to i1 <i>; yields i1:true</i>
5241 %Z = trunc i32 122 to i1 <i>; yields i1:false</i>
5242 %W = trunc <2 x i16> <i16 8, i16 7> to <2 x i8> <i>; yields <i8 8, i8 7></i>
5247 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5249 <a name="i_zext">'<tt>zext .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5256 <result> = zext <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5260 <p>The '<tt>zext</tt>' instruction zero extends its operand to type
5265 <p>The '<tt>zext</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, and a type to cast it to.
5266 Both types must be of <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> types, or vectors
5267 of the same number of integers.
5268 The bit size of the <tt>value</tt> must be smaller than
5269 the bit size of the destination type,
5273 <p>The <tt>zext</tt> fills the high order bits of the <tt>value</tt> with zero
5274 bits until it reaches the size of the destination type, <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5276 <p>When zero extending from i1, the result will always be either 0 or 1.</p>
5280 %X = zext i32 257 to i64 <i>; yields i64:257</i>
5281 %Y = zext i1 true to i32 <i>; yields i32:1</i>
5282 %Z = zext <2 x i16> <i16 8, i16 7> to <2 x i32> <i>; yields <i32 8, i32 7></i>
5287 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5289 <a name="i_sext">'<tt>sext .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5296 <result> = sext <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5300 <p>The '<tt>sext</tt>' sign extends <tt>value</tt> to the type <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5303 <p>The '<tt>sext</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, and a type to cast it to.
5304 Both types must be of <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> types, or vectors
5305 of the same number of integers.
5306 The bit size of the <tt>value</tt> must be smaller than
5307 the bit size of the destination type,
5311 <p>The '<tt>sext</tt>' instruction performs a sign extension by copying the sign
5312 bit (highest order bit) of the <tt>value</tt> until it reaches the bit size
5313 of the type <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5315 <p>When sign extending from i1, the extension always results in -1 or 0.</p>
5319 %X = sext i8 -1 to i16 <i>; yields i16 :65535</i>
5320 %Y = sext i1 true to i32 <i>; yields i32:-1</i>
5321 %Z = sext <2 x i16> <i16 8, i16 7> to <2 x i32> <i>; yields <i32 8, i32 7></i>
5326 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5328 <a name="i_fptrunc">'<tt>fptrunc .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5335 <result> = fptrunc <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5339 <p>The '<tt>fptrunc</tt>' instruction truncates <tt>value</tt> to type
5343 <p>The '<tt>fptrunc</tt>' instruction takes a <a href="#t_floating">floating
5344 point</a> value to cast and a <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type
5345 to cast it to. The size of <tt>value</tt> must be larger than the size of
5346 <tt>ty2</tt>. This implies that <tt>fptrunc</tt> cannot be used to make a
5347 <i>no-op cast</i>.</p>
5350 <p>The '<tt>fptrunc</tt>' instruction truncates a <tt>value</tt> from a larger
5351 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type to a smaller
5352 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type. If the value cannot fit
5353 within the destination type, <tt>ty2</tt>, then the results are
5358 %X = fptrunc double 123.0 to float <i>; yields float:123.0</i>
5359 %Y = fptrunc double 1.0E+300 to float <i>; yields undefined</i>
5364 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5366 <a name="i_fpext">'<tt>fpext .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5373 <result> = fpext <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5377 <p>The '<tt>fpext</tt>' extends a floating point <tt>value</tt> to a larger
5378 floating point value.</p>
5381 <p>The '<tt>fpext</tt>' instruction takes a
5382 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> <tt>value</tt> to cast, and
5383 a <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type to cast it to. The source
5384 type must be smaller than the destination type.</p>
5387 <p>The '<tt>fpext</tt>' instruction extends the <tt>value</tt> from a smaller
5388 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type to a larger
5389 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type. The <tt>fpext</tt> cannot be
5390 used to make a <i>no-op cast</i> because it always changes bits. Use
5391 <tt>bitcast</tt> to make a <i>no-op cast</i> for a floating point cast.</p>
5395 %X = fpext float 3.125 to double <i>; yields double:3.125000e+00</i>
5396 %Y = fpext double %X to fp128 <i>; yields fp128:0xL00000000000000004000900000000000</i>
5401 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5403 <a name="i_fptoui">'<tt>fptoui .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5410 <result> = fptoui <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5414 <p>The '<tt>fptoui</tt>' converts a floating point <tt>value</tt> to its
5415 unsigned integer equivalent of type <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5418 <p>The '<tt>fptoui</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, which must be a
5419 scalar or vector <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> value, and a type
5420 to cast it to <tt>ty2</tt>, which must be an <a href="#t_integer">integer</a>
5421 type. If <tt>ty</tt> is a vector floating point type, <tt>ty2</tt> must be a
5422 vector integer type with the same number of elements as <tt>ty</tt></p>
5425 <p>The '<tt>fptoui</tt>' instruction converts its
5426 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> operand into the nearest (rounding
5427 towards zero) unsigned integer value. If the value cannot fit
5428 in <tt>ty2</tt>, the results are undefined.</p>
5432 %X = fptoui double 123.0 to i32 <i>; yields i32:123</i>
5433 %Y = fptoui float 1.0E+300 to i1 <i>; yields undefined:1</i>
5434 %Z = fptoui float 1.04E+17 to i8 <i>; yields undefined:1</i>
5439 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5441 <a name="i_fptosi">'<tt>fptosi .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5448 <result> = fptosi <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5452 <p>The '<tt>fptosi</tt>' instruction converts
5453 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> <tt>value</tt> to
5454 type <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5457 <p>The '<tt>fptosi</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, which must be a
5458 scalar or vector <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> value, and a type
5459 to cast it to <tt>ty2</tt>, which must be an <a href="#t_integer">integer</a>
5460 type. If <tt>ty</tt> is a vector floating point type, <tt>ty2</tt> must be a
5461 vector integer type with the same number of elements as <tt>ty</tt></p>
5464 <p>The '<tt>fptosi</tt>' instruction converts its
5465 <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> operand into the nearest (rounding
5466 towards zero) signed integer value. If the value cannot fit in <tt>ty2</tt>,
5467 the results are undefined.</p>
5471 %X = fptosi double -123.0 to i32 <i>; yields i32:-123</i>
5472 %Y = fptosi float 1.0E-247 to i1 <i>; yields undefined:1</i>
5473 %Z = fptosi float 1.04E+17 to i8 <i>; yields undefined:1</i>
5478 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5480 <a name="i_uitofp">'<tt>uitofp .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5487 <result> = uitofp <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5491 <p>The '<tt>uitofp</tt>' instruction regards <tt>value</tt> as an unsigned
5492 integer and converts that value to the <tt>ty2</tt> type.</p>
5495 <p>The '<tt>uitofp</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, which must be a
5496 scalar or vector <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> value, and a type to cast
5497 it to <tt>ty2</tt>, which must be an <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a>
5498 type. If <tt>ty</tt> is a vector integer type, <tt>ty2</tt> must be a vector
5499 floating point type with the same number of elements as <tt>ty</tt></p>
5502 <p>The '<tt>uitofp</tt>' instruction interprets its operand as an unsigned
5503 integer quantity and converts it to the corresponding floating point
5504 value. If the value cannot fit in the floating point value, the results are
5509 %X = uitofp i32 257 to float <i>; yields float:257.0</i>
5510 %Y = uitofp i8 -1 to double <i>; yields double:255.0</i>
5515 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5517 <a name="i_sitofp">'<tt>sitofp .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5524 <result> = sitofp <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5528 <p>The '<tt>sitofp</tt>' instruction regards <tt>value</tt> as a signed integer
5529 and converts that value to the <tt>ty2</tt> type.</p>
5532 <p>The '<tt>sitofp</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, which must be a
5533 scalar or vector <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> value, and a type to cast
5534 it to <tt>ty2</tt>, which must be an <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a>
5535 type. If <tt>ty</tt> is a vector integer type, <tt>ty2</tt> must be a vector
5536 floating point type with the same number of elements as <tt>ty</tt></p>
5539 <p>The '<tt>sitofp</tt>' instruction interprets its operand as a signed integer
5540 quantity and converts it to the corresponding floating point value. If the
5541 value cannot fit in the floating point value, the results are undefined.</p>
5545 %X = sitofp i32 257 to float <i>; yields float:257.0</i>
5546 %Y = sitofp i8 -1 to double <i>; yields double:-1.0</i>
5551 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5553 <a name="i_ptrtoint">'<tt>ptrtoint .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5560 <result> = ptrtoint <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5564 <p>The '<tt>ptrtoint</tt>' instruction converts the pointer <tt>value</tt> to
5565 the integer type <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5568 <p>The '<tt>ptrtoint</tt>' instruction takes a <tt>value</tt> to cast, which
5569 must be a <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> value, and a type to cast it to
5570 <tt>ty2</tt>, which must be an <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> type.</p>
5573 <p>The '<tt>ptrtoint</tt>' instruction converts <tt>value</tt> to integer type
5574 <tt>ty2</tt> by interpreting the pointer value as an integer and either
5575 truncating or zero extending that value to the size of the integer type. If
5576 <tt>value</tt> is smaller than <tt>ty2</tt> then a zero extension is done. If
5577 <tt>value</tt> is larger than <tt>ty2</tt> then a truncation is done. If they
5578 are the same size, then nothing is done (<i>no-op cast</i>) other than a type
5583 %X = ptrtoint i32* %X to i8 <i>; yields truncation on 32-bit architecture</i>
5584 %Y = ptrtoint i32* %x to i64 <i>; yields zero extension on 32-bit architecture</i>
5589 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5591 <a name="i_inttoptr">'<tt>inttoptr .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5598 <result> = inttoptr <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5602 <p>The '<tt>inttoptr</tt>' instruction converts an integer <tt>value</tt> to a
5603 pointer type, <tt>ty2</tt>.</p>
5606 <p>The '<tt>inttoptr</tt>' instruction takes an <a href="#t_integer">integer</a>
5607 value to cast, and a type to cast it to, which must be a
5608 <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> type.</p>
5611 <p>The '<tt>inttoptr</tt>' instruction converts <tt>value</tt> to type
5612 <tt>ty2</tt> by applying either a zero extension or a truncation depending on
5613 the size of the integer <tt>value</tt>. If <tt>value</tt> is larger than the
5614 size of a pointer then a truncation is done. If <tt>value</tt> is smaller
5615 than the size of a pointer then a zero extension is done. If they are the
5616 same size, nothing is done (<i>no-op cast</i>).</p>
5620 %X = inttoptr i32 255 to i32* <i>; yields zero extension on 64-bit architecture</i>
5621 %Y = inttoptr i32 255 to i32* <i>; yields no-op on 32-bit architecture</i>
5622 %Z = inttoptr i64 0 to i32* <i>; yields truncation on 32-bit architecture</i>
5627 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5629 <a name="i_bitcast">'<tt>bitcast .. to</tt>' Instruction</a>
