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- <title>LLVM 2.8 Release Notes</title>
+ <title>LLVM 2.9 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
-<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.8 Release Notes</div>
+<h1 class="doc_title">LLVM 2.9 Release Notes</h1>
<img align=right src="http://llvm.org/img/DragonSmall.png"
width="136" height="136" alt="LLVM Dragon Logo">
<ol>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="#subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a></li>
- <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 2.8</a></li>
- <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.8?</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 2.9</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.9?</a></li>
<li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
<li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a></li>
<li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
</div>
<!--
-<h1 style="color:red">These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 2.8
+<h1 style="color:red">These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 2.9
release.<br>
You may prefer the
-<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/2.7/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 2.7
+<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/2.8/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 2.8
Release Notes</a>.</h1>
--->
+ -->
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h1>
<a name="intro">Introduction</a>
-</div>
+</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler
-Infrastructure, release 2.8. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
+Infrastructure, release 2.9. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
major improvements from the previous release and significant known problems.
All LLVM releases may be downloaded from the <a
href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM releases web site</a>.</p>
<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
</div>
-
-
-<!--
-Almost dead code.
- include/llvm/Analysis/LiveValues.h => Dan
- lib/Transforms/IPO/MergeFunctions.cpp => consider for 2.8.
- GEPSplitterPass
--->
-
-<!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 2.9:
+<!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 3.1:
+ ARM EHABI
combiner-aa?
strong phi elim
loop dependence analysis
- TBAA
CorrelatedValuePropagation
+ lib/Transforms/IPO/MergeFunctions.cpp => consider for 3.1.
-->
- <!-- Announcement, lldb, libc++ -->
-
-
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h1>
<a name="subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a>
-</div>
+</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-The LLVM 2.8 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
+The LLVM 2.9 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
repository (which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators
and supporting tools), the Clang repository and the llvm-gcc repository. In
addition to this code, the LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="clang">Clang: C/C++/Objective-C Frontend Toolkit</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
modular, library-based architecture that makes it suitable for creating or
integrating with other development tools. Clang is considered a
production-quality compiler for C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ on x86
-(32- and 64-bit), and for darwin-arm targets.</p>
-
-<p>In the LLVM 2.8 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements:</p>
+(32- and 64-bit), and for darwin/arm targets.</p>
+
+<p>In the LLVM 2.9 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements in C,
+C++ and Objective-C support. C++ support is now generally rock solid, has
+been exercised on a broad variety of code, and has several new <a
+href="http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html#cxx0x">C++'0x features</a>
+implemented (such as rvalue references and variadic templates). LLVM 2.9 has
+also brought in a large range of bug fixes and minor features (e.g. __label__
+support), and is much more compatible with the Linux Kernel.</p>
+
+<p>If Clang rejects your code but another compiler accepts it, please take a
+look at the <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/compatibility.html">language
+compatibility</a> guide to make sure this is not intentional or a known issue.
+</p>
<ul>
-<li>Surely these guys have done something</li>
-<li>X86-64 abi improvements? Did they make it in?</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="clangsa">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
-</div>
+<h2>
+<a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: GCC front-ends, LLVM back-end</a>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>The <a href="http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
- project is an effort to use static source code analysis techniques to
- automatically find bugs in C and Objective-C programs (and hopefully <a
- href="http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/dev_cxx.html">C++ in the
- future</a>!). The tool is very good at finding bugs that occur on specific
- paths through code, such as on error conditions.</p>
-
-<p>The LLVM 2.8 release fixes a number of bugs and slightly improves precision
- over 2.7, but there are no major new features in the release.
+<p>
+<a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is a
+<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/plugins">gcc plugin</a> that replaces GCC's
+optimizers and code generators with LLVM's.
+Currently it requires a patched version of gcc-4.5.
+The plugin can target the x86-32 and x86-64 processor families and has been
+used successfully on the Darwin, FreeBSD and Linux platforms.
