"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">
<title>LLVM Programmer's Manual</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<ul>
<li><a href="#isa">The <tt>isa<></tt>, <tt>cast<></tt>
and <tt>dyn_cast<></tt> templates</a> </li>
+ <li><a href="#string_apis">Passing strings (the <tt>StringRef</tt>
+and <tt>Twine</tt> classes)</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#StringRef">The <tt>StringRef</tt> class</a> </li>
+ <li><a href="#Twine">The <tt>Twine</tt> class</a> </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
<li><a href="#DEBUG">The <tt>DEBUG()</tt> macro and <tt>-debug</tt>
option</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#dss_stringmap">"llvm/ADT/StringMap.h"</a></li>
<li><a href="#dss_indexedmap">"llvm/ADT/IndexedMap.h"</a></li>
<li><a href="#dss_densemap">"llvm/ADT/DenseMap.h"</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#dss_valuemap">"llvm/ADT/ValueMap.h"</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#dss_intervalmap">"llvm/ADT/IntervalMap.h"</a></li>
<li><a href="#dss_map"><map></a></li>
<li><a href="#dss_othermap">Other Map-Like Container Options</a></li>
</ul></li>
+ <li><a href="#ds_string">String-like containers</a>
+ <!--<ul>
+ todo
+ </ul>--></li>
<li><a href="#ds_bit">BitVector-like containers</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#dss_bitvector">A dense bitvector</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#dss_smallbitvector">A "small" dense bitvector</a></li>
<li><a href="#dss_sparsebitvector">A sparse bitvector</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</li>
+ <li><a href="#threading">Threads and LLVM</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#startmultithreaded">Entering and Exiting Multithreaded Mode
+ </a></li>
+ <li><a href="#shutdown">Ending execution with <tt>llvm_shutdown()</tt></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#managedstatic">Lazy initialization with <tt>ManagedStatic</tt></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#llvmcontext">Achieving Isolation with <tt>LLVMContext</tt></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#jitthreading">Threads and the JIT</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
<li><a href="#advanced">Advanced Topics</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#TypeResolve">LLVM Type Resolution</a>
<p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>,
<a href="mailto:dhurjati@cs.uiuc.edu">Dinakar Dhurjati</a>,
<a href="mailto:ggreif@gmail.com">Gabor Greif</a>,
- <a href="mailto:jstanley@cs.uiuc.edu">Joel Stanley</a> and
- <a href="mailto:rspencer@x10sys.com">Reid Spencer</a></p>
+ <a href="mailto:jstanley@cs.uiuc.edu">Joel Stanley</a>,
+ <a href="mailto:rspencer@x10sys.com">Reid Spencer</a> and
+ <a href="mailto:owen@apple.com">Owen Anderson</a></p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<ol>
-<li><a href="http://www.dinkumware.com/refxcpp.html">Dinkumware C++ Library
-reference</a> - an excellent reference for the STL and other parts of the
-standard C++ library.</li>
+<li><a href="http://www.dinkumware.com/manuals/#Standard C++ Library">Dinkumware
+C++ Library reference</a> - an excellent reference for the STL and other parts
+of the standard C++ library.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.tempest-sw.com/cpp/">C++ In a Nutshell</a> - This is an
O'Reilly book in the making. It has a decent Standard Library
<div class="doc_text">
<ol>
-<li><a href="http://www.psc.edu/%7Esemke/cvs_branches.html">CVS
-Branch and Tag Primer</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fortran-2000.com/ArnaudRecipes/sharedlib.html">Using
static and shared libraries across platforms</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="string_apis">Passing strings (the <tt>StringRef</tt>
+and <tt>Twine</tt> classes)</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>Although LLVM generally does not do much string manipulation, we do have
+several important APIs which take strings. Two important examples are the
+Value class -- which has names for instructions, functions, etc. -- and the
+StringMap class which is used extensively in LLVM and Clang.</p>
+
+<p>These are generic classes, and they need to be able to accept strings which
+may have embedded null characters. Therefore, they cannot simply take
+a <tt>const char *</tt>, and taking a <tt>const std::string&</tt> requires
+clients to perform a heap allocation which is usually unnecessary. Instead,
+many LLVM APIs use a <tt>StringRef</tt> or a <tt>const Twine&</tt> for
+passing strings efficiently.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="StringRef">The <tt>StringRef</tt> class</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The <tt>StringRef</tt> data type represents a reference to a constant string
+(a character array and a length) and supports the common operations available
+on <tt>std:string</tt>, but does not require heap allocation.</p>
+
+<p>It can be implicitly constructed using a C style null-terminated string,
+an <tt>std::string</tt>, or explicitly with a character pointer and length.
