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11 <div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.2 Release Notes</div>
14 <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
15 <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
16 <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
17 <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
18 <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
19 <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
22 <div class="doc_author">
23 <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a><p>
26 <h1><font color="red">THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS FOR THE LLVM 2.2
29 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
30 <div class="doc_section">
31 <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
33 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
35 <div class="doc_text">
37 <p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
38 infrastructure, release 2.2. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
39 major improvements from the previous release and any known problems. All LLVM
40 releases may be downloaded from the <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM
41 releases web site</a>.</p>
43 <p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
44 release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM
45 web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a
46 href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
47 list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
49 <p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the
50 main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the
51 current one. To see the release notes for a specific releases, please see the
52 <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
56 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
57 <div class="doc_section">
58 <a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
60 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
62 <div class="doc_text">
64 <p>This is the thirteenth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.
65 It includes many features and refinements from LLVM 2.1.</p>
69 <!-- Unfinished features in 2.2:
70 Index Set Splitting not enabled by default
76 <!--=========================================================================-->
77 <div class="doc_subsection">
78 <a name="deprecation">Deprecated features in LLVM 2.2</a>
81 <div class="doc_text">
83 <p>This is the last LLVM release to support llvm-gcc 4.0, llvm-upgrade, and
84 llvmc in its current form. llvm-gcc 4.0 has been replaced with llvm-gcc 4.2.
85 llvm-upgrade is useful for upgrading llvm 1.9 files to llvm 2.x syntax, but you
86 can always use an old release to do this. llvmc is currently mostly useless in
87 llvm 2.2, and will be redesigned or removed in llvm 2.3.</p>
91 <!--=========================================================================-->
92 <div class="doc_subsection">
93 <a name="frontends">llvm-gcc 4.0, llvm-gcc 4.2, and clang</a>
96 <div class="doc_text">
98 <p>LLVM 2.2 fully supports both the llvm-gcc 4.0 and llvm-gcc 4.2 front-ends (in
99 LLVM 2.1, llvm-gcc 4.2 was beta). Since LLVM 2.1, the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end
100 has made leaps and bounds and is now at least as good as 4.0 in virtually every
101 area, and is better in several areas (for example, exception handling
102 correctness, support for Ada and FORTRAN). We strongly recommend that you
103 migrate from llvm-gcc 4.0 to llvm-gcc 4.2 in this release cycle because
104 <b>LLVM 2.2 is the last release that will support llvm-gcc 4.0</b>: LLVM 2.3
105 will only support the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end.</p>
107 <p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang project</a> is an effort to build
108 a set of new 'llvm native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
109 and code generator. Currently, its C and Objective-C support is maturing
110 nicely, and it has advanced source-to-source analysis and transformation
111 capabilities. If you are interested in building source-level tools for C and
112 Objective-C (and eventually C++), you should take a look. However, note that
113 clang is not an official part of the LLVM 2.2 release. If you are interested in
114 this project, please see its <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">web site</a>.</p>
118 <!--=========================================================================-->
119 <div class="doc_subsection">
120 <a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
123 <div class="doc_text">
125 <p>LLVM 2.2 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
128 <li>Scott Michel contributed an SPU backend, which generates code for the
129 vector coprocessors on the Cell processor. (Status?)</li>
131 <li>llvm-gcc 4.2 has significantly improved support for the GCC Ada (GNAT) and
132 FORTRAN (gfortran) frontends. Duncan has the llvm-gcc 4.2 GNAT front-end
133 supporting almost all of the ACATS testsuite (except 2 tests?). The llvm-gcc
134 4.2 gfortran front-end supports a broad range of FORTRAN code, but does <a
135 href="http://llvm.org/PR1971">not support EQUIVALENCE yet</a>.</li>
137 <li>Dale contributed full support for long double on x86/x86-64 (where it is 80
138 bits) and on Darwin PPC/PPC64 (where it is 128 bits). In previous LLVM
139 releases, llvm-gcc silently mapped long double to double.</li>
141 <li>Gordon Henriksen rewrote most of the <a href="GarbageCollection.html"
142 >Accurate Garbage Collection</a> code in the code generator, making the
143 generated code more efficient and adding support for the Ocaml garbage collector
144 metadata format.</li>
146 <li>Christopher Lamb contributed support for multiple address spaces in LLVM
147 IR. This is useful for supporting targets that have 'near' vs 'far' pointers,
148 'RAM' vs 'ROM' pointers, or that have non-local memory that can be accessed with
149 special instructions.</li>
151 <li>LLVM now includes a new set of detailed <a
152 href="tutorial/index.html">tutorials</a>, which explain how to implement a
153 language with LLVM and shows how to use several important APIs.</li>
159 <!--=========================================================================-->
160 <div class="doc_subsection">
161 <a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
164 <div class="doc_text">
165 <p>New features include:
169 <li>Gordon contributed support for C and Ocaml Bindings for the basic LLVM IR
170 construction routines as well as several other auxiliary APIs.</li>
172 <li>Anton added readnone/readonly attributes for modeling function side effects.