5636 <result> = bitcast <ty> <value> to <ty2> <i>; yields ty2</i>
5640 <p>The '<tt>bitcast</tt>' instruction converts <tt>value</tt> to type
5641 <tt>ty2</tt> without changing any bits.</p>
5644 <p>The '<tt>bitcast</tt>' instruction takes a value to cast, which must be a
5645 non-aggregate first class value, and a type to cast it to, which must also be
5646 a non-aggregate <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type. The bit sizes
5647 of <tt>value</tt> and the destination type, <tt>ty2</tt>, must be
5648 identical. If the source type is a pointer, the destination type must also be
5649 a pointer. This instruction supports bitwise conversion of vectors to
5650 integers and to vectors of other types (as long as they have the same
5654 <p>The '<tt>bitcast</tt>' instruction converts <tt>value</tt> to type
5655 <tt>ty2</tt>. It is always a <i>no-op cast</i> because no bits change with
5656 this conversion. The conversion is done as if the <tt>value</tt> had been
5657 stored to memory and read back as type <tt>ty2</tt>. Pointer types may only
5658 be converted to other pointer types with this instruction. To convert
5659 pointers to other types, use the <a href="#i_inttoptr">inttoptr</a> or
5660 <a href="#i_ptrtoint">ptrtoint</a> instructions first.</p>
5664 %X = bitcast i8 255 to i8 <i>; yields i8 :-1</i>
5665 %Y = bitcast i32* %x to sint* <i>; yields sint*:%x</i>
5666 %Z = bitcast <2 x int> %V to i64; <i>; yields i64: %V</i>
5673 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
5675 <a name="otherops">Other Operations</a>
5680 <p>The instructions in this category are the "miscellaneous" instructions, which
5681 defy better classification.</p>
5683 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5685 <a name="i_icmp">'<tt>icmp</tt>' Instruction</a>
5692 <result> = icmp <cond> <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {i1} or {<N x i1>}:result</i>
5696 <p>The '<tt>icmp</tt>' instruction returns a boolean value or a vector of
5697 boolean values based on comparison of its two integer, integer vector, or
5698 pointer operands.</p>
5701 <p>The '<tt>icmp</tt>' instruction takes three operands. The first operand is
5702 the condition code indicating the kind of comparison to perform. It is not a
5703 value, just a keyword. The possible condition code are:</p>
5706 <li><tt>eq</tt>: equal</li>
5707 <li><tt>ne</tt>: not equal </li>
5708 <li><tt>ugt</tt>: unsigned greater than</li>
5709 <li><tt>uge</tt>: unsigned greater or equal</li>
5710 <li><tt>ult</tt>: unsigned less than</li>
5711 <li><tt>ule</tt>: unsigned less or equal</li>
5712 <li><tt>sgt</tt>: signed greater than</li>
5713 <li><tt>sge</tt>: signed greater or equal</li>
5714 <li><tt>slt</tt>: signed less than</li>
5715 <li><tt>sle</tt>: signed less or equal</li>
5718 <p>The remaining two arguments must be <a href="#t_integer">integer</a> or
5719 <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> or integer <a href="#t_vector">vector</a>
5720 typed. They must also be identical types.</p>
5723 <p>The '<tt>icmp</tt>' compares <tt>op1</tt> and <tt>op2</tt> according to the
5724 condition code given as <tt>cond</tt>. The comparison performed always yields
5725 either an <a href="#t_integer"><tt>i1</tt></a> or vector of <tt>i1</tt>
5726 result, as follows:</p>
5729 <li><tt>eq</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if the operands are equal,
5730 <tt>false</tt> otherwise. No sign interpretation is necessary or
5733 <li><tt>ne</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if the operands are unequal,
5734 <tt>false</tt> otherwise. No sign interpretation is necessary or
5737 <li><tt>ugt</tt>: interprets the operands as unsigned values and yields
5738 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is greater than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5740 <li><tt>uge</tt>: interprets the operands as unsigned values and yields
5741 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is greater than or equal
5742 to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5744 <li><tt>ult</tt>: interprets the operands as unsigned values and yields
5745 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is less than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5747 <li><tt>ule</tt>: interprets the operands as unsigned values and yields
5748 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is less than or equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5750 <li><tt>sgt</tt>: interprets the operands as signed values and yields
5751 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is greater than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5753 <li><tt>sge</tt>: interprets the operands as signed values and yields
5754 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is greater than or equal
5755 to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5757 <li><tt>slt</tt>: interprets the operands as signed values and yields
5758 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is less than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5760 <li><tt>sle</tt>: interprets the operands as signed values and yields
5761 <tt>true</tt> if <tt>op1</tt> is less than or equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5764 <p>If the operands are <a href="#t_pointer">pointer</a> typed, the pointer
5765 values are compared as if they were integers.</p>
5767 <p>If the operands are integer vectors, then they are compared element by
5768 element. The result is an <tt>i1</tt> vector with the same number of elements
5769 as the values being compared. Otherwise, the result is an <tt>i1</tt>.</p>
5773 <result> = icmp eq i32 4, 5 <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5774 <result> = icmp ne float* %X, %X <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5775 <result> = icmp ult i16 4, 5 <i>; yields: result=true</i>
5776 <result> = icmp sgt i16 4, 5 <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5777 <result> = icmp ule i16 -4, 5 <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5778 <result> = icmp sge i16 4, 5 <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5781 <p>Note that the code generator does not yet support vector types with
5782 the <tt>icmp</tt> instruction.</p>
5786 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5788 <a name="i_fcmp">'<tt>fcmp</tt>' Instruction</a>
5795 <result> = fcmp <cond> <ty> <op1>, <op2> <i>; yields {i1} or {<N x i1>}:result</i>
5799 <p>The '<tt>fcmp</tt>' instruction returns a boolean value or vector of boolean
5800 values based on comparison of its operands.</p>
5802 <p>If the operands are floating point scalars, then the result type is a boolean
5803 (<a href="#t_integer"><tt>i1</tt></a>).</p>
5805 <p>If the operands are floating point vectors, then the result type is a vector
5806 of boolean with the same number of elements as the operands being
5810 <p>The '<tt>fcmp</tt>' instruction takes three operands. The first operand is
5811 the condition code indicating the kind of comparison to perform. It is not a
5812 value, just a keyword. The possible condition code are:</p>
5815 <li><tt>false</tt>: no comparison, always returns false</li>
5816 <li><tt>oeq</tt>: ordered and equal</li>
5817 <li><tt>ogt</tt>: ordered and greater than </li>
5818 <li><tt>oge</tt>: ordered and greater than or equal</li>
5819 <li><tt>olt</tt>: ordered and less than </li>
5820 <li><tt>ole</tt>: ordered and less than or equal</li>
5821 <li><tt>one</tt>: ordered and not equal</li>
5822 <li><tt>ord</tt>: ordered (no nans)</li>
5823 <li><tt>ueq</tt>: unordered or equal</li>
5824 <li><tt>ugt</tt>: unordered or greater than </li>
5825 <li><tt>uge</tt>: unordered or greater than or equal</li>
5826 <li><tt>ult</tt>: unordered or less than </li>
5827 <li><tt>ule</tt>: unordered or less than or equal</li>
5828 <li><tt>une</tt>: unordered or not equal</li>
5829 <li><tt>uno</tt>: unordered (either nans)</li>
5830 <li><tt>true</tt>: no comparison, always returns true</li>
5833 <p><i>Ordered</i> means that neither operand is a QNAN while
5834 <i>unordered</i> means that either operand may be a QNAN.</p>
5836 <p>Each of <tt>val1</tt> and <tt>val2</tt> arguments must be either
5837 a <a href="#t_floating">floating point</a> type or
5838 a <a href="#t_vector">vector</a> of floating point type. They must have
5839 identical types.</p>
5842 <p>The '<tt>fcmp</tt>' instruction compares <tt>op1</tt> and <tt>op2</tt>
5843 according to the condition code given as <tt>cond</tt>. If the operands are
5844 vectors, then the vectors are compared element by element. Each comparison
5845 performed always yields an <a href="#t_integer">i1</a> result, as
5849 <li><tt>false</tt>: always yields <tt>false</tt>, regardless of operands.</li>
5851 <li><tt>oeq</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN and
5852 <tt>op1</tt> is equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5854 <li><tt>ogt</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN and
5855 <tt>op1</tt> is greater than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5857 <li><tt>oge</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN and
5858 <tt>op1</tt> is greater than or equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5860 <li><tt>olt</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN and
5861 <tt>op1</tt> is less than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5863 <li><tt>ole</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN and
5864 <tt>op1</tt> is less than or equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5866 <li><tt>one</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN and
5867 <tt>op1</tt> is not equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5869 <li><tt>ord</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if both operands are not a QNAN.</li>
5871 <li><tt>ueq</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN or
5872 <tt>op1</tt> is equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5874 <li><tt>ugt</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN or
5875 <tt>op1</tt> is greater than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5877 <li><tt>uge</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN or
5878 <tt>op1</tt> is greater than or equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5880 <li><tt>ult</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN or
5881 <tt>op1</tt> is less than <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5883 <li><tt>ule</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN or
5884 <tt>op1</tt> is less than or equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5886 <li><tt>une</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN or
5887 <tt>op1</tt> is not equal to <tt>op2</tt>.</li>
5889 <li><tt>uno</tt>: yields <tt>true</tt> if either operand is a QNAN.</li>
5891 <li><tt>true</tt>: always yields <tt>true</tt>, regardless of operands.</li>
5896 <result> = fcmp oeq float 4.0, 5.0 <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5897 <result> = fcmp one float 4.0, 5.0 <i>; yields: result=true</i>
5898 <result> = fcmp olt float 4.0, 5.0 <i>; yields: result=true</i>
5899 <result> = fcmp ueq double 1.0, 2.0 <i>; yields: result=false</i>
5902 <p>Note that the code generator does not yet support vector types with
5903 the <tt>fcmp</tt> instruction.</p>
5907 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5909 <a name="i_phi">'<tt>phi</tt>' Instruction</a>
5916 <result> = phi <ty> [ <val0>, <label0>], ...
5920 <p>The '<tt>phi</tt>' instruction is used to implement the φ node in the
5921 SSA graph representing the function.</p>
5924 <p>The type of the incoming values is specified with the first type field. After
5925 this, the '<tt>phi</tt>' instruction takes a list of pairs as arguments, with
5926 one pair for each predecessor basic block of the current block. Only values
5927 of <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type may be used as the value
5928 arguments to the PHI node. Only labels may be used as the label
5931 <p>There must be no non-phi instructions between the start of a basic block and
5932 the PHI instructions: i.e. PHI instructions must be first in a basic
5935 <p>For the purposes of the SSA form, the use of each incoming value is deemed to
5936 occur on the edge from the corresponding predecessor block to the current
5937 block (but after any definition of an '<tt>invoke</tt>' instruction's return