+For example, the <tt>StringRef</tt> find function is declared as:</p>
+
+<pre class="doc_code">
+ iterator find(StringRef Key);
+</pre>
+
+<p>and clients can call it using any one of:</p>
+
+<pre class="doc_code">
+ Map.find("foo"); <i>// Lookup "foo"</i>
+ Map.find(std::string("bar")); <i>// Lookup "bar"</i>
+ Map.find(StringRef("\0baz", 4)); <i>// Lookup "\0baz"</i>
+</pre>
+
+<p>Similarly, APIs which need to return a string may return a <tt>StringRef</tt>
+instance, which can be used directly or converted to an <tt>std::string</tt>
+using the <tt>str</tt> member function. See
+"<tt><a href="/doxygen/classllvm_1_1StringRef_8h-source.html">llvm/ADT/StringRef.h</a></tt>"
+for more information.</p>
+
+<p>You should rarely use the <tt>StringRef</tt> class directly, because it contains
+pointers to external memory it is not generally safe to store an instance of the
+class (unless you know that the external storage will not be freed). StringRef is
+small and pervasive enough in LLVM that it should always be passed by value.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="Twine">The <tt>Twine</tt> class</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The <tt>Twine</tt> class is an efficient way for APIs to accept concatenated
+strings. For example, a common LLVM paradigm is to name one instruction based on
+the name of another instruction with a suffix, for example:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+ New = CmpInst::Create(<i>...</i>, SO->getName() + ".cmp");
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>The <tt>Twine</tt> class is effectively a
+lightweight <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_(computer_science)">rope</a>
+which points to temporary (stack allocated) objects. Twines can be implicitly
+constructed as the result of the plus operator applied to strings (i.e., a C
+strings, an <tt>std::string</tt>, or a <tt>StringRef</tt>). The twine delays the
+actual concatenation of strings until it is actually required, at which point
+it can be efficiently rendered directly into a character array. This avoids
+unnecessary heap allocation involved in constructing the temporary results of
+string concatenation. See
+"<tt><a href="/doxygen/classllvm_1_1Twine_8h-source.html">llvm/ADT/Twine.h</a></tt>"
+for more information.</p>
+
+<p>As with a <tt>StringRef</tt>, <tt>Twine</tt> objects point to external memory
+and should almost never be stored or mentioned directly. They are intended
+solely for use when defining a function which should be able to efficiently
+accept concatenated strings.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="DEBUG">The <tt>DEBUG()</tt> macro and <tt>-debug</tt> option</a>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-DOUT << "I am here!\n";
+DEBUG(errs() << "I am here!\n");
</pre>
</div>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-DOUT << "No debug type\n";
#undef DEBUG_TYPE
+DEBUG(errs() << "No debug type\n");
#define DEBUG_TYPE "foo"
-DOUT << "'foo' debug type\n";
+DEBUG(errs() << "'foo' debug type\n");
#undef DEBUG_TYPE
#define DEBUG_TYPE "bar"
-DOUT << "'bar' debug type\n";
+DEBUG(errs() << "'bar' debug type\n"));
#undef DEBUG_TYPE
#define DEBUG_TYPE ""
-DOUT << "No debug type (2)\n";
+DEBUG(errs() << "No debug type (2)\n");
</pre>
</div>
for instruction scheduling to be enabled with <tt>-debug-type=InstrSched</tt>,
even if the source lives in multiple files.</p>
+<p>The <tt>DEBUG_WITH_TYPE</tt> macro is also available for situations where you
+would like to set <tt>DEBUG_TYPE</tt>, but only for one specific <tt>DEBUG</tt>
+statement. It takes an additional first parameter, which is the type to use. For
+example, the preceding example could be written as:</p>
+
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+DEBUG_WITH_TYPE("", errs() << "No debug type\n");
+DEBUG_WITH_TYPE("foo", errs() << "'foo' debug type\n");
+DEBUG_WITH_TYPE("bar", errs() << "'bar' debug type\n"));
+DEBUG_WITH_TYPE("", errs() << "No debug type (2)\n");
+</pre>
+</div>
+
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
iteration, but do not support efficient look-up based on a key.