173 Duncan hooked up GCC's pure/const attributes to use them and enhanced mod/ref
174 analysis to use them.</li>
176 <li>Devang added LLVMFoldingBuilder, a version of LLVMBuilder that implicitly
177 simplifies the code as it is constructed.</li>
179 <li>Ted Kremenek added a framework for generic object serialization to bitcode
180 files. This support is only used by clang right now for ASTs but is extensible
181 and could be used for serializing arbitrary other data into bitcode files.</li>
183 <li>Duncan improved TargetData to distinguish between the size/alignment of a
184 type in a register, in memory according to the platform ABI, and in memory when
185 we have a choice.</li>
187 <li>Duncan moved parameter attributes off of FunctionType and onto functions
188 and calls. This makes it much easier to add attributes to a function in a
189 transformation pass.</li>
191 <li>Dan Gohman added support for vector sin, cos, and pow intrinsics.</li>
197 <!--=========================================================================-->
198 <div class="doc_subsection">
199 <a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
202 <div class="doc_text">
204 <p>We put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
205 which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make it run
210 <li>Owen refactored the existing LLVM dominator and loop information code to
211 allow it work on the machine code representation. He contributed support for
212 dominator and loop information on machine code and merged the code for forward
213 and backward dominator computation.</li>
215 <li>Dan added support for emitting debug information with .file and .loc
216 directives on that support it, instead of emitting large tables in the .s
219 <li>Evan extended the DAG scheduler to model physical register dependencies
220 explicitly and have the BURR scheduler pick a correct schedule based on the
221 dependencies. This reduces our use of the 'flag' operand hack.</li>
223 <li>Evan added initial support for register coalescing of subregister
226 <li>Rafael Espindola implemented initial support for a new 'byval' attribute,
227 which allows more efficient by-value argument passing in the LLVM IR. Evan
228 finished support for it and enabled it in the X86 (32- and 64-bit) and C
231 <li>The LLVM TargetInstrInfo class can now answer queries about the mod/ref and
232 side-effect behavior of MachineInstr's. This information is inferred
233 automatically by TableGen from .td files for all instructions with
236 <li>Evan implemented simple live interval splitting on basic block boundaries.
237 This allows the register allocator to be more successful at keeping values in
238 registers in some parts of a value's live range, even if they need to be spilled
239 in some other block.</li>
241 <li>The new MachineRegisterInfo.h class provides support for efficiently
242 iterating over all defs/uses of a register, and this information is
243 automatically kept up-to-date. This support is similar to the use_iterator in
244 the LLVM IR level.</li>
246 <li>The MachineInstr, MachineOperand and TargetInstrDesc classes are simpler,
247 more consistent, and better documented.</li>
252 <!--=========================================================================-->
253 <div class="doc_subsection">
254 <a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
257 <div class="doc_text">
259 <p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, the
260 LLVM 2.2 optimizers support a few major enhancements:</p>
264 <li>Daniel Berlin and Curtis Dunham rewrote Andersen's alias analysis to be
265 several orders of magnitude faster, and implemented Offline Variable
266 Substitution and Lazy Cycle Detection. Note that Andersen's is not enabled in
267 llvm-gcc by default, but can be accessed through 'opt'.</li>
269 <li>Dan Gohman contributed several enhancements to Loop Strength Reduction (LSR)
270 to make it more aggressive with SSE intrinsics.</li>
272 <li>Evan added support for simple exit value substitution to LSR.</li>
274 <li>Evan enhanced LSR to support induction variable reuse when the induction
275 variables have different widths.</li>
282 <!--=========================================================================-->
283 <div class="doc_subsection">
284 <a name="targetspecific">Target Specific Improvements</a>
287 <div class="doc_text">
288 <p>New target-specific features include:
292 <li>Evan contributed support to the X86 backend to model the mod/ref behavior
293 of the EFLAGS register explicitly in all instructions. This gives more freedom
294 to the scheduler, and is a more explicit way to model the instructions.</li>
295 <li>Dale contributed support for exception handling on Darwin/x86-64 and
297 <li>Evan turned on if-conversion by default for ARM, allowing LLVM to take
298 advantage of its predication features.</li>
299 <li>Bruno added PIC support to the MIPS backend, fixed many bugs and improved
300 support for architecture variants.</li>
301 <li>Arnold Schwaighofer added support for X86 tail calls (limitations?
