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5 <title>LLVM Test Suite Guide</title>
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10 <div class="doc_title">
15 <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
16 <li><a href="#Requirements">Requirements</a></li>
17 <li><a href="#quick">Quick Start</a></li>
18 <li><a href="#org">LLVM Test Suite Organization</a>
20 <li><a href="#codefragments">Code Fragments</a></li>
21 <li><a href="#wholeprograms">Whole Programs</a></li>
23 <li><a href="#tree">LLVM Test Suite Tree</a></li>
24 <li><a href="#qmstructure">QMTest Structure</a></li>
25 <li><a href="#progstructure">Programs Structure</a></li>
26 <li><a href="#run">Running the LLVM Tests</a></li>
29 <div class="doc_author">
30 <p>Written by John T. Criswell</p>
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34 <div class="doc_section"><a name="overview">Overview</a></div>
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37 <div class="doc_text">
39 <p>This document is the reference manual for the LLVM test suite. It documents
40 the structure of the LLVM test suite, the tools needed to use it, and how to add
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46 <div class="doc_section"><a name="Requirements">Requirements</a></div>
47 <!--===============================================================-->
49 <div class="doc_text">
51 <p>In order to use the LLVM test suite, you will need all of the software
52 required to build LLVM, plus the following:</p>
55 <dt><a href="http://www.qmtest.com">QMTest</A></dt>
56 <dd>The LLVM test suite uses QMTest to organize and run tests. <b>Note:
57 you will need QMTest 2.0.3 to be successful. The tests do not run with
58 any other version.</b></dd>
60 <dt><a href="http://www.python.org">Python</A></dt>
61 <dd>You will need a Python interpreter that works with QMTest. Python will
62 need zlib and SAX support enabled.</dd>
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68 <div class="doc_section"><a name="quick">Quick Start</a></div>
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71 <div class="doc_text">
73 <p> The tests are located in the LLVM source tree under the directory
74 <tt>llvm/test</tt>. To run all of the tests in LLVM, use the Master Makefile in
81 <p>To run only the code fragment tests (i.e. those that do basic testing of
82 LLVM), run the tests organized by QMTest:</p>
85 % gmake -C llvm/test qmtest
88 <p>To run only the tests that compile and execute whole programs, run the
92 % gmake -C llvm/test/Programs
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98 <div class="doc_section"><a name="org">LLVM Test Suite Organization</a></div>
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101 <div class="doc_text">
103 <p>The LLVM test suite contains two major categories of tests: code
104 fragments and whole programs.</p>
108 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="codefragments">Code Fragments</a>
111 <div class="doc_text">
113 <p>Code fragments are small pieces of code that test a specific feature of LLVM
114 or trigger a specific bug in LLVM. They are usually written in LLVM assembly
115 language, but can be written in other languages if the test targets a particular
116 language front end.</p>
118 <p>Code fragments are not complete programs, and they are never executed to
119 determine correct behavior.</p>
121 <p>The tests in the Features and Regression directories contain code
126 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="wholeprograms">Whole Programs</a></div>
128 <div class="doc_text">
130 <p>Whole Programs are pieces of code which can be compiled and linked into a
131 stand-alone program that can be executed. These programs are generally written
132 in high level languages such as C or C++, but sometimes they are written
133 straight in LLVM assembly.</p>
135 <p>These programs are compiled and then executed using several different
136 methods (native compiler, LLVM C backend, LLVM JIT, LLVM native code generation,
137 etc). The output of these programs is compared to ensure that LLVM is compiling
138 the program correctly.</p>
140 <p>In addition to compiling and executing programs, whole program tests serve as
141 a way of benchmarking LLVM performance, both in terms of the efficiency of the
142 programs generated as well as the speed with which LLVM compiles, optimizes, and
145 <p>The Programs directory contains all tests which compile and benchmark whole
150 <!--===============================================================-->
151 <div class="doc_section"><a name="tree">LLVM Test Suite Tree</a></div>
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154 <div class="doc_text">
156 <p>Each type of test in the LLVM test suite has its own directory. The major
157 subtrees of the test suite directory tree are as follows:</p>
161 <p>This directory contains sample codes that test various features of the
162 LLVM language. These pieces of sample code are run through various
163 assembler, disassembler, and optimizer passes.</p>
166 <p>This directory contains regression tests for LLVM. When a bug is found
167 in LLVM, a regression test containing just enough code to reproduce the
168 problem should be written and placed somewhere underneath this directory.