</li>
+<li>a <a href="#ds_string">string</a> container is a specialized sequential
+ container or reference structure that is used for character or byte
+ arrays.</li>
+
<li>a <a href="#ds_bit">bit</a> container provides an efficient way to store and
perform set operations on sets of numeric id's, while automatically
eliminating duplicates. Bit containers require a maximum of 1 bit for each
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p><tt>ilist</tt>s have another speciality that must be considered. To be a good
+<p><tt>ilist</tt>s have another specialty that must be considered. To be a good
citizen in the C++ ecosystem, it needs to support the standard container
operations, such as <tt>begin</tt> and <tt>end</tt> iterators, etc. Also, the
<tt>operator--</tt> must work correctly on the <tt>end</tt> iterator in the
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>SmallPtrSet has all the advantages of SmallSet (and a SmallSet of pointers is
-transparently implemented with a SmallPtrSet), but also supports iterators. If
+<p>SmallPtrSet has all the advantages of <tt>SmallSet</tt> (and a <tt>SmallSet</tt> of pointers is
+transparently implemented with a <tt>SmallPtrSet</tt>), but also supports iterators. If
more than 'N' insertions are performed, a single quadratically
probed hash table is allocated and grows as needed, providing extremely
efficient access (constant time insertion/deleting/queries with low constant
factors) and is very stingy with malloc traffic.</p>
-<p>Note that, unlike std::set, the iterators of SmallPtrSet are invalidated
+<p>Note that, unlike <tt>std::set</tt>, the iterators of <tt>SmallPtrSet</tt> are invalidated
whenever an insertion occurs. Also, the values visited by the iterators are not
visited in sorted order.</p>
<p>The StringMap is very fast for several reasons: quadratic probing is very
cache efficient for lookups, the hash value of strings in buckets is not
-recomputed when lookup up an element, StringMap rarely has to touch the
+recomputed when looking up an element, StringMap rarely has to touch the
memory for unrelated objects when looking up a value (even when hash collisions
happen), hash table growth does not recompute the hash values for strings
already in the table, and each pair in the map is store in a single allocation
</div>
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="dss_valuemap">"llvm/ADT/ValueMap.h"</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>
+ValueMap is a wrapper around a <a href="#dss_densemap">DenseMap</a> mapping
+Value*s (or subclasses) to another type. When a Value is deleted or RAUW'ed,
+ValueMap will update itself so the new version of the key is mapped to the same
+value, just as if the key were a WeakVH. You can configure exactly how this
+happens, and what else happens on these two events, by passing
+a <code>Config</code> parameter to the ValueMap template.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="dss_intervalmap">"llvm/ADT/IntervalMap.h"</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p> IntervalMap is a compact map for small keys and values. It maps key
+intervals instead of single keys, and it will automatically coalesce adjacent
+intervals. When then map only contains a few intervals, they are stored in the
+map object itself to avoid allocations.</p>
+
+<p> The IntervalMap iterators are quite big, so they should not be passed around
+as STL iterators. The heavyweight iterators allow a smaller data structure.</p>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
<a name="dss_map"><map></a>
</div>
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="ds_string">String-like containers</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>
+TODO: const char* vs stringref vs smallstring vs std::string. Describe twine,
+xref to #string_apis.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="ds_bit">Bit storage containers (BitVector, SparseBitVector)</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p> The BitVector container provides a fixed size set of bits for manipulation.