5938 value on the same edge).</p>
5941 <p>At runtime, the '<tt>phi</tt>' instruction logically takes on the value
5942 specified by the pair corresponding to the predecessor basic block that
5943 executed just prior to the current block.</p>
5947 Loop: ; Infinite loop that counts from 0 on up...
5948 %indvar = phi i32 [ 0, %LoopHeader ], [ %nextindvar, %Loop ]
5949 %nextindvar = add i32 %indvar, 1
5955 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
5957 <a name="i_select">'<tt>select</tt>' Instruction</a>
5964 <result> = select <i>selty</i> <cond>, <ty> <val1>, <ty> <val2> <i>; yields ty</i>
5966 <i>selty</i> is either i1 or {<N x i1>}
5970 <p>The '<tt>select</tt>' instruction is used to choose one value based on a
5971 condition, without branching.</p>
5975 <p>The '<tt>select</tt>' instruction requires an 'i1' value or a vector of 'i1'
5976 values indicating the condition, and two values of the
5977 same <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type. If the val1/val2 are
5978 vectors and the condition is a scalar, then entire vectors are selected, not
5979 individual elements.</p>
5982 <p>If the condition is an i1 and it evaluates to 1, the instruction returns the
5983 first value argument; otherwise, it returns the second value argument.</p>
5985 <p>If the condition is a vector of i1, then the value arguments must be vectors
5986 of the same size, and the selection is done element by element.</p>
5990 %X = select i1 true, i8 17, i8 42 <i>; yields i8:17</i>
5993 <p>Note that the code generator does not yet support conditions
5994 with vector type.</p>
5998 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6000 <a name="i_call">'<tt>call</tt>' Instruction</a>
6007 <result> = [tail] call [<a href="#callingconv">cconv</a>] [<a href="#paramattrs">ret attrs</a>] <ty> [<fnty>*] <fnptrval>(<function args>) [<a href="#fnattrs">fn attrs</a>]
6011 <p>The '<tt>call</tt>' instruction represents a simple function call.</p>
6014 <p>This instruction requires several arguments:</p>
6017 <li>The optional "tail" marker indicates that the callee function does not
6018 access any allocas or varargs in the caller. Note that calls may be
6019 marked "tail" even if they do not occur before
6020 a <a href="#i_ret"><tt>ret</tt></a> instruction. If the "tail" marker is
6021 present, the function call is eligible for tail call optimization,
6022 but <a href="CodeGenerator.html#tailcallopt">might not in fact be
6023 optimized into a jump</a>. The code generator may optimize calls marked
6024 "tail" with either 1) automatic <a href="CodeGenerator.html#sibcallopt">
6025 sibling call optimization</a> when the caller and callee have
6026 matching signatures, or 2) forced tail call optimization when the
6027 following extra requirements are met:
6029 <li>Caller and callee both have the calling
6030 convention <tt>fastcc</tt>.</li>
6031 <li>The call is in tail position (ret immediately follows call and ret
6032 uses value of call or is void).</li>
6033 <li>Option <tt>-tailcallopt</tt> is enabled,
6034 or <code>llvm::GuaranteedTailCallOpt</code> is <code>true</code>.</li>
6035 <li><a href="CodeGenerator.html#tailcallopt">Platform specific
6036 constraints are met.</a></li>
6040 <li>The optional "cconv" marker indicates which <a href="#callingconv">calling
6041 convention</a> the call should use. If none is specified, the call
6042 defaults to using C calling conventions. The calling convention of the
6043 call must match the calling convention of the target function, or else the
6044 behavior is undefined.</li>
6046 <li>The optional <a href="#paramattrs">Parameter Attributes</a> list for
6047 return values. Only '<tt>zeroext</tt>', '<tt>signext</tt>', and
6048 '<tt>inreg</tt>' attributes are valid here.</li>
6050 <li>'<tt>ty</tt>': the type of the call instruction itself which is also the
6051 type of the return value. Functions that return no value are marked
6052 <tt><a href="#t_void">void</a></tt>.</li>
6054 <li>'<tt>fnty</tt>': shall be the signature of the pointer to function value
6055 being invoked. The argument types must match the types implied by this
6056 signature. This type can be omitted if the function is not varargs and if
6057 the function type does not return a pointer to a function.</li>
6059 <li>'<tt>fnptrval</tt>': An LLVM value containing a pointer to a function to
6060 be invoked. In most cases, this is a direct function invocation, but
6061 indirect <tt>call</tt>s are just as possible, calling an arbitrary pointer
6062 to function value.</li>
6064 <li>'<tt>function args</tt>': argument list whose types match the function
6065 signature argument types and parameter attributes. All arguments must be
6066 of <a href="#t_firstclass">first class</a> type. If the function
6067 signature indicates the function accepts a variable number of arguments,
6068 the extra arguments can be specified.</li>
6070 <li>The optional <a href="#fnattrs">function attributes</a> list. Only
6071 '<tt>noreturn</tt>', '<tt>nounwind</tt>', '<tt>readonly</tt>' and
6072 '<tt>readnone</tt>' attributes are valid here.</li>
6076 <p>The '<tt>call</tt>' instruction is used to cause control flow to transfer to
6077 a specified function, with its incoming arguments bound to the specified
6078 values. Upon a '<tt><a href="#i_ret">ret</a></tt>' instruction in the called
6079 function, control flow continues with the instruction after the function
6080 call, and the return value of the function is bound to the result
6085 %retval = call i32 @test(i32 %argc)
6086 call i32 (i8*, ...)* @printf(i8* %msg, i32 12, i8 42) <i>; yields i32</i>
6087 %X = tail call i32 @foo() <i>; yields i32</i>
6088 %Y = tail call <a href="#callingconv">fastcc</a> i32 @foo() <i>; yields i32</i>
6089 call void %foo(i8 97 signext)
6091 %struct.A = type { i32, i8 }
6092 %r = call %struct.A @foo() <i>; yields { 32, i8 }</i>
6093 %gr = extractvalue %struct.A %r, 0 <i>; yields i32</i>
6094 %gr1 = extractvalue %struct.A %r, 1 <i>; yields i8</i>
6095 %Z = call void @foo() noreturn <i>; indicates that %foo never returns normally</i>
6096 %ZZ = call zeroext i32 @bar() <i>; Return value is %zero extended</i>
6099 <p>llvm treats calls to some functions with names and arguments that match the
6100 standard C99 library as being the C99 library functions, and may perform
6101 optimizations or generate code for them under that assumption. This is
6102 something we'd like to change in the future to provide better support for
6103 freestanding environments and non-C-based languages.</p>
6107 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6109 <a name="i_va_arg">'<tt>va_arg</tt>' Instruction</a>
6116 <resultval> = va_arg <va_list*> <arglist>, <argty>
6120 <p>The '<tt>va_arg</tt>' instruction is used to access arguments passed through
6121 the "variable argument" area of a function call. It is used to implement the
6122 <tt>va_arg</tt> macro in C.</p>
6125 <p>This instruction takes a <tt>va_list*</tt> value and the type of the
6126 argument. It returns a value of the specified argument type and increments
6127 the <tt>va_list</tt> to point to the next argument. The actual type
6128 of <tt>va_list</tt> is target specific.</p>
6131 <p>The '<tt>va_arg</tt>' instruction loads an argument of the specified type
6132 from the specified <tt>va_list</tt> and causes the <tt>va_list</tt> to point
6133 to the next argument. For more information, see the variable argument
6134 handling <a href="#int_varargs">Intrinsic Functions</a>.</p>
6136 <p>It is legal for this instruction to be called in a function which does not
6137 take a variable number of arguments, for example, the <tt>vfprintf</tt>
6140 <p><tt>va_arg</tt> is an LLVM instruction instead of
6141 an <a href="#intrinsics">intrinsic function</a> because it takes a type as an
6145 <p>See the <a href="#int_varargs">variable argument processing</a> section.</p>
6147 <p>Note that the code generator does not yet fully support va_arg on many
6148 targets. Also, it does not currently support va_arg with aggregate types on
6153 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6155 <a name="i_landingpad">'<tt>landingpad</tt>' Instruction</a>
6162 <resultval> = landingpad <somety> personality <type> <pers_fn> <clause>+
6163 <resultval> = landingpad <somety> personality <type> <pers_fn> cleanup <clause>*
6165 <clause> := catch <type> <value>
6166 <clause> := filter <array constant type> <array constant>
6170 <p>The '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction is used by
6171 <a href="ExceptionHandling.html#overview">LLVM's exception handling
6172 system</a> to specify that a basic block is a landing pad — one where
6173 the exception lands, and corresponds to the code found in the
6174 <i><tt>catch</tt></i> portion of a <i><tt>try/catch</tt></i> sequence. It
6175 defines values supplied by the personality function (<tt>pers_fn</tt>) upon
6176 re-entry to the function. The <tt>resultval</tt> has the
6177 type <tt>somety</tt>.</p>
6180 <p>This instruction takes a <tt>pers_fn</tt> value. This is the personality
6181 function associated with the unwinding mechanism. The optional
6182 <tt>cleanup</tt> flag indicates that the landing pad block is a cleanup.</p>
6184 <p>A <tt>clause</tt> begins with the clause type — <tt>catch</tt>
6185 or <tt>filter</tt> — and contains the global variable representing the
6186 "type" that may be caught or filtered respectively. Unlike the
6187 <tt>catch</tt> clause, the <tt>filter</tt> clause takes an array constant as
6188 its argument. Use "<tt>[0 x i8**] undef</tt>" for a filter which cannot
6189 throw. The '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction must contain <em>at least</em>
6190 one <tt>clause</tt> or the <tt>cleanup</tt> flag.</p>
6193 <p>The '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction defines the values which are set by the
6194 personality function (<tt>pers_fn</tt>) upon re-entry to the function, and
6195 therefore the "result type" of the <tt>landingpad</tt> instruction. As with
6196 calling conventions, how the personality function results are represented in
6197 LLVM IR is target specific.</p>
6199 <p>The clauses are applied in order from top to bottom. If two
6200 <tt>landingpad</tt> instructions are merged together through inlining, the
6201 clauses from the calling function are appended to the list of clauses.</p>
6203 <p>The <tt>landingpad</tt> instruction has several restrictions:</p>
6206 <li>A landing pad block is a basic block which is the unwind destination of an
6207 '<tt>invoke</tt>' instruction.</li>
6208 <li>A landing pad block must have a '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction as its
6209 first non-PHI instruction.</li>
6210 <li>There can be only one '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction within the landing
6212 <li>A basic block that is not a landing pad block may not include a
6213 '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instruction.</li>
6214 <li>All '<tt>landingpad</tt>' instructions in a function must have the same
6215 personality function.</li>
6220 ;; A landing pad which can catch an integer.
6221 %res = landingpad { i8*, i32 } personality i32 (...)* @__gxx_personality_v0
6223 ;; A landing pad that is a cleanup.
6224 %res = landingpad { i8*, i32 } personality i32 (...)* @__gxx_personality_v0
6226 ;; A landing pad which can catch an integer and can only throw a double.