+The Ada, C, C++ and Fortran languages work well.
+The plugin is capable of compiling plenty of Obj-C, Obj-C++ and Java but it is
+not known whether the compiled code actually works or not!
</p>
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="vmkit">VMKit: JVM/CLI Virtual Machine Implementation</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">VMKit project</a> is an implementation of
-a Java Virtual Machine (Java VM or JVM) that uses LLVM for static and
-just-in-time compilation. As of LLVM 2.8, VMKit now supports copying garbage
-collectors, and can be configured to use MMTk's copy mark-sweep garbage
-collector. In LLVM 2.8, the VMKit .NET VM is no longer being maintained.
-</p>
-</div>
+The 2.9 release has the following notable changes:
+<ul>
+<li>The plugin is much more stable when compiling Fortran.</li>
+<li>Inline assembly where an asm output is tied to an input of a different size
+is now supported in many more cases.</li>
+<li>Basic support for the __float128 type was added. It is now possible to
+generate LLVM IR from programs using __float128 but code generation does not
+work yet.</li>
+<li>Compiling Java programs no longer systematically crashes the plugin.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="compiler-rt">compiler-rt: Compiler Runtime Library</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
this and other low-level routines (some are 3x faster than the equivalent
libgcc routines).</p>
-<p>
-All of the code in the compiler-rt project is available under the standard LLVM
-License, a "BSD-style" license. New in LLVM 2.8, compiler_rt now supports
-soft floating point (for targets that don't have a real floating point unit),
-and includes an extensive testsuite for the "blocks" language feature and the
-blocks runtime included in compiler_rt.</p>
+<p>In the LLVM 2.9 timeframe, compiler_rt has had several minor changes for
+ better ARM support, and a fairly major license change. All of the code in the
+ compiler-rt project is now <a href="DeveloperPolicy.html#license">dual
+ licensed</a> under MIT and UIUC license, which allows you to use compiler-rt
+ in applications without the binary copyright reproduction clause. If you
+ prefer the LLVM/UIUC license, you are free to continue using it under that
+ license as well.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: llvm-gcc ported to gcc-4.5</a>
-</div>
+<h2>
+<a name="lldb">LLDB: Low Level Debugger</a>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-<a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is a port of llvm-gcc to
-gcc-4.5. Unlike llvm-gcc, dragonegg in theory does not require any gcc-4.5
-modifications whatsoever (currently one small patch is needed) thanks to the
-new <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/plugins">gcc plugin architecture</a>.
-DragonEgg is a gcc plugin that makes gcc-4.5 use the LLVM optimizers and code
-generators instead of gcc's, just like with llvm-gcc.
-</p>
+<a href="http://lldb.llvm.org/">LLDB</a> is a brand new member of the LLVM
+umbrella of projects. LLDB is a next generation, high-performance debugger. It
+is built as a set of reusable components which highly leverage existing
+libraries in the larger LLVM Project, such as the Clang expression parser, the
+LLVM disassembler and the LLVM JIT.</p>
<p>
-DragonEgg is still a work in progress, but it is able to compile a lot of code,
-for example all of gcc, LLVM and clang. Currently Ada, C, C++ and Fortran work
-well, while all other languages either don't work at all or only work poorly.
-For the moment only the x86-32 and x86-64 targets are supported, and only on
-linux and darwin (darwin may need additional gcc patches).