+<p> The BitVector container provides a dynamic size set of bits for manipulation.
It supports individual bit setting/testing, as well as set operations. The set
operations take time O(size of bitvector), but operations are performed one word
at a time, instead of one bit at a time. This makes the BitVector very fast for
</p>
</div>
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="dss_smallbitvector">SmallBitVector</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p> The SmallBitVector container provides the same interface as BitVector, but
+it is optimized for the case where only a small number of bits, less than
+25 or so, are needed. It also transparently supports larger bit counts, but
+slightly less efficiently than a plain BitVector, so SmallBitVector should
+only be used when larger counts are rare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this time, SmallBitVector does not support set operations (and, or, xor),
+and its operator[] does not provide an assignable lvalue.
+</p>
+</div>
+
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
<a name="dss_sparsebitvector">SparseBitVector</a>
for (Function::iterator i = func->begin(), e = func->end(); i != e; ++i)
// <i>Print out the name of the basic block if it has one, and then the</i>
// <i>number of instructions that it contains</i>
- llvm::cerr << "Basic block (name=" << i->getName() << ") has "
+ errs() << "Basic block (name=" << i->getName() << ") has "
<< i->size() << " instructions.\n";
</pre>
</div>
for (BasicBlock::iterator i = blk->begin(), e = blk->end(); i != e; ++i)
// <i>The next statement works since operator<<(ostream&,...)</i>
// <i>is overloaded for Instruction&</i>
- llvm::cerr << *i << "\n";
+ errs() << *i << "\n";
</pre>
</div>
<p>However, this isn't really the best way to print out the contents of a
<tt>BasicBlock</tt>! Since the ostream operators are overloaded for virtually
anything you'll care about, you could have just invoked the print routine on the
-basic block itself: <tt>llvm::cerr << *blk << "\n";</tt>.</p>
+basic block itself: <tt>errs() << *blk << "\n";</tt>.</p>
</div>
// <i>F is a pointer to a Function instance</i>
for (inst_iterator I = inst_begin(F), E = inst_end(F); I != E; ++I)
- llvm::cerr << *I << "\n";
+ errs() << *I << "\n";
</pre>
</div>
void printNextInstruction(Instruction* inst) {
BasicBlock::iterator it(inst);
++it; // <i>After this line, it refers to the instruction after *inst</i>
- if (it != inst->getParent()->end()) llvm::cerr << *it << "\n";
+ if (it != inst->getParent()->end()) errs() << *it << "\n";
}
</pre>
</div>
+<p>Unfortunately, these implicit conversions come at a cost; they prevent
+these iterators from conforming to standard iterator conventions, and thus
+from being usable with standard algorithms and containers. For example, they
+prevent the following code, where <tt>B</tt> is a <tt>BasicBlock</tt>,
+from compiling:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+ llvm::SmallVector<llvm::Instruction *, 16>(B->begin(), B->end());
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>Because of this, these implicit conversions may be removed some day,
+and <tt>operator*</tt> changed to return a pointer instead of a reference.</p>
+
</div>
<!--_______________________________________________________________________-->
for (Value::use_iterator i = F->use_begin(), e = F->use_end(); i != e; ++i)
if (Instruction *Inst = dyn_cast<Instruction>(*i)) {
- llvm::cerr << "F is used in instruction:\n";
- llvm::cerr << *Inst << "\n";
+ errs() << "F is used in instruction:\n";
+ errs() << *Inst << "\n";
}
</pre>
</div>
-<p>Alternately, it's common to have an instance of the <a
+<p>Note that dereferencing a <tt>Value::use_iterator</tt> is not a very cheap
+operation. Instead of performing <tt>*i</tt> above several times, consider
+doing it only once in the loop body and reusing its result.</p>
+
+<p>Alternatively, it's common to have an instance of the <a
href="/doxygen/classllvm_1_1User.html">User Class</a> and need to know what
<tt>Value</tt>s are used by it. The list of all <tt>Value</tt>s used by a
<tt>User</tt> is known as a <i>use-def</i> chain. Instances of class
</pre>
</div>
-<!--
- def-use chains ("finding all users of"): Value::use_begin/use_end
- use-def chains ("finding all values used"): User::op_begin/op_end [op=operand]
--->