6227 %res = landingpad { i8*, i32 } personality i32 (...)* @__gxx_personality_v0
6229 filter [1 x i8**] [@_ZTId]
6238 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
6239 <h2><a name="intrinsics">Intrinsic Functions</a></h2>
6240 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
6244 <p>LLVM supports the notion of an "intrinsic function". These functions have
6245 well known names and semantics and are required to follow certain
6246 restrictions. Overall, these intrinsics represent an extension mechanism for
6247 the LLVM language that does not require changing all of the transformations
6248 in LLVM when adding to the language (or the bitcode reader/writer, the
6249 parser, etc...).</p>
6251 <p>Intrinsic function names must all start with an "<tt>llvm.</tt>" prefix. This
6252 prefix is reserved in LLVM for intrinsic names; thus, function names may not
6253 begin with this prefix. Intrinsic functions must always be external
6254 functions: you cannot define the body of intrinsic functions. Intrinsic
6255 functions may only be used in call or invoke instructions: it is illegal to
6256 take the address of an intrinsic function. Additionally, because intrinsic
6257 functions are part of the LLVM language, it is required if any are added that
6258 they be documented here.</p>
6260 <p>Some intrinsic functions can be overloaded, i.e., the intrinsic represents a
6261 family of functions that perform the same operation but on different data
6262 types. Because LLVM can represent over 8 million different integer types,
6263 overloading is used commonly to allow an intrinsic function to operate on any
6264 integer type. One or more of the argument types or the result type can be
6265 overloaded to accept any integer type. Argument types may also be defined as
6266 exactly matching a previous argument's type or the result type. This allows
6267 an intrinsic function which accepts multiple arguments, but needs all of them
6268 to be of the same type, to only be overloaded with respect to a single
6269 argument or the result.</p>
6271 <p>Overloaded intrinsics will have the names of its overloaded argument types
6272 encoded into its function name, each preceded by a period. Only those types
6273 which are overloaded result in a name suffix. Arguments whose type is matched
6274 against another type do not. For example, the <tt>llvm.ctpop</tt> function
6275 can take an integer of any width and returns an integer of exactly the same
6276 integer width. This leads to a family of functions such as
6277 <tt>i8 @llvm.ctpop.i8(i8 %val)</tt> and <tt>i29 @llvm.ctpop.i29(i29
6278 %val)</tt>. Only one type, the return type, is overloaded, and only one type
6279 suffix is required. Because the argument's type is matched against the return
6280 type, it does not require its own name suffix.</p>
6282 <p>To learn how to add an intrinsic function, please see the
6283 <a href="ExtendingLLVM.html">Extending LLVM Guide</a>.</p>
6285 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
6287 <a name="int_varargs">Variable Argument Handling Intrinsics</a>
6292 <p>Variable argument support is defined in LLVM with
6293 the <a href="#i_va_arg"><tt>va_arg</tt></a> instruction and these three
6294 intrinsic functions. These functions are related to the similarly named
6295 macros defined in the <tt><stdarg.h></tt> header file.</p>
6297 <p>All of these functions operate on arguments that use a target-specific value
6298 type "<tt>va_list</tt>". The LLVM assembly language reference manual does
6299 not define what this type is, so all transformations should be prepared to
6300 handle these functions regardless of the type used.</p>
6302 <p>This example shows how the <a href="#i_va_arg"><tt>va_arg</tt></a>
6303 instruction and the variable argument handling intrinsic functions are
6306 <pre class="doc_code">
6307 define i32 @test(i32 %X, ...) {
6308 ; Initialize variable argument processing
6310 %ap2 = bitcast i8** %ap to i8*
6311 call void @llvm.va_start(i8* %ap2)
6313 ; Read a single integer argument
6314 %tmp = va_arg i8** %ap, i32
6316 ; Demonstrate usage of llvm.va_copy and llvm.va_end
6318 %aq2 = bitcast i8** %aq to i8*
6319 call void @llvm.va_copy(i8* %aq2, i8* %ap2)
6320 call void @llvm.va_end(i8* %aq2)
6322 ; Stop processing of arguments.
6323 call void @llvm.va_end(i8* %ap2)
6327 declare void @llvm.va_start(i8*)
6328 declare void @llvm.va_copy(i8*, i8*)
6329 declare void @llvm.va_end(i8*)
6332 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6334 <a name="int_va_start">'<tt>llvm.va_start</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6342 declare void %llvm.va_start(i8* <arglist>)
6346 <p>The '<tt>llvm.va_start</tt>' intrinsic initializes <tt>*<arglist></tt>
6347 for subsequent use by <tt><a href="#i_va_arg">va_arg</a></tt>.</p>
6350 <p>The argument is a pointer to a <tt>va_list</tt> element to initialize.</p>
6353 <p>The '<tt>llvm.va_start</tt>' intrinsic works just like the <tt>va_start</tt>
6354 macro available in C. In a target-dependent way, it initializes
6355 the <tt>va_list</tt> element to which the argument points, so that the next
6356 call to <tt>va_arg</tt> will produce the first variable argument passed to
6357 the function. Unlike the C <tt>va_start</tt> macro, this intrinsic does not
6358 need to know the last argument of the function as the compiler can figure
6363 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6365 <a name="int_va_end">'<tt>llvm.va_end</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6372 declare void @llvm.va_end(i8* <arglist>)
6376 <p>The '<tt>llvm.va_end</tt>' intrinsic destroys <tt>*<arglist></tt>,
6377 which has been initialized previously
6378 with <tt><a href="#int_va_start">llvm.va_start</a></tt>
6379 or <tt><a href="#i_va_copy">llvm.va_copy</a></tt>.</p>
6382 <p>The argument is a pointer to a <tt>va_list</tt> to destroy.</p>
6385 <p>The '<tt>llvm.va_end</tt>' intrinsic works just like the <tt>va_end</tt>
6386 macro available in C. In a target-dependent way, it destroys
6387 the <tt>va_list</tt> element to which the argument points. Calls
6388 to <a href="#int_va_start"><tt>llvm.va_start</tt></a>
6389 and <a href="#int_va_copy"> <tt>llvm.va_copy</tt></a> must be matched exactly
6390 with calls to <tt>llvm.va_end</tt>.</p>
6394 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6396 <a name="int_va_copy">'<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6403 declare void @llvm.va_copy(i8* <destarglist>, i8* <srcarglist>)
6407 <p>The '<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' intrinsic copies the current argument position
6408 from the source argument list to the destination argument list.</p>
6411 <p>The first argument is a pointer to a <tt>va_list</tt> element to initialize.
6412 The second argument is a pointer to a <tt>va_list</tt> element to copy
6416 <p>The '<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' intrinsic works just like the <tt>va_copy</tt>
6417 macro available in C. In a target-dependent way, it copies the
6418 source <tt>va_list</tt> element into the destination <tt>va_list</tt>
6419 element. This intrinsic is necessary because
6420 the <tt><a href="#int_va_start"> llvm.va_start</a></tt> intrinsic may be
6421 arbitrarily complex and require, for example, memory allocation.</p>
6427 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
6429 <a name="int_gc">Accurate Garbage Collection Intrinsics</a>
6434 <p>LLVM support for <a href="GarbageCollection.html">Accurate Garbage
6435 Collection</a> (GC) requires the implementation and generation of these
6436 intrinsics. These intrinsics allow identification of <a href="#int_gcroot">GC
6437 roots on the stack</a>, as well as garbage collector implementations that
6438 require <a href="#int_gcread">read</a> and <a href="#int_gcwrite">write</a>
6439 barriers. Front-ends for type-safe garbage collected languages should generate
6440 these intrinsics to make use of the LLVM garbage collectors. For more details,
6441 see <a href="GarbageCollection.html">Accurate Garbage Collection with
6444 <p>The garbage collection intrinsics only operate on objects in the generic
6445 address space (address space zero).</p>
6447 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6449 <a name="int_gcroot">'<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6456 declare void @llvm.gcroot(i8** %ptrloc, i8* %metadata)
6460 <p>The '<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>' intrinsic declares the existence of a GC root to
6461 the code generator, and allows some metadata to be associated with it.</p>
6464 <p>The first argument specifies the address of a stack object that contains the
6465 root pointer. The second pointer (which must be either a constant or a
6466 global value address) contains the meta-data to be associated with the
6470 <p>At runtime, a call to this intrinsic stores a null pointer into the "ptrloc"
6471 location. At compile-time, the code generator generates information to allow
6472 the runtime to find the pointer at GC safe points. The '<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>'
6473 intrinsic may only be used in a function which <a href="#gc">specifies a GC
6478 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6480 <a name="int_gcread">'<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6487 declare i8* @llvm.gcread(i8* %ObjPtr, i8** %Ptr)
6491 <p>The '<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' intrinsic identifies reads of references from heap
6492 locations, allowing garbage collector implementations that require read
6496 <p>The second argument is the address to read from, which should be an address
6497 allocated from the garbage collector. The first object is a pointer to the
6498 start of the referenced object, if needed by the language runtime (otherwise
6502 <p>The '<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' intrinsic has the same semantics as a load
6503 instruction, but may be replaced with substantially more complex code by the
6504 garbage collector runtime, as needed. The '<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' intrinsic
6505 may only be used in a function which <a href="#gc">specifies a GC
6510 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6512 <a name="int_gcwrite">'<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6519 declare void @llvm.gcwrite(i8* %P1, i8* %Obj, i8** %P2)
6523 <p>The '<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' intrinsic identifies writes of references to heap
6524 locations, allowing garbage collector implementations that require write
6525 barriers (such as generational or reference counting collectors).</p>
6528 <p>The first argument is the reference to store, the second is the start of the
6529 object to store it to, and the third is the address of the field of Obj to
6530 store to. If the runtime does not require a pointer to the object, Obj may
6534 <p>The '<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' intrinsic has the same semantics as a store
6535 instruction, but may be replaced with substantially more complex code by the
6536 garbage collector runtime, as needed. The '<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' intrinsic
6537 may only be used in a function which <a href="#gc">specifies a GC
6544 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
6546 <a name="int_codegen">Code Generator Intrinsics</a>
6551 <p>These intrinsics are provided by LLVM to expose special features that may
6552 only be implemented with code generator support.</p>
6554 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6556 <a name="int_returnaddress">'<tt>llvm.returnaddress</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6563 declare i8 *@llvm.returnaddress(i32 <level>)
6567 <p>The '<tt>llvm.returnaddress</tt>' intrinsic attempts to compute a
6568 target-specific value indicating the return address of the current function
6569 or one of its callers.</p>
6572 <p>The argument to this intrinsic indicates which function to return the address
6573 for. Zero indicates the calling function, one indicates its caller, etc.
6574 The argument is <b>required</b> to be a constant integer value.</p>
6577 <p>The '<tt>llvm.returnaddress</tt>' intrinsic either returns a pointer
6578 indicating the return address of the specified call frame, or zero if it
6579 cannot be identified. The value returned by this intrinsic is likely to be
6580 incorrect or 0 for arguments other than zero, so it should only be used for
6581 debugging purposes.</p>
6583 <p>Note that calling this intrinsic does not prevent function inlining or other
6584 aggressive transformations, so the value returned may not be that of the
6585 obvious source-language caller.</p>
6589 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6591 <a name="int_frameaddress">'<tt>llvm.frameaddress</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6598 declare i8* @llvm.frameaddress(i32 <level>)
6602 <p>The '<tt>llvm.frameaddress</tt>' intrinsic attempts to return the
6603 target-specific frame pointer value for the specified stack frame.</p>
6606 <p>The argument to this intrinsic indicates which function to return the frame
6607 pointer for. Zero indicates the calling function, one indicates its caller,
6608 etc. The argument is <b>required</b> to be a constant integer value.</p>
6611 <p>The '<tt>llvm.frameaddress</tt>' intrinsic either returns a pointer
6612 indicating the frame address of the specified call frame, or zero if it
6613 cannot be identified. The value returned by this intrinsic is likely to be
6614 incorrect or 0 for arguments other than zero, so it should only be used for
6615 debugging purposes.</p>
6617 <p>Note that calling this intrinsic does not prevent function inlining or other
6618 aggressive transformations, so the value returned may not be that of the
6619 obvious source-language caller.</p>
6623 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6625 <a name="int_stacksave">'<tt>llvm.stacksave</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6632 declare i8* @llvm.stacksave()
6636 <p>The '<tt>llvm.stacksave</tt>' intrinsic is used to remember the current state
6637 of the function stack, for use
6638 with <a href="#int_stackrestore"> <tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt></a>. This is
6639 useful for implementing language features like scoped automatic variable
6640 sized arrays in C99.</p>
6643 <p>This intrinsic returns a opaque pointer value that can be passed
6644 to <a href="#int_stackrestore"><tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt></a>. When
6645 an <tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt> intrinsic is executed with a value saved
6646 from <tt>llvm.stacksave</tt>, it effectively restores the state of the stack
6647 to the state it was in when the <tt>llvm.stacksave</tt> intrinsic executed.