303 <li>Evan contributed several enhancements to Darwin/x86 debug information,
304 and improvements at -O0 (details?).</li>
309 <!--=========================================================================-->
310 <div class="doc_subsection">
311 <a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
314 <div class="doc_text">
315 <p>New features include:
319 <li>Gordon expanded and updated the <a href="Passes.html">LLVM Analysis and
320 Transformation Passes</a> reference to include descriptions for each pass.</li>
322 <li>We rewrote the lexer and parser used by TableGen to make them simpler
323 and cleaner. This gives tblgen support for 'caret diagnostics'. The .ll file
324 lexer was also rewritten to support caret diagnostics but doesn't use this
327 <li>Dale has been grinding through the GCC testsuite, and marked many
328 LLVM-incompatible tests as not-to-be-run (for example, if they are grepping
329 through some GCC dump file that LLVM doesn't produce), he also found and fixed
330 many LLVM bugs exposed by the testsuite.</li>
335 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
336 <div class="doc_section">
337 <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
339 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
341 <div class="doc_text">
343 <p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
346 <li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
347 (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
348 <li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit and
350 <li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
351 <li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
352 support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
353 <li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.</li>
354 <li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
355 <li>Itanium-based machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
358 <p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses
359 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/">GNU autoconf</a> to adapt itself
360 to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
361 porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
362 portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
366 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
367 <div class="doc_section">
368 <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
370 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
372 <div class="doc_text">
374 <p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
375 component. As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
376 sections. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
377 href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
378 there isn't already one.</p>
382 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
383 <div class="doc_subsection">
384 <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
387 <div class="doc_text">
389 <p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
390 be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
391 not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
392 useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
393 components, please contact us on the <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
396 <li>The <tt>-cee</tt> pass is known to be buggy and will be removed in
398 <li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, and MIPS backends are experimental.</li>
399 <li>The LLC "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported
400 value for this option.</li>
401 <li>The llvmc tool is not supported.</li>
406 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
407 <div class="doc_subsection">
408 <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
411 <div class="doc_text">
414 <li>The X86 backend does not yet support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline
415 assembly that uses the X86 floating point stack</a>.</li>
416 <li>The X86 backend occasionally has <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1649">alignment
417 problems</a> on operating systems that don't require 16-byte stack alignment
418 (including most non-darwin OS's like linux).</li>
419 <li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured to
420 generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
425 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
426 <div class="doc_subsection">
427 <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
430 <div class="doc_text">
433 <li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
434 compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
439 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
440 <div class="doc_subsection">
441 <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
444 <div class="doc_text">
447 <li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
448 processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
449 results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
450 <li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported, but not fully tested.