+<p>Declaring objects as <tt>const</tt> is an important tool of enforcing
+mutation free algorithms (such as analyses, etc.). For this purpose above
+iterators come in constant flavors as <tt>Value::const_use_iterator</tt>
+and <tt>Value::const_op_iterator</tt>. They automatically arise when
+calling <tt>use/op_begin()</tt> on <tt>const Value*</tt>s or
+<tt>const User*</tt>s respectively. Upon dereferencing, they return
+<tt>const Use*</tt>s. Otherwise the above patterns remain unchanged.</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
-std::vector<const Type*> params;
+std::vector<const Type*> params;
params.push_back(PointerType::getUnqual(Type::Int32Ty));
FunctionType *ft = FunctionType::get(Type::Int8Ty, params, false);
</pre>
</div>
+<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+<div class="doc_section">
+ <a name="threading">Threads and LLVM</a>
+</div>
+<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+This section describes the interaction of the LLVM APIs with multithreading,
+both on the part of client applications, and in the JIT, in the hosted
+application.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note that LLVM's support for multithreading is still relatively young. Up
+through version 2.5, the execution of threaded hosted applications was
+supported, but not threaded client access to the APIs. While this use case is
+now supported, clients <em>must</em> adhere to the guidelines specified below to
+ensure proper operation in multithreaded mode.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note that, on Unix-like platforms, LLVM requires the presence of GCC's atomic
+intrinsics in order to support threaded operation. If you need a
+multhreading-capable LLVM on a platform without a suitably modern system
+compiler, consider compiling LLVM and LLVM-GCC in single-threaded mode, and
+using the resultant compiler to build a copy of LLVM with multithreading
+support.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="startmultithreaded">Entering and Exiting Multithreaded Mode</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>
+In order to properly protect its internal data structures while avoiding
+excessive locking overhead in the single-threaded case, the LLVM must intialize
+certain data structures necessary to provide guards around its internals. To do
+so, the client program must invoke <tt>llvm_start_multithreaded()</tt> before
+making any concurrent LLVM API calls. To subsequently tear down these
+structures, use the <tt>llvm_stop_multithreaded()</tt> call. You can also use
+the <tt>llvm_is_multithreaded()</tt> call to check the status of multithreaded
+mode.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note that both of these calls must be made <em>in isolation</em>. That is to
+say that no other LLVM API calls may be executing at any time during the
+execution of <tt>llvm_start_multithreaded()</tt> or <tt>llvm_stop_multithreaded
+</tt>. It's is the client's responsibility to enforce this isolation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The return value of <tt>llvm_start_multithreaded()</tt> indicates the success or
+failure of the initialization. Failure typically indicates that your copy of
+LLVM was built without multithreading support, typically because GCC atomic
+intrinsics were not found in your system compiler. In this case, the LLVM API
+will not be safe for concurrent calls. However, it <em>will</em> be safe for
+hosting threaded applications in the JIT, though <a href="#jitthreading">care
+must be taken</a> to ensure that side exits and the like do not accidentally
+result in concurrent LLVM API calls.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="shutdown">Ending Execution with <tt>llvm_shutdown()</tt></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+When you are done using the LLVM APIs, you should call <tt>llvm_shutdown()</tt>
+to deallocate memory used for internal structures. This will also invoke
+<tt>llvm_stop_multithreaded()</tt> if LLVM is operating in multithreaded mode.
+As such, <tt>llvm_shutdown()</tt> requires the same isolation guarantees as
+<tt>llvm_stop_multithreaded()</tt>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note that, if you use scope-based shutdown, you can use the
+<tt>llvm_shutdown_obj</tt> class, which calls <tt>llvm_shutdown()</tt> in its
+destructor.