6648 In practice, this pops any <a href="#i_alloca">alloca</a> blocks from the
6649 stack that were allocated after the <tt>llvm.stacksave</tt> was executed.</p>
6653 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6655 <a name="int_stackrestore">'<tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6662 declare void @llvm.stackrestore(i8* %ptr)
6666 <p>The '<tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt>' intrinsic is used to restore the state of
6667 the function stack to the state it was in when the
6668 corresponding <a href="#int_stacksave"><tt>llvm.stacksave</tt></a> intrinsic
6669 executed. This is useful for implementing language features like scoped
6670 automatic variable sized arrays in C99.</p>
6673 <p>See the description
6674 for <a href="#int_stacksave"><tt>llvm.stacksave</tt></a>.</p>
6678 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6680 <a name="int_prefetch">'<tt>llvm.prefetch</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6687 declare void @llvm.prefetch(i8* <address>, i32 <rw>, i32 <locality>, i32 <cache type>)
6691 <p>The '<tt>llvm.prefetch</tt>' intrinsic is a hint to the code generator to
6692 insert a prefetch instruction if supported; otherwise, it is a noop.
6693 Prefetches have no effect on the behavior of the program but can change its
6694 performance characteristics.</p>
6697 <p><tt>address</tt> is the address to be prefetched, <tt>rw</tt> is the
6698 specifier determining if the fetch should be for a read (0) or write (1),
6699 and <tt>locality</tt> is a temporal locality specifier ranging from (0) - no
6700 locality, to (3) - extremely local keep in cache. The <tt>cache type</tt>
6701 specifies whether the prefetch is performed on the data (1) or instruction (0)
6702 cache. The <tt>rw</tt>, <tt>locality</tt> and <tt>cache type</tt> arguments
6703 must be constant integers.</p>
6706 <p>This intrinsic does not modify the behavior of the program. In particular,
6707 prefetches cannot trap and do not produce a value. On targets that support
6708 this intrinsic, the prefetch can provide hints to the processor cache for
6709 better performance.</p>
6713 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6715 <a name="int_pcmarker">'<tt>llvm.pcmarker</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6722 declare void @llvm.pcmarker(i32 <id>)
6726 <p>The '<tt>llvm.pcmarker</tt>' intrinsic is a method to export a Program
6727 Counter (PC) in a region of code to simulators and other tools. The method
6728 is target specific, but it is expected that the marker will use exported
6729 symbols to transmit the PC of the marker. The marker makes no guarantees
6730 that it will remain with any specific instruction after optimizations. It is
6731 possible that the presence of a marker will inhibit optimizations. The
6732 intended use is to be inserted after optimizations to allow correlations of
6733 simulation runs.</p>
6736 <p><tt>id</tt> is a numerical id identifying the marker.</p>
6739 <p>This intrinsic does not modify the behavior of the program. Backends that do
6740 not support this intrinsic may ignore it.</p>
6744 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6746 <a name="int_readcyclecounter">'<tt>llvm.readcyclecounter</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6753 declare i64 @llvm.readcyclecounter()
6757 <p>The '<tt>llvm.readcyclecounter</tt>' intrinsic provides access to the cycle
6758 counter register (or similar low latency, high accuracy clocks) on those
6759 targets that support it. On X86, it should map to RDTSC. On Alpha, it
6760 should map to RPCC. As the backing counters overflow quickly (on the order
6761 of 9 seconds on alpha), this should only be used for small timings.</p>
6764 <p>When directly supported, reading the cycle counter should not modify any
6765 memory. Implementations are allowed to either return a application specific
6766 value or a system wide value. On backends without support, this is lowered
6767 to a constant 0.</p>
6773 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
6775 <a name="int_libc">Standard C Library Intrinsics</a>
6780 <p>LLVM provides intrinsics for a few important standard C library functions.
6781 These intrinsics allow source-language front-ends to pass information about
6782 the alignment of the pointer arguments to the code generator, providing
6783 opportunity for more efficient code generation.</p>
6785 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6787 <a name="int_memcpy">'<tt>llvm.memcpy</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6793 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.memcpy</tt> on any
6794 integer bit width and for different address spaces. Not all targets support
6795 all bit widths however.</p>
6798 declare void @llvm.memcpy.p0i8.p0i8.i32(i8* <dest>, i8* <src>,
6799 i32 <len>, i32 <align>, i1 <isvolatile>)
6800 declare void @llvm.memcpy.p0i8.p0i8.i64(i8* <dest>, i8* <src>,
6801 i64 <len>, i32 <align>, i1 <isvolatile>)
6805 <p>The '<tt>llvm.memcpy.*</tt>' intrinsics copy a block of memory from the
6806 source location to the destination location.</p>
6808 <p>Note that, unlike the standard libc function, the <tt>llvm.memcpy.*</tt>
6809 intrinsics do not return a value, takes extra alignment/isvolatile arguments
6810 and the pointers can be in specified address spaces.</p>
6814 <p>The first argument is a pointer to the destination, the second is a pointer
6815 to the source. The third argument is an integer argument specifying the
6816 number of bytes to copy, the fourth argument is the alignment of the
6817 source and destination locations, and the fifth is a boolean indicating a
6818 volatile access.</p>
6820 <p>If the call to this intrinsic has an alignment value that is not 0 or 1,
6821 then the caller guarantees that both the source and destination pointers are
6822 aligned to that boundary.</p>
6824 <p>If the <tt>isvolatile</tt> parameter is <tt>true</tt>, the
6825 <tt>llvm.memcpy</tt> call is a <a href="#volatile">volatile operation</a>.
6826 The detailed access behavior is not very cleanly specified and it is unwise
6827 to depend on it.</p>
6831 <p>The '<tt>llvm.memcpy.*</tt>' intrinsics copy a block of memory from the
6832 source location to the destination location, which are not allowed to
6833 overlap. It copies "len" bytes of memory over. If the argument is known to
6834 be aligned to some boundary, this can be specified as the fourth argument,
6835 otherwise it should be set to 0 or 1.</p>
6839 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6841 <a name="int_memmove">'<tt>llvm.memmove</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6847 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use llvm.memmove on any integer bit
6848 width and for different address space. Not all targets support all bit
6852 declare void @llvm.memmove.p0i8.p0i8.i32(i8* <dest>, i8* <src>,
6853 i32 <len>, i32 <align>, i1 <isvolatile>)
6854 declare void @llvm.memmove.p0i8.p0i8.i64(i8* <dest>, i8* <src>,
6855 i64 <len>, i32 <align>, i1 <isvolatile>)
6859 <p>The '<tt>llvm.memmove.*</tt>' intrinsics move a block of memory from the
6860 source location to the destination location. It is similar to the
6861 '<tt>llvm.memcpy</tt>' intrinsic but allows the two memory locations to
6864 <p>Note that, unlike the standard libc function, the <tt>llvm.memmove.*</tt>
6865 intrinsics do not return a value, takes extra alignment/isvolatile arguments
6866 and the pointers can be in specified address spaces.</p>
6870 <p>The first argument is a pointer to the destination, the second is a pointer
6871 to the source. The third argument is an integer argument specifying the
6872 number of bytes to copy, the fourth argument is the alignment of the
6873 source and destination locations, and the fifth is a boolean indicating a
6874 volatile access.</p>
6876 <p>If the call to this intrinsic has an alignment value that is not 0 or 1,
6877 then the caller guarantees that the source and destination pointers are
6878 aligned to that boundary.</p>
6880 <p>If the <tt>isvolatile</tt> parameter is <tt>true</tt>, the
6881 <tt>llvm.memmove</tt> call is a <a href="#volatile">volatile operation</a>.
6882 The detailed access behavior is not very cleanly specified and it is unwise
6883 to depend on it.</p>
6887 <p>The '<tt>llvm.memmove.*</tt>' intrinsics copy a block of memory from the
6888 source location to the destination location, which may overlap. It copies
6889 "len" bytes of memory over. If the argument is known to be aligned to some
6890 boundary, this can be specified as the fourth argument, otherwise it should
6891 be set to 0 or 1.</p>
6895 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6897 <a name="int_memset">'<tt>llvm.memset.*</tt>' Intrinsics</a>
6903 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use llvm.memset on any integer bit
6904 width and for different address spaces. However, not all targets support all
6908 declare void @llvm.memset.p0i8.i32(i8* <dest>, i8 <val>,
6909 i32 <len>, i32 <align>, i1 <isvolatile>)
6910 declare void @llvm.memset.p0i8.i64(i8* <dest>, i8 <val>,
6911 i64 <len>, i32 <align>, i1 <isvolatile>)
6915 <p>The '<tt>llvm.memset.*</tt>' intrinsics fill a block of memory with a
6916 particular byte value.</p>
6918 <p>Note that, unlike the standard libc function, the <tt>llvm.memset</tt>
6919 intrinsic does not return a value and takes extra alignment/volatile
6920 arguments. Also, the destination can be in an arbitrary address space.</p>
6923 <p>The first argument is a pointer to the destination to fill, the second is the
6924 byte value with which to fill it, the third argument is an integer argument
6925 specifying the number of bytes to fill, and the fourth argument is the known
6926 alignment of the destination location.</p>
6928 <p>If the call to this intrinsic has an alignment value that is not 0 or 1,
6929 then the caller guarantees that the destination pointer is aligned to that
6932 <p>If the <tt>isvolatile</tt> parameter is <tt>true</tt>, the
6933 <tt>llvm.memset</tt> call is a <a href="#volatile">volatile operation</a>.
6934 The detailed access behavior is not very cleanly specified and it is unwise
6935 to depend on it.</p>
6938 <p>The '<tt>llvm.memset.*</tt>' intrinsics fill "len" bytes of memory starting
6939 at the destination location. If the argument is known to be aligned to some
6940 boundary, this can be specified as the fourth argument, otherwise it should
6941 be set to 0 or 1.</p>
6945 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6947 <a name="int_sqrt">'<tt>llvm.sqrt.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6953 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.sqrt</tt> on any
6954 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
6958 declare float @llvm.sqrt.f32(float %Val)
6959 declare double @llvm.sqrt.f64(double %Val)
6960 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.sqrt.f80(x86_fp80 %Val)
6961 declare fp128 @llvm.sqrt.f128(fp128 %Val)
6962 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.sqrt.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val)
6966 <p>The '<tt>llvm.sqrt</tt>' intrinsics return the sqrt of the specified operand,
6967 returning the same value as the libm '<tt>sqrt</tt>' functions would.