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The 2.8 release has the following notable changes:
-<ul>
-<li>The plugin loads faster due to exporting fewer symbols.</li>
-<li>Additional vector operations such as addps256 are now supported.</li>
-<li>Ada global variables with no initial value are no longer zero initialized,
-resulting in better optimization.</li>
-<li>The '-fplugin-arg-dragonegg-enable-gcc-optzns' flag now runs all gcc
-optimizers, rather than just a handful.</li>
-<li>Fortran programs using common variables now link correctly.</li>
-<li>GNU OMP constructs no longer crash the compiler.</li>
-</ul>
-</p>
+LLDB is has advanced by leaps and bounds in the 2.9 timeframe. It is
+dramatically more stable and useful, and includes both a new <a
+href="http://lldb.llvm.org/tutorial.html">tutorial</a> and a <a
+href="http://lldb.llvm.org/lldb-gdb.html">side-by-side comparison with
+GDB</a>.</p>
</div>
-
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="lldb">LLDB: Low Level Debugger</a>
-</div>
+<h2>
+<a name="libc++">libc++: C++ Standard Library</a>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-<a href="http://lldb.llvm.org/">LLDB</a> is</p>
+<a href="http://libcxx.llvm.org/">libc++</a> is another new member of the LLVM
+family. It is an implementation of the C++ standard library, written from the
+ground up to specifically target the forthcoming C++'0X standard and focus on
+delivering great performance.</p>
<p>
-</p>
-
+In the LLVM 2.9 timeframe, libc++ has had numerous bugs fixed, and is now being
+co-developed with Clang's C++'0x mode.</p>
+
<p>
-2.8 status here.
+Like compiler_rt, libc++ is now <a href="DeveloperPolicy.html#license">dual
+ licensed</a> under the MIT and UIUC license, allowing it to be used more
+ permissively.
</p>
</div>
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="libc++">libc++: C++ Standard Library</a>
-</div>
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://libc++.llvm.org/">libc++</a> is</p>
-<p>
-</p>
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<!--
+<h2>
+<a name="klee">KLEE: A Symbolic Execution Virtual Machine</a>
+</h2>
+<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-2.8 status here.
+<a href="http://klee.llvm.org/">KLEE</a> is a symbolic execution framework for
+programs in LLVM bitcode form. KLEE tries to symbolically evaluate "all" paths
+through the application and records state transitions that lead to fault
+states. This allows it to construct testcases that lead to faults and can even
+be used to verify some algorithms.
</p>
-</div>
+<p>UPDATE!</p>
+</div>-->
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 2.8</a>
-</div>
+<h1>
+ <a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 2.9</a>
+</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>An exciting aspect of LLVM is that it is used as an enabling technology for
a lot of other language and tools projects. This section lists some of the
- projects that have already been updated to work with LLVM 2.8.</p>
+ projects that have already been updated to work with LLVM 2.9.</p>
</div>
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="tce">TTA-based Codesign Environment (TCE)</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://tce.cs.tut.fi/">TCE</a> is a toolset for designing
-application-specific processors (ASP) based on the Transport triggered
-architecture (TTA). The toolset provides a complete co-design flow from C/C++
-programs down to synthesizable VHDL and parallel program binaries. Processor
-customization points include the register files, function units, supported
-operations, and the interconnection network.</p>
-
-<p>TCE uses llvm-gcc/Clang and LLVM for C/C++ language support, target
-independent optimizations and also for parts of code generation. It generates
-new LLVM-based code generators "on the fly" for the designed TTA processors and
-loads them in to the compiler backend as runtime libraries to avoid per-target
-recompilation of larger parts of the compiler chain.</p>
-
-</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="Horizon">Horizon Bytecode Compiler</a>
-</div>
+<h2>Crack Programming Language</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-<a href="http://www.quokforge.org/projects/horizon">Horizon</a> is a bytecode
-language and compiler written on top of LLVM, intended for producing
-single-address-space managed code operating systems that
-run faster than the equivalent multiple-address-space C systems.