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="managedstatic">Lazy Initialization with <tt>ManagedStatic</tt></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+<tt>ManagedStatic</tt> is a utility class in LLVM used to implement static
+initialization of static resources, such as the global type tables. Before the
+invocation of <tt>llvm_shutdown()</tt>, it implements a simple lazy
+initialization scheme. Once <tt>llvm_start_multithreaded()</tt> returns,
+however, it uses double-checked locking to implement thread-safe lazy
+initialization.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note that, because no other threads are allowed to issue LLVM API calls before
+<tt>llvm_start_multithreaded()</tt> returns, it is possible to have
+<tt>ManagedStatic</tt>s of <tt>llvm::sys::Mutex</tt>s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <tt>llvm_acquire_global_lock()</tt> and <tt>llvm_release_global_lock</tt>
+APIs provide access to the global lock used to implement the double-checked
+locking for lazy initialization. These should only be used internally to LLVM,
+and only if you know what you're doing!
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="llvmcontext">Achieving Isolation with <tt>LLVMContext</tt></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+<tt>LLVMContext</tt> is an opaque class in the LLVM API which clients can use
+to operate multiple, isolated instances of LLVM concurrently within the same
+address space. For instance, in a hypothetical compile-server, the compilation
+of an individual translation unit is conceptually independent from all the
+others, and it would be desirable to be able to compile incoming translation
+units concurrently on independent server threads. Fortunately,
+<tt>LLVMContext</tt> exists to enable just this kind of scenario!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Conceptually, <tt>LLVMContext</tt> provides isolation. Every LLVM entity
+(<tt>Module</tt>s, <tt>Value</tt>s, <tt>Type</tt>s, <tt>Constant</tt>s, etc.)
+in LLVM's in-memory IR belongs to an <tt>LLVMContext</tt>. Entities in
+different contexts <em>cannot</em> interact with each other: <tt>Module</tt>s in
+different contexts cannot be linked together, <tt>Function</tt>s cannot be added
+to <tt>Module</tt>s in different contexts, etc. What this means is that is is
+safe to compile on multiple threads simultaneously, as long as no two threads
+operate on entities within the same context.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In practice, very few places in the API require the explicit specification of a
+<tt>LLVMContext</tt>, other than the <tt>Type</tt> creation/lookup APIs.
+Because every <tt>Type</tt> carries a reference to its owning context, most
+other entities can determine what context they belong to by looking at their
+own <tt>Type</tt>. If you are adding new entities to LLVM IR, please try to
+maintain this interface design.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For clients that do <em>not</em> require the benefits of isolation, LLVM
+provides a convenience API <tt>getGlobalContext()</tt>. This returns a global,
+lazily initialized <tt>LLVMContext</tt> that may be used in situations where
+isolation is not a concern.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="jitthreading">Threads and the JIT</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+LLVM's "eager" JIT compiler is safe to use in threaded programs. Multiple
+threads can call <tt>ExecutionEngine::getPointerToFunction()</tt> or
+<tt>ExecutionEngine::runFunction()</tt> concurrently, and multiple threads can
+run code output by the JIT concurrently. The user must still ensure that only
+one thread accesses IR in a given <tt>LLVMContext</tt> while another thread
+might be modifying it. One way to do that is to always hold the JIT lock while
+accessing IR outside the JIT (the JIT <em>modifies</em> the IR by adding
+<tt>CallbackVH</tt>s). Another way is to only
+call <tt>getPointerToFunction()</tt> from the <tt>LLVMContext</tt>'s thread.
+</p>
+
+<p>When the JIT is configured to compile lazily (using
+<tt>ExecutionEngine::DisableLazyCompilation(false)</tt>), there is currently a
+<a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5184">race condition</a> in
+updating call sites after a function is lazily-jitted. It's still possible to
+use the lazy JIT in a threaded program if you ensure that only one thread at a
+time can call any particular lazy stub and that the JIT lock guards any IR
+access, but we suggest using only the eager JIT in threaded programs.