6968 Unlike <tt>sqrt</tt> in libm, however, <tt>llvm.sqrt</tt> has undefined
6969 behavior for negative numbers other than -0.0 (which allows for better
6970 optimization, because there is no need to worry about errno being
6971 set). <tt>llvm.sqrt(-0.0)</tt> is defined to return -0.0 like IEEE sqrt.</p>
6974 <p>The argument and return value are floating point numbers of the same
6978 <p>This function returns the sqrt of the specified operand if it is a
6979 nonnegative floating point number.</p>
6983 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
6985 <a name="int_powi">'<tt>llvm.powi.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
6991 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.powi</tt> on any
6992 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
6996 declare float @llvm.powi.f32(float %Val, i32 %power)
6997 declare double @llvm.powi.f64(double %Val, i32 %power)
6998 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.powi.f80(x86_fp80 %Val, i32 %power)
6999 declare fp128 @llvm.powi.f128(fp128 %Val, i32 %power)
7000 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.powi.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val, i32 %power)
7004 <p>The '<tt>llvm.powi.*</tt>' intrinsics return the first operand raised to the
7005 specified (positive or negative) power. The order of evaluation of
7006 multiplications is not defined. When a vector of floating point type is
7007 used, the second argument remains a scalar integer value.</p>
7010 <p>The second argument is an integer power, and the first is a value to raise to
7014 <p>This function returns the first value raised to the second power with an
7015 unspecified sequence of rounding operations.</p>
7019 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7021 <a name="int_sin">'<tt>llvm.sin.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7027 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.sin</tt> on any
7028 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
7032 declare float @llvm.sin.f32(float %Val)
7033 declare double @llvm.sin.f64(double %Val)
7034 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.sin.f80(x86_fp80 %Val)
7035 declare fp128 @llvm.sin.f128(fp128 %Val)
7036 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.sin.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val)
7040 <p>The '<tt>llvm.sin.*</tt>' intrinsics return the sine of the operand.</p>
7043 <p>The argument and return value are floating point numbers of the same
7047 <p>This function returns the sine of the specified operand, returning the same
7048 values as the libm <tt>sin</tt> functions would, and handles error conditions
7049 in the same way.</p>
7053 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7055 <a name="int_cos">'<tt>llvm.cos.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7061 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.cos</tt> on any
7062 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
7066 declare float @llvm.cos.f32(float %Val)
7067 declare double @llvm.cos.f64(double %Val)
7068 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.cos.f80(x86_fp80 %Val)
7069 declare fp128 @llvm.cos.f128(fp128 %Val)
7070 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.cos.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val)
7074 <p>The '<tt>llvm.cos.*</tt>' intrinsics return the cosine of the operand.</p>
7077 <p>The argument and return value are floating point numbers of the same
7081 <p>This function returns the cosine of the specified operand, returning the same
7082 values as the libm <tt>cos</tt> functions would, and handles error conditions
7083 in the same way.</p>
7087 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7089 <a name="int_pow">'<tt>llvm.pow.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7095 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.pow</tt> on any
7096 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
7100 declare float @llvm.pow.f32(float %Val, float %Power)
7101 declare double @llvm.pow.f64(double %Val, double %Power)
7102 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.pow.f80(x86_fp80 %Val, x86_fp80 %Power)
7103 declare fp128 @llvm.pow.f128(fp128 %Val, fp128 %Power)
7104 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.pow.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val, ppc_fp128 Power)
7108 <p>The '<tt>llvm.pow.*</tt>' intrinsics return the first operand raised to the
7109 specified (positive or negative) power.</p>
7112 <p>The second argument is a floating point power, and the first is a value to
7113 raise to that power.</p>
7116 <p>This function returns the first value raised to the second power, returning
7117 the same values as the libm <tt>pow</tt> functions would, and handles error
7118 conditions in the same way.</p>
7122 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7124 <a name="int_exp">'<tt>llvm.exp.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7130 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.exp</tt> on any
7131 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
7135 declare float @llvm.exp.f32(float %Val)
7136 declare double @llvm.exp.f64(double %Val)
7137 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.exp.f80(x86_fp80 %Val)
7138 declare fp128 @llvm.exp.f128(fp128 %Val)
7139 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.exp.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val)
7143 <p>The '<tt>llvm.exp.*</tt>' intrinsics perform the exp function.</p>
7146 <p>The argument and return value are floating point numbers of the same
7150 <p>This function returns the same values as the libm <tt>exp</tt> functions
7151 would, and handles error conditions in the same way.</p>
7155 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7157 <a name="int_log">'<tt>llvm.log.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7163 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.log</tt> on any
7164 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
7168 declare float @llvm.log.f32(float %Val)
7169 declare double @llvm.log.f64(double %Val)
7170 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.log.f80(x86_fp80 %Val)
7171 declare fp128 @llvm.log.f128(fp128 %Val)
7172 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.log.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %Val)
7176 <p>The '<tt>llvm.log.*</tt>' intrinsics perform the log function.</p>
7179 <p>The argument and return value are floating point numbers of the same
7183 <p>This function returns the same values as the libm <tt>log</tt> functions
7184 would, and handles error conditions in the same way.</p>
7188 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7190 <a name="int_fma">'<tt>llvm.fma.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7196 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.fma</tt> on any
7197 floating point or vector of floating point type. Not all targets support all
7201 declare float @llvm.fma.f32(float %a, float %b, float %c)
7202 declare double @llvm.fma.f64(double %a, double %b, double %c)
7203 declare x86_fp80 @llvm.fma.f80(x86_fp80 %a, x86_fp80 %b, x86_fp80 %c)
7204 declare fp128 @llvm.fma.f128(fp128 %a, fp128 %b, fp128 %c)
7205 declare ppc_fp128 @llvm.fma.ppcf128(ppc_fp128 %a, ppc_fp128 %b, ppc_fp128 %c)
7209 <p>The '<tt>llvm.fma.*</tt>' intrinsics perform the fused multiply-add
7213 <p>The argument and return value are floating point numbers of the same
7217 <p>This function returns the same values as the libm <tt>fma</tt> functions
7224 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7226 <a name="int_manip">Bit Manipulation Intrinsics</a>
7231 <p>LLVM provides intrinsics for a few important bit manipulation operations.
7232 These allow efficient code generation for some algorithms.</p>
7234 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7236 <a name="int_bswap">'<tt>llvm.bswap.*</tt>' Intrinsics</a>
7242 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic function. You can use bswap on any integer
7243 type that is an even number of bytes (i.e. BitWidth % 16 == 0).</p>
7246 declare i16 @llvm.bswap.i16(i16 <id>)
7247 declare i32 @llvm.bswap.i32(i32 <id>)
7248 declare i64 @llvm.bswap.i64(i64 <id>)
7252 <p>The '<tt>llvm.bswap</tt>' family of intrinsics is used to byte swap integer
7253 values with an even number of bytes (positive multiple of 16 bits). These
7254 are useful for performing operations on data that is not in the target's
7255 native byte order.</p>
7258 <p>The <tt>llvm.bswap.i16</tt> intrinsic returns an i16 value that has the high
7259 and low byte of the input i16 swapped. Similarly,
7260 the <tt>llvm.bswap.i32</tt> intrinsic returns an i32 value that has the four
7261 bytes of the input i32 swapped, so that if the input bytes are numbered 0, 1,
7262 2, 3 then the returned i32 will have its bytes in 3, 2, 1, 0 order.
7263 The <tt>llvm.bswap.i48</tt>, <tt>llvm.bswap.i64</tt> and other intrinsics
7264 extend this concept to additional even-byte lengths (6 bytes, 8 bytes and
7265 more, respectively).</p>
7269 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7271 <a name="int_ctpop">'<tt>llvm.ctpop.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7277 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use llvm.ctpop on any integer bit
7278 width, or on any vector with integer elements. Not all targets support all
7279 bit widths or vector types, however.</p>
7282 declare i8 @llvm.ctpop.i8(i8 <src>)
7283 declare i16 @llvm.ctpop.i16(i16 <src>)
7284 declare i32 @llvm.ctpop.i32(i32 <src>)
7285 declare i64 @llvm.ctpop.i64(i64 <src>)
7286 declare i256 @llvm.ctpop.i256(i256 <src>)
7287 declare <2 x i32> @llvm.ctpop.v2i32(<2 x i32> <src>)
7291 <p>The '<tt>llvm.ctpop</tt>' family of intrinsics counts the number of bits set
7295 <p>The only argument is the value to be counted. The argument may be of any
7296 integer type, or a vector with integer elements.
7297 The return type must match the argument type.</p>
7300 <p>The '<tt>llvm.ctpop</tt>' intrinsic counts the 1's in a variable, or within each
7301 element of a vector.</p>
7305 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7307 <a name="int_ctlz">'<tt>llvm.ctlz.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7313 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.ctlz</tt> on any
7314 integer bit width, or any vector whose elements are integers. Not all
7315 targets support all bit widths or vector types, however.</p>
7318 declare i8 @llvm.ctlz.i8 (i8 <src>)
7319 declare i16 @llvm.ctlz.i16(i16 <src>)
7320 declare i32 @llvm.ctlz.i32(i32 <src>)
7321 declare i64 @llvm.ctlz.i64(i64 <src>)
7322 declare i256 @llvm.ctlz.i256(i256 <src>)
7323 declare <2 x i32> @llvm.ctlz.v2i32(<2 x i32> <src;gt)
7327 <p>The '<tt>llvm.ctlz</tt>' family of intrinsic functions counts the number of
7328 leading zeros in a variable.</p>
7331 <p>The only argument is the value to be counted. The argument may be of any
7332 integer type, or any vector type with integer element type.
7333 The return type must match the argument type.</p>
7336 <p>The '<tt>llvm.ctlz</tt>' intrinsic counts the leading (most significant)
7337 zeros in a variable, or within each element of the vector if the operation
7338 is of vector type. If the src == 0 then the result is the size in bits of
7339 the type of src. For example, <tt>llvm.ctlz(i32 2) = 30</tt>.</p>
7343 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7345 <a name="int_cttz">'<tt>llvm.cttz.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7351 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.cttz</tt> on any
7352 integer bit width, or any vector of integer elements. Not all targets
7353 support all bit widths or vector types, however.</p>
7356 declare i8 @llvm.cttz.i8 (i8 <src>)
7357 declare i16 @llvm.cttz.i16(i16 <src>)
7358 declare i32 @llvm.cttz.i32(i32 <src>)
7359 declare i64 @llvm.cttz.i64(i64 <src>)
7360 declare i256 @llvm.cttz.i256(i256 <src>)
7361 declase <2 x i32> @llvm.cttz.v2i32(<2 x i32> <src>)
7365 <p>The '<tt>llvm.cttz</tt>' family of intrinsic functions counts the number of
7369 <p>The only argument is the value to be counted. The argument may be of any
7370 integer type, or a vectory with integer element type.. The return type
7371 must match the argument type.</p>
7374 <p>The '<tt>llvm.cttz</tt>' intrinsic counts the trailing (least significant)
7375 zeros in a variable, or within each element of a vector.