-More in-depth blurb is available on <a
-href="http://www.quokforge.org/projects/horizon/wiki/Wiki">the wiki</a>.</p>
-
+<a href="http://code.google.com/p/crack-language/">Crack</a> aims to provide the
+ease of development of a scripting language with the performance of a compiled
+language. The language derives concepts from C++, Java and Python, incorporating
+object-oriented programming, operator overloading and strong typing.</p>
</div>
-
+
+
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="clamav">Clam AntiVirus</a>
-</div>
-
+<h2>TTA-based Codesign Environment (TCE)</h2>
+
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href=http://www.clamav.net>Clam AntiVirus</a> is an open source (GPL)
-anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail
-gateways. Since version 0.96 it has <a
-href="http://vrt-sourcefire.blogspot.com/2010/09/introduction-to-clamavs-low-level.html">bytecode
-signatures</a> that allow writing detections for complex malware. It
-uses LLVM's JIT to speed up the execution of bytecode on
-X86,X86-64,PPC32/64, falling back to its own interpreter otherwise.
-The git version was updated to work with LLVM 2.8
-</p>
-
-<p>The <a
-href="http://git.clamav.net/gitweb?p=clamav-bytecode-compiler.git;a=blob_plain;f=docs/user/clambc-user.pdf">
-ClamAV bytecode compiler</a> uses Clang and LLVM to compile a C-like
-language, insert runtime checks, and generate ClamAV bytecode.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="pure">Pure</a>
+<p>TCE is a toolset for designing application-specific processors (ASP) based on
+the Transport triggered architecture (TTA). The toolset provides a complete
+co-design flow from C/C++ programs down to synthesizable VHDL and parallel
+program binaries. Processor customization points include the register files,
+function units, supported operations, and the interconnection network.</p>
+
+<p>TCE uses Clang and LLVM for C/C++ language support, target independent
+optimizations and also for parts of code generation. It generates new LLVM-based
+code generators "on the fly" for the designed TTA processors and loads them in
+to the compiler backend as runtime libraries to avoid per-target recompilation
+of larger parts of the compiler chain.</p>
</div>
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://pure-lang.googlecode.com/">Pure</a>
-is an algebraic/functional
-programming language based on term rewriting. Programs are collections
-of equations which are used to evaluate expressions in a symbolic
-fashion. Pure offers dynamic typing, eager and lazy evaluation, lexical
-closures, a hygienic macro system (also based on term rewriting),
-built-in list and matrix support (including list and matrix
-comprehensions) and an easy-to-use C interface. The interpreter uses
-LLVM as a backend to JIT-compile Pure programs to fast native code.</p>
-
-<p>Pure versions 0.44 and later have been tested and are known to work with
-LLVM 2.8 (and continue to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.5).</p>
-
-</div>
+
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="GHC">Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC)</a>
-</div>
-
+<h2>PinaVM</h2>
+
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://www.haskell.org/ghc/">GHC</a> is an open source,
-state-of-the-art programming suite for
-Haskell, a standard lazy functional programming language. It includes
-an optimizing static compiler generating good code for a variety of
-platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick
-development.</p>
-
-<p>In addition to the existing C and native code generators, GHC 7.0 now
-supports an <a
-href="http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Commentary/Compiler/Backends/LLVM">LLVM
-code generator</a>. GHC supports LLVM 2.7 and later.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="Clay">Clay Programming Language</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://tachyon.in/clay/">Clay</a> is a new systems programming
-language that is specifically designed for generic programming. It makes
-generic programming very concise thanks to whole program type propagation. It
-uses LLVM as its backend.</p>
-
+<p><a href="http://gitorious.org/pinavm/pages/Home">PinaVM</a> is an open
+source, <a href="http://www.systemc.org/">SystemC</a> front-end. Unlike many
+other front-ends, PinaVM actually executes the elaboration of the
+program analyzed using LLVM's JIT infrastructure. It later enriches the
+bitcode with SystemC-specific information.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="llvm-py">llvm-py Python Bindings for LLVM</a>
-</div>
-
+<h2>Pure</h2>
+
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://www.mdevan.org/llvm-py/">llvm-py</a> has been updated to work
-with LLVM 2.8. llvm-py provides Python bindings for LLVM, allowing you to write a
-compiler backend or a VM in Python.</p>
-
+<p><a href="http://pure-lang.googlecode.com/">Pure</a> is an
+ algebraic/functional
+ programming language based on term rewriting. Programs are collections