+</p>
+</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="advanced">Advanced Topics</a>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
- <li><tt>bool isInteger() const</tt>: Returns true for any integer type.</li>
+ <li><tt>bool isIntegerTy() const</tt>: Returns true for any integer type.</li>
- <li><tt>bool isFloatingPoint()</tt>: Return true if this is one of the two
+ <li><tt>bool isFloatingPointTy()</tt>: Return true if this is one of the five
floating point types.</li>
<li><tt>bool isAbstract()</tt>: Return true if the type is abstract (contains
<dt><tt>VectorType</tt></dt>
<dd>Subclass of SequentialType for vector types. A
vector type is similar to an ArrayType but is distinguished because it is
- a first class type wherease ArrayType is not. Vector types are used for
+ a first class type whereas ArrayType is not. Vector types are used for
vector operations and are usually small vectors of of an integer or floating
point type.</dd>
<dt><tt>StructType</tt></dt>
<dt><tt><a name="FunctionType">FunctionType</a></tt></dt>
<dd>Subclass of DerivedTypes for function types.
<ul>
- <li><tt>bool isVarArg() const</tt>: Returns true if its a vararg
+ <li><tt>bool isVarArg() const</tt>: Returns true if it's a vararg
function</li>
<li><tt> const Type * getReturnType() const</tt>: Returns the
return type of the function.</li>
<ul>
<li><tt>Value::use_iterator</tt> - Typedef for iterator over the
use-list<br>
- <tt>Value::use_const_iterator</tt> - Typedef for const_iterator over
+ <tt>Value::const_use_iterator</tt> - Typedef for const_iterator over
the use-list<br>
<tt>unsigned use_size()</tt> - Returns the number of users of the
value.<br>
<a href="#Value"><tt>Value</tt></a></p>
<p>The <tt>Function</tt> class represents a single procedure in LLVM. It is
-actually one of the more complex classes in the LLVM heirarchy because it must
+actually one of the more complex classes in the LLVM hierarchy because it must
keep track of a large amount of data. The <tt>Function</tt> class keeps track
of a list of <a href="#BasicBlock"><tt>BasicBlock</tt></a>s, a list of formal
<a href="#Argument"><tt>Argument</tt></a>s, and a
<p>The list of <a href="#BasicBlock"><tt>BasicBlock</tt></a>s is the most
commonly used part of <tt>Function</tt> objects. The list imposes an implicit
ordering of the blocks in the function, which indicate how the code will be
-la
yed out by the backend. Additionally, the first <a
+la
id out by the backend. Additionally, the first <a
href="#BasicBlock"><tt>BasicBlock</tt></a> is the implicit entry node for the
<tt>Function</tt>. It is not legal in LLVM to explicitly branch to this initial
block. There are no implicit exit nodes, and in fact there may be multiple exit
<a href="#User"><tt>User</tt></a>,
<a href="#Value"><tt>Value</tt></a></p>
-<p>Global variables are represented with the (suprise suprise)
+<p>Global variables are represented with the (surprise surprise)
<tt>GlobalVariable</tt> class. Like functions, <tt>GlobalVariable</tt>s are also
subclasses of <a href="#GlobalValue"><tt>GlobalValue</tt></a>, and as such are
always referenced by their address (global values must live in memory, so their
<li><tt><a href="#Constant">Constant</a> *getInitializer()</tt>
- <p>Returns the intial value for a <tt>GlobalVariable</tt>. It is not legal
+ <p>Returns the initial value for a <tt>GlobalVariable</tt>. It is not legal
to call this method if there is no initializer.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><tt>#include "<a
href="/doxygen/BasicBlock_8h-source.html">llvm/BasicBlock.h</a>"</tt><br>
-doxygen info: <a href="/doxygen/structllvm_1_1BasicBlock.html">BasicBlock
+doxygen info: <a href="/doxygen/classllvm_1_1BasicBlock.html">BasicBlock
Class</a><br>
Superclass: <a href="#Value"><tt>Value</tt></a></p>
projects / oota-llvm.git / blobdiff