7376 If the src == 0 then the result is the size in bits of
7377 the type of src. For example, <tt>llvm.cttz(2) = 1</tt>.</p>
7383 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7385 <a name="int_overflow">Arithmetic with Overflow Intrinsics</a>
7390 <p>LLVM provides intrinsics for some arithmetic with overflow operations.</p>
7392 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7394 <a name="int_sadd_overflow">
7395 '<tt>llvm.sadd.with.overflow.*</tt>' Intrinsics
7402 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.sadd.with.overflow</tt>
7403 on any integer bit width.</p>
7406 declare {i16, i1} @llvm.sadd.with.overflow.i16(i16 %a, i16 %b)
7407 declare {i32, i1} @llvm.sadd.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7408 declare {i64, i1} @llvm.sadd.with.overflow.i64(i64 %a, i64 %b)
7412 <p>The '<tt>llvm.sadd.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7413 a signed addition of the two arguments, and indicate whether an overflow
7414 occurred during the signed summation.</p>
7417 <p>The arguments (%a and %b) and the first element of the result structure may
7418 be of integer types of any bit width, but they must have the same bit
7419 width. The second element of the result structure must be of
7420 type <tt>i1</tt>. <tt>%a</tt> and <tt>%b</tt> are the two values that will
7421 undergo signed addition.</p>
7424 <p>The '<tt>llvm.sadd.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7425 a signed addition of the two variables. They return a structure — the
7426 first element of which is the signed summation, and the second element of
7427 which is a bit specifying if the signed summation resulted in an
7432 %res = call {i32, i1} @llvm.sadd.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7433 %sum = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 0
7434 %obit = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 1
7435 br i1 %obit, label %overflow, label %normal
7440 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7442 <a name="int_uadd_overflow">
7443 '<tt>llvm.uadd.with.overflow.*</tt>' Intrinsics
7450 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.uadd.with.overflow</tt>
7451 on any integer bit width.</p>
7454 declare {i16, i1} @llvm.uadd.with.overflow.i16(i16 %a, i16 %b)
7455 declare {i32, i1} @llvm.uadd.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7456 declare {i64, i1} @llvm.uadd.with.overflow.i64(i64 %a, i64 %b)
7460 <p>The '<tt>llvm.uadd.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7461 an unsigned addition of the two arguments, and indicate whether a carry
7462 occurred during the unsigned summation.</p>
7465 <p>The arguments (%a and %b) and the first element of the result structure may
7466 be of integer types of any bit width, but they must have the same bit
7467 width. The second element of the result structure must be of
7468 type <tt>i1</tt>. <tt>%a</tt> and <tt>%b</tt> are the two values that will
7469 undergo unsigned addition.</p>
7472 <p>The '<tt>llvm.uadd.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7473 an unsigned addition of the two arguments. They return a structure —
7474 the first element of which is the sum, and the second element of which is a
7475 bit specifying if the unsigned summation resulted in a carry.</p>
7479 %res = call {i32, i1} @llvm.uadd.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7480 %sum = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 0
7481 %obit = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 1
7482 br i1 %obit, label %carry, label %normal
7487 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7489 <a name="int_ssub_overflow">
7490 '<tt>llvm.ssub.with.overflow.*</tt>' Intrinsics
7497 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.ssub.with.overflow</tt>
7498 on any integer bit width.</p>
7501 declare {i16, i1} @llvm.ssub.with.overflow.i16(i16 %a, i16 %b)
7502 declare {i32, i1} @llvm.ssub.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7503 declare {i64, i1} @llvm.ssub.with.overflow.i64(i64 %a, i64 %b)
7507 <p>The '<tt>llvm.ssub.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7508 a signed subtraction of the two arguments, and indicate whether an overflow
7509 occurred during the signed subtraction.</p>
7512 <p>The arguments (%a and %b) and the first element of the result structure may
7513 be of integer types of any bit width, but they must have the same bit
7514 width. The second element of the result structure must be of
7515 type <tt>i1</tt>. <tt>%a</tt> and <tt>%b</tt> are the two values that will
7516 undergo signed subtraction.</p>
7519 <p>The '<tt>llvm.ssub.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7520 a signed subtraction of the two arguments. They return a structure —
7521 the first element of which is the subtraction, and the second element of
7522 which is a bit specifying if the signed subtraction resulted in an
7527 %res = call {i32, i1} @llvm.ssub.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7528 %sum = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 0
7529 %obit = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 1
7530 br i1 %obit, label %overflow, label %normal
7535 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7537 <a name="int_usub_overflow">
7538 '<tt>llvm.usub.with.overflow.*</tt>' Intrinsics
7545 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.usub.with.overflow</tt>
7546 on any integer bit width.</p>
7549 declare {i16, i1} @llvm.usub.with.overflow.i16(i16 %a, i16 %b)
7550 declare {i32, i1} @llvm.usub.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7551 declare {i64, i1} @llvm.usub.with.overflow.i64(i64 %a, i64 %b)
7555 <p>The '<tt>llvm.usub.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7556 an unsigned subtraction of the two arguments, and indicate whether an
7557 overflow occurred during the unsigned subtraction.</p>
7560 <p>The arguments (%a and %b) and the first element of the result structure may
7561 be of integer types of any bit width, but they must have the same bit
7562 width. The second element of the result structure must be of
7563 type <tt>i1</tt>. <tt>%a</tt> and <tt>%b</tt> are the two values that will
7564 undergo unsigned subtraction.</p>
7567 <p>The '<tt>llvm.usub.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7568 an unsigned subtraction of the two arguments. They return a structure —
7569 the first element of which is the subtraction, and the second element of
7570 which is a bit specifying if the unsigned subtraction resulted in an
7575 %res = call {i32, i1} @llvm.usub.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7576 %sum = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 0
7577 %obit = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 1
7578 br i1 %obit, label %overflow, label %normal
7583 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7585 <a name="int_smul_overflow">
7586 '<tt>llvm.smul.with.overflow.*</tt>' Intrinsics
7593 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.smul.with.overflow</tt>
7594 on any integer bit width.</p>
7597 declare {i16, i1} @llvm.smul.with.overflow.i16(i16 %a, i16 %b)
7598 declare {i32, i1} @llvm.smul.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7599 declare {i64, i1} @llvm.smul.with.overflow.i64(i64 %a, i64 %b)
7604 <p>The '<tt>llvm.smul.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7605 a signed multiplication of the two arguments, and indicate whether an
7606 overflow occurred during the signed multiplication.</p>
7609 <p>The arguments (%a and %b) and the first element of the result structure may
7610 be of integer types of any bit width, but they must have the same bit
7611 width. The second element of the result structure must be of
7612 type <tt>i1</tt>. <tt>%a</tt> and <tt>%b</tt> are the two values that will
7613 undergo signed multiplication.</p>
7616 <p>The '<tt>llvm.smul.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7617 a signed multiplication of the two arguments. They return a structure —
7618 the first element of which is the multiplication, and the second element of
7619 which is a bit specifying if the signed multiplication resulted in an
7624 %res = call {i32, i1} @llvm.smul.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7625 %sum = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 0
7626 %obit = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 1
7627 br i1 %obit, label %overflow, label %normal
7632 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7634 <a name="int_umul_overflow">
7635 '<tt>llvm.umul.with.overflow.*</tt>' Intrinsics
7642 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use <tt>llvm.umul.with.overflow</tt>
7643 on any integer bit width.</p>
7646 declare {i16, i1} @llvm.umul.with.overflow.i16(i16 %a, i16 %b)
7647 declare {i32, i1} @llvm.umul.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7648 declare {i64, i1} @llvm.umul.with.overflow.i64(i64 %a, i64 %b)
7652 <p>The '<tt>llvm.umul.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7653 a unsigned multiplication of the two arguments, and indicate whether an
7654 overflow occurred during the unsigned multiplication.</p>
7657 <p>The arguments (%a and %b) and the first element of the result structure may
7658 be of integer types of any bit width, but they must have the same bit
7659 width. The second element of the result structure must be of
7660 type <tt>i1</tt>. <tt>%a</tt> and <tt>%b</tt> are the two values that will
7661 undergo unsigned multiplication.</p>
7664 <p>The '<tt>llvm.umul.with.overflow</tt>' family of intrinsic functions perform
7665 an unsigned multiplication of the two arguments. They return a structure
7666 — the first element of which is the multiplication, and the second
7667 element of which is a bit specifying if the unsigned multiplication resulted
7672 %res = call {i32, i1} @llvm.umul.with.overflow.i32(i32 %a, i32 %b)
7673 %sum = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 0
7674 %obit = extractvalue {i32, i1} %res, 1
7675 br i1 %obit, label %overflow, label %normal
7682 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7684 <a name="int_fp16">Half Precision Floating Point Intrinsics</a>
7689 <p>Half precision floating point is a storage-only format. This means that it is
7690 a dense encoding (in memory) but does not support computation in the
7693 <p>This means that code must first load the half-precision floating point
7694 value as an i16, then convert it to float with <a
7695 href="#int_convert_from_fp16"><tt>llvm.convert.from.fp16</tt></a>.
7696 Computation can then be performed on the float value (including extending to
7697 double etc). To store the value back to memory, it is first converted to
7698 float if needed, then converted to i16 with
7699 <a href="#int_convert_to_fp16"><tt>llvm.convert.to.fp16</tt></a>, then
7700 storing as an i16 value.</p>
7702 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7704 <a name="int_convert_to_fp16">
7705 '<tt>llvm.convert.to.fp16</tt>' Intrinsic
7713 declare i16 @llvm.convert.to.fp16(f32 %a)
7717 <p>The '<tt>llvm.convert.to.fp16</tt>' intrinsic function performs
7718 a conversion from single precision floating point format to half precision
7719 floating point format.</p>
7722 <p>The intrinsic function contains single argument - the value to be
7726 <p>The '<tt>llvm.convert.to.fp16</tt>' intrinsic function performs
7727 a conversion from single precision floating point format to half precision
7728 floating point format. The return value is an <tt>i16</tt> which
7729 contains the converted number.</p>
7733 %res = call i16 @llvm.convert.to.fp16(f32 %a)
7734 store i16 %res, i16* @x, align 2
7739 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7741 <a name="int_convert_from_fp16">
7742 '<tt>llvm.convert.from.fp16</tt>' Intrinsic
7750 declare f32 @llvm.convert.from.fp16(i16 %a)
7754 <p>The '<tt>llvm.convert.from.fp16</tt>' intrinsic function performs
7755 a conversion from half precision floating point format to single precision
7756 floating point format.</p>
7759 <p>The intrinsic function contains single argument - the value to be
7763 <p>The '<tt>llvm.convert.from.fp16</tt>' intrinsic function performs a
7764 conversion from half single precision floating point format to single
7765 precision floating point format. The input half-float value is represented by
7766 an <tt>i16</tt> value.</p>
7770 %a = load i16* @x, align 2
7771 %res = call f32 @llvm.convert.from.fp16(i16 %a)
7778 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7780 <a name="int_debugger">Debugger Intrinsics</a>
7785 <p>The LLVM debugger intrinsics (which all start with <tt>llvm.dbg.</tt>
7786 prefix), are described in
7787 the <a href="SourceLevelDebugging.html#format_common_intrinsics">LLVM Source
7788 Level Debugging</a> document.</p>
7792 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7794 <a name="int_eh">Exception Handling Intrinsics</a>
7799 <p>The LLVM exception handling intrinsics (which all start with
7800 <tt>llvm.eh.</tt> prefix), are described in
7801 the <a href="ExceptionHandling.html#format_common_intrinsics">LLVM Exception
7802 Handling</a> document.</p>
7806 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7808 <a name="int_trampoline">Trampoline Intrinsics</a>
7813 <p>These intrinsics make it possible to excise one parameter, marked with
7814 the <a href="#nest"><tt>nest</tt></a> attribute, from a function.