169 In most cases, this will be a small piece of LLVM assembly language code,
170 often distilled from an actual application or benchmark.</p>
173 <p>The Programs directory contains programs that can be compiled with LLVM
174 and executed. These programs are compiled using the native compiler and
175 various LLVM backends. The output from the program compiled with the native
176 compiler is assumed correct; the results from the other programs are
177 compared to the native program output and pass if they match. </p>
179 <p> In addition for testing correctness, the Programs directory also
180 performs timing tests of various LLVM optimizations. It also records
181 compilation times for the compilers and the JIT. This information can be
182 used to compare the effectiveness of LLVM's optimizations and code
185 <p>The Programs directory is subdivided into several smaller subdirectories:
189 <li>Programs/SingleSource
190 <p>The SingleSource directory contains test programs that are only a
191 single source file in size. These are usually small benchmark programs
192 or small programs that calculate a particular value. Several such
193 programs are grouped together in each directory.</p></li>
195 <li>Programs/MultiSource
196 <p>The MultiSource directory contains subdirectories which contain
197 entire programs with multiple source files. Large benchmarks and whole
198 applications go here.</p></li>
200 <li>Programs/External
201 <p>The External directory contains Makefiles for building code that is
202 external to (i.e. not distributed with) LLVM. The most prominent member
203 of this directory is the SPEC 2000 benchmark suite. The presence and
204 location of these external programs is configured by the LLVM
205 <tt>configure</tt> script.</p></li>
210 <p>This directory contains the QMTest information files. Inside this
211 directory are QMTest administration files and the Python code that
212 implements the LLVM test and database classes.</p>
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219 <div class="doc_section"><a name="qmstructure">QMTest Structure</a></div>
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222 <div class="doc_text">
224 <p>The LLVM test suite is partially driven by QMTest and partially
225 driven by GNU Make. Specifically, the Features and Regression tests
226 are all driven by QMTest. The Programs directory is currently
227 driven by a set of Makefiles.</p>
229 <p>The QMTest system needs to have several pieces of information
230 available; these pieces of configuration information are known
231 collectively as the "context" in QMTest parlance. Since the context
232 for LLVM is relatively large, the master Makefile in llvm/test
235 <p>The LLVM database class makes the subdirectories of llvm/test a
236 QMTest test database. For each directory that contains tests driven by
237 QMTest, it knows what type of test the source file is and how to run it.</p>
239 <p>Hence, the QMTest namespace is essentially what you see in the
240 Feature and Regression directories, but there is some magic that
241 the database class performs (as described below).</p>
243 <p>The QMTest namespace is currently composed of the following tests and test
249 These are the feature tests found in the Feature directory.
250 They are broken up into the following categories:
254 <p>Assembler/Disassembler tests. These tests verify that a piece of LLVM
255 assembly language can be assembled into bytecode and then disassembled
256 into the original assembly language code. It does this several times to
257 ensure that assembled output can be disassembled and disassembler output
258 can be assembled. It also verifies that the give assembly language file
259 can be assembled correctly.</p></li>
262 <p>Optimizer tests. These tests verify that two of the optimizer passes
263 completely optimize a program (i.e. after a single pass, they cannot
264 optimize a program any further).</p></li>
267 <p> Machine code tests. These tests verify that the LLVM assembly
268 language file can be translated into native assembly code.</p></li>
271 <p>C code tests. These tests verify that the specified LLVM assembly
272 code can be converted into C source code using the C backend.</p></li>
275 <p>The LLVM database class looks at every file in the Feature directory and
276 creates a fake test hierarchy containing
277 <tt>Feature.<testtype>.<testname></tt>. So, if you add an LLVM
278 assembly language file to the Feature directory, it actually creates 5 new
279 tests: assembler/disassembler, assembler, optimizer, machine code, and C code.