+ of equations which are used to evaluate expressions in a symbolic
+ fashion. The interpreter uses LLVM as a backend to JIT-compile Pure
+ programs to fast native code. Pure offers dynamic typing, eager and lazy
+ evaluation, lexical closures, a hygienic macro system (also based on
+ term rewriting), built-in list and matrix support (including list and
+ matrix comprehensions) and an easy-to-use interface to C and other
+ programming languages (including the ability to load LLVM bitcode
+ modules, and inline C, C++, Fortran and Faust code in Pure programs if
+ the corresponding LLVM-enabled compilers are installed).</p>
+
+<p>Pure version 0.47 has been tested and is known to work with LLVM 2.9
+ (and continues to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.5).</p>
</div>
-
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="FAUST">FAUST Real-Time Audio Signal Processing Language</a>
-</div>
+<h2 id="icedtea">IcedTea Java Virtual Machine Implementation</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-<a href="http://faust.grame.fr">FAUST</a> is a compiled language for real-time
-audio signal processing. The name FAUST stands for Functional AUdio STream. Its
-programming model combines two approaches: functional programming and block
-diagram composition. In addition with the C, C++, JAVA output formats, the
-Faust compiler can now generate LLVM bitcode, and works with LLVM 2.7 and
-2.8.</p>
+<a href="http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page">IcedTea</a> provides a
+harness to build OpenJDK using only free software build tools and to provide
+replacements for the not-yet free parts of OpenJDK. One of the extensions that
+IcedTea provides is a new JIT compiler named <a
+href="http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/ZeroSharkFaq">Shark</a> which uses LLVM
+to provide native code generation without introducing processor-dependent
+code.
+</p>
+<p> OpenJDK 7 b112, IcedTea6 1.9 and IcedTea7 1.13 and later have been tested
+and are known to work with LLVM 2.9 (and continue to work with older LLVM
+releases >= 2.6 as well).</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="jade">Jade Just-in-time Adaptive Decoder Engine</a>
-</div>
-
+<h2>Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC)</h2>
+
<div class="doc_text">
-<p><a
-href="http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/orcc/wiki/JadeDocumentation">Jade</a>
-(Just-in-time Adaptive Decoder Engine) is a generic video decoder engine using
-LLVM for just-in-time compilation of video decoder configurations. Those
-configurations are designed by MPEG Reconfigurable Video Coding (RVC) committee.
-MPEG RVC standard is built on a stream-based dataflow representation of
-decoders. It is composed of a standard library of coding tools written in
-RVC-CAL language and a dataflow configuration &emdash; block diagram &emdash;
-of a decoder.</p>
-
-<p>Jade project is hosted as part of the <a href="http://orcc.sf.net">Open
-RVC-CAL Compiler</a> and requires it to translate the RVC-CAL standard library
-of video coding tools into an LLVM assembly code.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="neko_llvm_jit">LLVM JIT for Neko VM</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p><a href="http://github.com/vava/neko_llvm_jit">Neko LLVM JIT</a>
-replaces the standard Neko JIT with an LLVM-based implementation. While not
-fully complete, it is already providing a 1.5x speedup on 64-bit systems.
-Neko LLVM JIT requires LLVM 2.8 or later.</p>
+<p>GHC is an open source, state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell,
+a standard lazy functional programming language. It includes an
+optimizing static compiler generating good code for a variety of
+platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick
+development.</p>
+<p>In addition to the existing C and native code generators, GHC 7.0 now
+supports an LLVM code generator. GHC supports LLVM 2.7 and later.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="crack">Crack Scripting Language</a>
-</div>
-
+<h2>Polly - Polyhedral optimizations for LLVM</h2>
+
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://code.google.com/p/crack-language/">Crack</a> aims to provide
-the ease of development of a scripting language with the performance of a
-compiled language. The language derives concepts from C++, Java and Python,
-incorporating object-oriented programming, operator overloading and strong
-typing. Crack 0.2 works with LLVM 2.7, and the forthcoming Crack 0.2.1 release
-builds on LLVM 2.8.</p>
-
+<p>Polly is a project that aims to provide advanced memory access optimizations
+to better take advantage of SIMD units, cache hierarchies, multiple cores or
+even vector accelerators for LLVM. Built around an abstract mathematical
+description based on Z-polyhedra, it provides the infrastructure to develop
+advanced optimizations in LLVM and to connect complex external optimizers. In
+its first year of existence Polly already provides an exact value-based
+dependency analysis as well as basic SIMD and OpenMP code generation support.