7815 The result is a callable
7816 function pointer lacking the nest parameter - the caller does not need to
7817 provide a value for it. Instead, the value to use is stored in advance in a
7818 "trampoline", a block of memory usually allocated on the stack, which also
7819 contains code to splice the nest value into the argument list. This is used
7820 to implement the GCC nested function address extension.</p>
7822 <p>For example, if the function is
7823 <tt>i32 f(i8* nest %c, i32 %x, i32 %y)</tt> then the resulting function
7824 pointer has signature <tt>i32 (i32, i32)*</tt>. It can be created as
7827 <pre class="doc_code">
7828 %tramp = alloca [10 x i8], align 4 ; size and alignment only correct for X86
7829 %tramp1 = getelementptr [10 x i8]* %tramp, i32 0, i32 0
7830 call i8* @llvm.init.trampoline(i8* %tramp1, i8* bitcast (i32 (i8*, i32, i32)* @f to i8*), i8* %nval)
7831 %p = call i8* @llvm.adjust.trampoline(i8* %tramp1)
7832 %fp = bitcast i8* %p to i32 (i32, i32)*
7835 <p>The call <tt>%val = call i32 %fp(i32 %x, i32 %y)</tt> is then equivalent
7836 to <tt>%val = call i32 %f(i8* %nval, i32 %x, i32 %y)</tt>.</p>
7838 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7841 '<tt>llvm.init.trampoline</tt>' Intrinsic
7849 declare void @llvm.init.trampoline(i8* <tramp>, i8* <func>, i8* <nval>)
7853 <p>This fills the memory pointed to by <tt>tramp</tt> with executable code,
7854 turning it into a trampoline.</p>
7857 <p>The <tt>llvm.init.trampoline</tt> intrinsic takes three arguments, all
7858 pointers. The <tt>tramp</tt> argument must point to a sufficiently large and
7859 sufficiently aligned block of memory; this memory is written to by the
7860 intrinsic. Note that the size and the alignment are target-specific - LLVM
7861 currently provides no portable way of determining them, so a front-end that
7862 generates this intrinsic needs to have some target-specific knowledge.
7863 The <tt>func</tt> argument must hold a function bitcast to
7864 an <tt>i8*</tt>.</p>
7867 <p>The block of memory pointed to by <tt>tramp</tt> is filled with target
7868 dependent code, turning it into a function. Then <tt>tramp</tt> needs to be
7869 passed to <a href="#int_at">llvm.adjust.trampoline</a> to get a pointer
7870 which can be <a href="#int_trampoline">bitcast (to a new function) and
7871 called</a>. The new function's signature is the same as that of
7872 <tt>func</tt> with any arguments marked with the <tt>nest</tt> attribute
7873 removed. At most one such <tt>nest</tt> argument is allowed, and it must be of
7874 pointer type. Calling the new function is equivalent to calling <tt>func</tt>
7875 with the same argument list, but with <tt>nval</tt> used for the missing
7876 <tt>nest</tt> argument. If, after calling <tt>llvm.init.trampoline</tt>, the
7877 memory pointed to by <tt>tramp</tt> is modified, then the effect of any later call
7878 to the returned function pointer is undefined.</p>
7881 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7884 '<tt>llvm.adjust.trampoline</tt>' Intrinsic
7892 declare i8* @llvm.adjust.trampoline(i8* <tramp>)
7896 <p>This performs any required machine-specific adjustment to the address of a
7897 trampoline (passed as <tt>tramp</tt>).</p>
7900 <p><tt>tramp</tt> must point to a block of memory which already has trampoline code
7901 filled in by a previous call to <a href="#int_it"><tt>llvm.init.trampoline</tt>
7905 <p>On some architectures the address of the code to be executed needs to be
7906 different to the address where the trampoline is actually stored. This
7907 intrinsic returns the executable address corresponding to <tt>tramp</tt>
7908 after performing the required machine specific adjustments.
7909 The pointer returned can then be <a href="#int_trampoline"> bitcast and
7917 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
7919 <a name="int_memorymarkers">Memory Use Markers</a>
7924 <p>This class of intrinsics exists to information about the lifetime of memory
7925 objects and ranges where variables are immutable.</p>
7927 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7929 <a name="int_lifetime_start">'<tt>llvm.lifetime.start</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7936 declare void @llvm.lifetime.start(i64 <size>, i8* nocapture <ptr>)
7940 <p>The '<tt>llvm.lifetime.start</tt>' intrinsic specifies the start of a memory
7941 object's lifetime.</p>
7944 <p>The first argument is a constant integer representing the size of the
7945 object, or -1 if it is variable sized. The second argument is a pointer to
7949 <p>This intrinsic indicates that before this point in the code, the value of the
7950 memory pointed to by <tt>ptr</tt> is dead. This means that it is known to
7951 never be used and has an undefined value. A load from the pointer that
7952 precedes this intrinsic can be replaced with
7953 <tt>'<a href="#undefvalues">undef</a>'</tt>.</p>
7957 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7959 <a name="int_lifetime_end">'<tt>llvm.lifetime.end</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7966 declare void @llvm.lifetime.end(i64 <size>, i8* nocapture <ptr>)
7970 <p>The '<tt>llvm.lifetime.end</tt>' intrinsic specifies the end of a memory
7971 object's lifetime.</p>
7974 <p>The first argument is a constant integer representing the size of the
7975 object, or -1 if it is variable sized. The second argument is a pointer to
7979 <p>This intrinsic indicates that after this point in the code, the value of the
7980 memory pointed to by <tt>ptr</tt> is dead. This means that it is known to
7981 never be used and has an undefined value. Any stores into the memory object
7982 following this intrinsic may be removed as dead.
7986 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
7988 <a name="int_invariant_start">'<tt>llvm.invariant.start</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
7995 declare {}* @llvm.invariant.start(i64 <size>, i8* nocapture <ptr>)
7999 <p>The '<tt>llvm.invariant.start</tt>' intrinsic specifies that the contents of
8000 a memory object will not change.</p>
8003 <p>The first argument is a constant integer representing the size of the
8004 object, or -1 if it is variable sized. The second argument is a pointer to
8008 <p>This intrinsic indicates that until an <tt>llvm.invariant.end</tt> that uses
8009 the return value, the referenced memory location is constant and
8014 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8016 <a name="int_invariant_end">'<tt>llvm.invariant.end</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8023 declare void @llvm.invariant.end({}* <start>, i64 <size>, i8* nocapture <ptr>)
8027 <p>The '<tt>llvm.invariant.end</tt>' intrinsic specifies that the contents of
8028 a memory object are mutable.</p>
8031 <p>The first argument is the matching <tt>llvm.invariant.start</tt> intrinsic.
8032 The second argument is a constant integer representing the size of the
8033 object, or -1 if it is variable sized and the third argument is a pointer
8037 <p>This intrinsic indicates that the memory is mutable again.</p>
8043 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
8045 <a name="int_general">General Intrinsics</a>
8050 <p>This class of intrinsics is designed to be generic and has no specific
8053 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8055 <a name="int_var_annotation">'<tt>llvm.var.annotation</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8062 declare void @llvm.var.annotation(i8* <val>, i8* <str>, i8* <str>, i32 <int>)
8066 <p>The '<tt>llvm.var.annotation</tt>' intrinsic.</p>
8069 <p>The first argument is a pointer to a value, the second is a pointer to a
8070 global string, the third is a pointer to a global string which is the source
8071 file name, and the last argument is the line number.</p>
8074 <p>This intrinsic allows annotation of local variables with arbitrary strings.
8075 This can be useful for special purpose optimizations that want to look for
8076 these annotations. These have no other defined use; they are ignored by code
8077 generation and optimization.</p>
8081 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8083 <a name="int_annotation">'<tt>llvm.annotation.*</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8089 <p>This is an overloaded intrinsic. You can use '<tt>llvm.annotation</tt>' on
8090 any integer bit width.</p>
8093 declare i8 @llvm.annotation.i8(i8 <val>, i8* <str>, i8* <str>, i32 <int>)
8094 declare i16 @llvm.annotation.i16(i16 <val>, i8* <str>, i8* <str>, i32 <int>)
8095 declare i32 @llvm.annotation.i32(i32 <val>, i8* <str>, i8* <str>, i32 <int>)
8096 declare i64 @llvm.annotation.i64(i64 <val>, i8* <str>, i8* <str>, i32 <int>)
8097 declare i256 @llvm.annotation.i256(i256 <val>, i8* <str>, i8* <str>, i32 <int>)
8101 <p>The '<tt>llvm.annotation</tt>' intrinsic.</p>
8104 <p>The first argument is an integer value (result of some expression), the
8105 second is a pointer to a global string, the third is a pointer to a global
8106 string which is the source file name, and the last argument is the line
8107 number. It returns the value of the first argument.</p>
8110 <p>This intrinsic allows annotations to be put on arbitrary expressions with
8111 arbitrary strings. This can be useful for special purpose optimizations that
8112 want to look for these annotations. These have no other defined use; they
8113 are ignored by code generation and optimization.</p>
8117 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8119 <a name="int_trap">'<tt>llvm.trap</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8126 declare void @llvm.trap()
8130 <p>The '<tt>llvm.trap</tt>' intrinsic.</p>
8136 <p>This intrinsics is lowered to the target dependent trap instruction. If the
8137 target does not have a trap instruction, this intrinsic will be lowered to
8138 the call of the <tt>abort()</tt> function.</p>
8142 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8144 <a name="int_stackprotector">'<tt>llvm.stackprotector</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8151 declare void @llvm.stackprotector(i8* <guard>, i8** <slot>)
8155 <p>The <tt>llvm.stackprotector</tt> intrinsic takes the <tt>guard</tt> and
8156 stores it onto the stack at <tt>slot</tt>. The stack slot is adjusted to
8157 ensure that it is placed on the stack before local variables.</p>
8160 <p>The <tt>llvm.stackprotector</tt> intrinsic requires two pointer
8161 arguments. The first argument is the value loaded from the stack
8162 guard <tt>@__stack_chk_guard</tt>. The second variable is an <tt>alloca</tt>
8163 that has enough space to hold the value of the guard.</p>
8166 <p>This intrinsic causes the prologue/epilogue inserter to force the position of
8167 the <tt>AllocaInst</tt> stack slot to be before local variables on the
8168 stack. This is to ensure that if a local variable on the stack is
8169 overwritten, it will destroy the value of the guard. When the function exits,
8170 the guard on the stack is checked against the original guard. If they are
8171 different, then the program aborts by calling the <tt>__stack_chk_fail()</tt>
8176 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8178 <a name="int_objectsize">'<tt>llvm.objectsize</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8185 declare i32 @llvm.objectsize.i32(i8* <object>, i1 <type>)
8186 declare i64 @llvm.objectsize.i64(i8* <object>, i1 <type>)
8190 <p>The <tt>llvm.objectsize</tt> intrinsic is designed to provide information to
8191 the optimizers to determine at compile time whether a) an operation (like
8192 memcpy) will overflow a buffer that corresponds to an object, or b) that a
8193 runtime check for overflow isn't necessary. An object in this context means
8194 an allocation of a specific class, structure, array, or other object.</p>
8197 <p>The <tt>llvm.objectsize</tt> intrinsic takes two arguments. The first
8198 argument is a pointer to or into the <tt>object</tt>. The second argument
8199 is a boolean 0 or 1. This argument determines whether you want the
8200 maximum (0) or minimum (1) bytes remaining. This needs to be a literal 0 or
8201 1, variables are not allowed.</p>
8204 <p>The <tt>llvm.objectsize</tt> intrinsic is lowered to either a constant
8205 representing the size of the object concerned, or <tt>i32/i64 -1 or 0</tt>,
8206 depending on the <tt>type</tt> argument, if the size cannot be determined at
8210 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
8212 <a name="int_expect">'<tt>llvm.expect</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
8219 declare i32 @llvm.expect.i32(i32 <val>, i32 <expected_val>)
8220 declare i64 @llvm.expect.i64(i64 <val>, i64 <expected_val>)
8224 <p>The <tt>llvm.expect</tt> intrinsic provides information about expected (the
8225 most probable) value of <tt>val</tt>, which can be used by optimizers.</p>
8228 <p>The <tt>llvm.expect</tt> intrinsic takes two arguments. The first
8229 argument is a value. The second argument is an expected value, this needs to
8230 be a constant value, variables are not allowed.</p>
8233 <p>This intrinsic is lowered to the <tt>val</tt>.</p>
8239 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
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