452 <li>There is a bug in QEMU-ARM (<= 0.9.0) which causes it to incorrectly execute
453 programs compiled with LLVM. Please use more recent versions of QEMU.</li>
458 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
459 <div class="doc_subsection">
460 <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
463 <div class="doc_text">
466 <li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
467 support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
472 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
473 <div class="doc_subsection">
474 <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
477 <div class="doc_text">
481 <li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
482 appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
487 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
488 <div class="doc_subsection">
489 <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
492 <div class="doc_text">
496 <li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
497 made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
498 speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
499 when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
501 <li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
502 ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
503 pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
504 mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
507 <li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
508 output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
511 <li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is ok).</li>
513 <li>The Itanium backend has bitrotted somewhat.</li>
518 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
519 <div class="doc_subsection">
520 <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
523 <div class="doc_text">
526 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend does not support inline
527 assembly code</a>.</li>
528 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1126">The C backend does not support vectors
530 <li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
531 C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
532 C++ code compiled with LLC or native compilers.</li>
538 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
539 <div class="doc_subsection">
540 <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the C front-end</a>
543 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
544 <div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
546 <div class="doc_text">
548 <p>llvm-gcc does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
549 Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
550 llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
554 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
555 <div class="doc_subsubsection">
559 <div class="doc_text">
562 <li><p>llvm-gcc does <b>not</b> support <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> yet.
563 See <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constructing-Calls.html#Constructing%20Calls">Constructing Calls</a>: Dispatching a call to another function.</p>
566 <li><p>llvm-gcc <b>partially</b> supports these GCC extensions:</p>
568 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html#Nested%20Functions">Nested Functions</a>:
570 As in Algol and Pascal, lexical scoping of functions.
571 Nested functions are supported, but llvm-gcc does not support
572 taking the address of a nested function (except on the X86-32 target)
573 or non-local gotos.</li>
575 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html#Function%20Attributes">Function Attributes</a>:
577 Declaring that functions have no side effects or that they can never
580 <b>Supported:</b> <tt>alias</tt>, <tt>always_inline</tt>, <tt>cdecl</tt>,
581 <tt>const</tt>, <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>,
582 <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>fastcall</tt>, <tt>format</tt>,
583 <tt>format_arg</tt>, <tt>non_null</tt>, <tt>noinline</tt>,
584 <tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>nothrow</tt>, <tt>pure</tt>, <tt>regparm</tt>
585 <tt>section</tt>, <tt>stdcall</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>, <tt>used</tt>,
586 <tt>visibility</tt>, <tt>warn_unused_result</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
588 <b>Ignored:</b> <tt>malloc</tt>,
589 <tt>no_instrument_function</tt></li>
593 <li><p>llvm-gcc supports the vast majority of GCC extensions, including:</p>
596 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pragmas.html#Pragmas">Pragmas</a>: Pragmas accepted by GCC.</li>
597 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Local-Labels.html#Local%20Labels">Local Labels</a>: Labels local to a block.</li>
598 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Other-Builtins.html#Other%20Builtins">Other Builtins</a>:
599 Other built-in functions.</li>
600 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Attributes.html#Variable%20Attributes">Variable Attributes</a>:
601 Specifying attributes of variables.</li>
602 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Type-Attributes.html#Type%20Attributes">Type Attributes</a>: Specifying attributes of types.</li>
603 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Thread_002dLocal.html">Thread-Local</a>: Per-thread variables.</li>
604 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Length.html#Variable%20Length">Variable Length</a>:
605 Arrays whose length is computed at run time.</li>
606 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Labels-as-Values.html#Labels%20as%20Values">Labels as Values</a>: Getting pointers to labels and computed gotos.</li>
607 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement-Exprs.html#Statement%20Exprs">Statement Exprs</a>: Putting statements and declarations inside expressions.</li>
608 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Typeof.html#Typeof">Typeof</a>: <code>typeof</code>: referring to the type of an expression.</li>
609 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-3.4.0/gcc/Lvalues.html#Lvalues">Lvalues</a>: Using <code>?:</code>, "<code>,</code>" and casts in lvalues.</li>
610 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Conditionals.html#Conditionals">Conditionals</a>: Omitting the middle operand of a <code>?:</code> expression.</li>
611 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Long-Long.html#Long%20Long">Long Long</a>: Double-word integers.</li>
612 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Complex.html#Complex">Complex</a>: Data types for complex numbers.</li>