283 <p>These are the regression tests. There is one suite for each
284 subdirectory of the Regression directory. If you add a new subdirectory
285 there, you will need to modify, at least, the <tt>RegressionMap</tt>
286 variable in <tt>QMTest/llvmdb.py</tt> so that QMTest knows how to run the
287 tests in the new subdirectory.</p>
293 <!--===============================================================-->
294 <div class="doc_section"><a name="progstructure">Programs Structure</a></div>
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297 <div class="doc_text">
299 <p>As mentioned previously, the Programs tree in llvm/test provides three types
300 of tests: MultiSource, SingleSource, and External. Each tree is then subdivided
301 into several categories, including applications, benchmarks, regression tests,
302 code that is strange grammatically, etc. These organizations should be
303 relatively self explanatory.</p>
305 <p>In addition to the regular Programs tests, the Programs tree also provides a
306 mechanism for compiling the programs in different ways. If the variable TEST is
307 defined on the gmake command line, the test system will include a Makefile named
308 <tt>TEST.<value of TEST variable>.Makefile</tt>. This Makefile can modify
309 build rules to yield different results.</p>
311 <p>For example, the LLVM nightly tester uses <tt>TEST.nightly.Makefile</tt> to
312 create the nightly test reports. To run the nightly tests, run <tt>gmake
313 TEST=nightly</tt>.</p>
315 <p>There are several TEST Makefiles available in the tree. Some of them are
316 designed for internal LLVM research and will not work outside of the LLVM
317 research group. They may still be valuable, however, as a guide to writing your
318 own TEST Makefile for any optimization or analysis passes that you develop with
323 <!--===============================================================-->
324 <div class="doc_section"><a name="run">Running the LLVM Tests</a></div>
325 <!--===============================================================-->
327 <div class="doc_text">
329 <p>First, all tests are executed within the LLVM object directory tree. They
330 <i>are not</i> executed inside of the LLVM source tree. This is because the
331 test suite creates temporary files during execution. </p>
333 <p>The master Makefile in llvm/test is capable of running both the QMTest driven
334 tests and the Programs tests. By default, it will run all of the tests.</p>
336 <p>To run only the QMTest driven tests, run <tt>gmake qmtest</tt> at the
337 command line in llvm/tests. To run a specific qmtest, suffix the test name with
338 ".t" when running gmake.</p>
340 <p>For example, to run the Regression.LLC tests, type <tt>gmake
341 Regression.LLC.t</tt> in llvm/tests.</p>
343 <p>Note that the Makefiles in llvm/test/Features and llvm/test/Regression are
344 gone. You must now use QMTest from the llvm/test directory to run them.</p>
346 <p>To run the Programs test, cd into the llvm/test/Programs directory and type
347 <tt>gmake</tt>. Alternatively, you can type <tt>gmake TEST=<type>
348 test</tt> to run one of the specialized tests in
349 llvm/test/Programs/TEST.<type>.Makefile. For example, you could run the
350 nightly tester tests using the following commands:</p>
353 % cd llvm/test/Programs
354 % gmake TEST=nightly test
357 <p>Regardless of which test you're running, the results are printed on standard
358 output and standard error. You can redirect these results to a file if you
361 <p>Some tests are known to fail. Some are bugs that we have not fixed yet;
362 others are features that we haven't added yet (or may never add). In QMTest,
363 the result for such tests will be XFAIL (eXpected FAILure). In this way, you
364 can tell the difference between an expected and unexpected failure.</p>
366 <p>The Programs tests have no such feature as of this time. If the test passes,
367 only warnings and other miscellaneous output will be generated. If a test
368 fails, a large <program> FAILED message will be displayed. This will help
369 you separate benign warnings from actual test failures.</p>
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