+Furthermore, Polly can use PoCC(Pluto) an advanced optimizer for data-locality
+and parallelism.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="DresdenTM">Dresden TM Compiler (DTMC)</a>
-</div>
+<h2>Rubinius</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://tm.inf.tu-dresden.de">DTMC</a> provides support for
-Transactional Memory, which is an easy-to-use and efficient way to synchronize
-accesses to shared memory. Transactions can contain normal C/C++ code (e.g.,
-__transaction { list.remove(x); x.refCount--; }) and will be executed
-virtually atomically and isolated from other transactions.</p>
-
+ <p><a href="http://github.com/evanphx/rubinius">Rubinius</a> is an environment
+ for running Ruby code which strives to write as much of the implementation in
+ Ruby as possible. Combined with a bytecode interpreting VM, it uses LLVM to
+ optimize and compile ruby code down to machine code. Techniques such as type
+ feedback, method inlining, and deoptimization are all used to remove dynamism
+ from ruby execution and increase performance.</p>
</div>
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="Kai">Kai Interpreter</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-<a href="http://www.oriontransfer.co.nz/research/kai">Kai</a> (Japanese 会 for
-meeting/gathering) is an experimental interpreter that provides a highly
-extensible runtime environment and explicit control over the compilation
-process. Programs are defined using nested symbolic expressions, which are all
-parsed into first-class values with minimal intrinsic semantics. Kai can
-generate optimised code at run-time (using LLVM) in order to exploit the nature
-of the underlying hardware and to integrate with external software libraries.
-It is a unique exploration into world of dynamic code compilation, and the
-interaction between high level and low level semantics.</p>
-
-</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.8?</a>
-</div>
+<h1>
+ <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.9?</a>
+</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="orgchanges">LLVM Community Changes</a>
-</div>
+<h2>
+<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>In addition to changes to the code, between LLVM 2.7 and 2.8, a number of
-organization changes have happened:
-</p>
+<p>LLVM 2.9 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
<ul>
-<li>libc++ and lldb are new</li>
-<li>Debugging optimized code support.</li>
-</ul>
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
-</div>
+
+<li>Type Based Alias Analysis (TBAA) is now implemented and turned on by default
+ in Clang. This allows substantially better load/store optimization in some
+ cases. TBAA can be disabled by passing -fno-strict-aliasing.
+</li>
-<div class="doc_text">
+<li>This release has seen a continued focus on quality of debug information.
+ LLVM now generates much higher fidelity debug information, particularly when
+ debugging optimized code.</li>
-<p>LLVM 2.8 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
+<li>Inline assembly now supports multiple alternative constraints.</li>
-<ul>
-<li>llvm-diff</li>
-<li>Direct .o file writing support for darwin/x86[64].</li>
+<li>A new backend for the NVIDIA PTX virtual ISA (used to target its GPUs) is
+ under rapid development. It is not generally useful in 2.9, but is making
+ rapid progress.</li>
+
</ul>
-
+
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM IR and Core Improvements</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM IR has several new features for better support of new targets and that
expose new optimization opportunities:</p>
<ul>
-
- memcpy, memmove, and memset now take address space qualified pointers + volatile.
- per-instruction debug info metadata is much faster and uses less space (new DebugLoc class).