613 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Hex-Floats.html#Hex%20Floats">Hex Floats</a>:Hexadecimal floating-point constants.</li>
614 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html#Zero%20Length">Zero Length</a>: Zero-length arrays.</li>
615 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Empty-Structures.html#Empty%20Structures">Empty Structures</a>: Structures with no members.</li>
616 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variadic-Macros.html#Variadic%20Macros">Variadic Macros</a>: Macros with a variable number of arguments.</li>
617 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Escaped-Newlines.html#Escaped%20Newlines">Escaped Newlines</a>: Slightly looser rules for escaped newlines.</li>
618 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Extended-Asm.html#Extended%20Asm">Extended Asm</a>: Assembler instructions with C expressions as operands.</li>
619 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constraints.html#Constraints">Constraints</a>: Constraints for asm operands.</li>
620 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Asm-Labels.html#Asm%20Labels">Asm Labels</a>: Specifying the assembler name to use for a C symbol.</li>
621 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Explicit-Reg-Vars.html#Explicit%20Reg%20Vars">Explicit Reg Vars</a>: Defining variables residing in specified registers.</li>
622 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Vector-Extensions.html#Vector%20Extensions">Vector Extensions</a>: Using vector instructions through built-in functions.</li>
623 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Target-Builtins.html#Target%20Builtins">Target Builtins</a>: Built-in functions specific to particular targets.</li>
624 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Subscripting.html#Subscripting">Subscripting</a>: Any array can be subscripted, even if not an lvalue.</li>
625 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pointer-Arith.html#Pointer%20Arith">Pointer Arith</a>: Arithmetic on <code>void</code>-pointers and function pointers.</li>
626 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Initializers.html#Initializers">Initializers</a>: Non-constant initializers.</li>
627 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Compound-Literals.html#Compound%20Literals">Compound Literals</a>: Compound literals give structures, unions,
628 or arrays as values.</li>
629 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Designated-Inits.html#Designated%20Inits">Designated Inits</a>: Labeling elements of initializers.</li>
630 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Cast-to-Union.html#Cast%20to%20Union">Cast to Union</a>: Casting to union type from any member of the union.</li>
631 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Case-Ranges.html#Case%20Ranges">Case Ranges</a>: `case 1 ... 9' and such.</li>
632 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Mixed-Declarations.html#Mixed%20Declarations">Mixed Declarations</a>: Mixing declarations and code.</li>
633 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Prototypes.html#Function%20Prototypes">Function Prototypes</a>: Prototype declarations and old-style definitions.</li>
634 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C_002b_002b-Comments.html#C_002b_002b-Comments">C++ Comments</a>: C++ comments are recognized.</li>
635 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Dollar-Signs.html#Dollar%20Signs">Dollar Signs</a>: Dollar sign is allowed in identifiers.</li>
636 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Character-Escapes.html#Character%20Escapes">Character Escapes</a>: <code>\e</code> stands for the character <ESC>.</li>
637 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Alignment.html#Alignment">Alignment</a>: Inquiring about the alignment of a type or variable.</li>
638 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Inline.html#Inline">Inline</a>: Defining inline functions (as fast as macros).</li>
639 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Alternate-Keywords.html#Alternate%20Keywords">Alternate Keywords</a>:<code>__const__</code>, <code>__asm__</code>, etc., for header files.</li>
640 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Incomplete-Enums.html#Incomplete%20Enums">Incomplete Enums</a>: <code>enum foo;</code>, with details to follow.</li>
641 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Names.html#Function%20Names">Function Names</a>: Printable strings which are the name of the current function.</li>
642 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Return-Address.html#Return%20Address">Return Address</a>: Getting the return or frame address of a function.</li>
643 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Unnamed-Fields.html#Unnamed%20Fields">Unnamed Fields</a>: Unnamed struct/union fields within structs/unions.</li>
644 <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Attribute-Syntax.html#Attribute%20Syntax">Attribute Syntax</a>: Formal syntax for attributes.</li>
649 <p>If you run into GCC extensions which have not been included in any of these
650 lists, please let us know (also including whether or not they work).</p>
654 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
655 <div class="doc_subsection">
656 <a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the C++ front-end</a>
659 <div class="doc_text">
661 <p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully
662 tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
663 itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p>
666 <li>Exception handling only works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets.</li>
673 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
674 <div class="doc_section">
675 <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
677 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
679 <div class="doc_text">
681 <p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
682 href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
683 href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
684 contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
685 Subversion version of the source code.
686 You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
687 into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
689 <p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
690 us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
695 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
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