- New "trap values" concept: http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#trapvalues
- New linker_private_weak and linker_private_weak_def_auto linkage types
- Triples are now stored in normalized form. Triple::normalize.
-
+<li>The <a href="LangRef.html#bitwiseops">udiv, ashr, lshr, and shl</a>
+ instructions now have support exact and nuw/nsw bits to indicate that they
+ don't overflow or shift out bits. This is useful for optimization of <a
+ href="http://llvm.org/PR8862">pointer differences</a> and other cases.</li>
+
+<li>LLVM IR now supports the <a href="LangRef.html#globalvars">unnamed_addr</a>
+ attribute to indicate that constant global variables with identical
+ initializers can be merged. This fixed <a href="http://llvm.org/PR8927">an
+ issue</a> where LLVM would incorrectly merge two globals which were supposed
+ to have distinct addresses.</li>
+
+<li>The new <a href="LangRef.html#fnattrs">hotpatch attribute</a> has been added
+ to allow runtime patching of functions.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
release includes a few major enhancements and additions to the optimizers:</p>
<ul>
+<li>Link Time Optimization (LTO) has been improved to use MC for parsing inline
+ assembly and now can build large programs like Firefox 4 on both Mac OS X and
+ Linux.</li>
+
+<li>The new -loop-idiom pass recognizes memset/memcpy loops (and memset_pattern
+ on darwin), turning them into library calls, which are typically better
+ optimized than inline code. If you are building a libc and notice that your
+ memcpy and memset functions are compiled into infinite recursion, please build
+ with -ffreestanding or -fno-builtin to disable this pass.</li>
+
+<li>A new -early-cse pass does a fast pass over functions to fold constants,
+ simplify expressions, perform simple dead store elimination, and perform
+ common subexpression elimination. It does a good job at catching some of the
+ trivial redundancies that exist in unoptimized code, making later passes more
+ effective.<,/li>
+
+<li>A new -loop-instsimplify pass is used to clean up loop bodies in the loop
+ optimizer.</li>
+
+<li>The new TargetLibraryInfo interface allows mid-level optimizations to know
+ whether the current target's runtime library has certain functions. For
+ example, the optimizer can now transform integer-only printf calls to call
+ iprintf, allowing reduced code size for embedded C libraries (e.g. newlib).
+</li>
+
+<li>LLVM has a new <a href="WritingAnLLVMPass.html#RegionPass">RegionPass</a>
+ infrastructure for region-based optimizations.</li>
+
+<li>Several optimizer passes have been substantially sped up:
+ GVN is much faster on functions with deep dominator trees and lots of basic
+ blocks. The dominator tree and dominance frontier passes are much faster to
+ compute, and preserved by more passes (so they are computed less often). The
+ -scalar-repl pass is also much faster and doesn't use DominanceFrontier.
+</li>
-<li></li>
- Preliminary work on TBAA but not usable in 2.8.
- New CorrelatedValuePropagation pass, not on by default in 2.8 yet.
- JumpThreading much more aggressive about implied value relations.
- New RegionInfo pass "opt -regions analyze" or "opt -view-regions".
- Improved trip count analysis for <= and >= loops, and uses sign overflow info.
- llvm.dbg.value: variable debug info for optimized code
- Now iterate function passes when a cgsccpassmanager detects a devirtualization
- Atomic lowering patch: -loweratomic (see Passes.html#loweratomic)
-
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="executionengine">Interpreter and JIT Improvements</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-<li></li>
-
+<li>The Dead Store Elimination pass is more aggressive optimizing stores of
+ different types: e.g. a large store following a small one to the same address.
+ The MemCpyOptimizer pass handles several new forms of memcpy elimination.</li>
+
+<li>LLVM now optimizes various idioms for overflow detection into check of the
+ flag register on various CPUs. For example, we now compile:
+
+ <pre>
+ unsigned long t = a+b;
+ if (t < a) ...
+ </pre>
+ into:
+ <pre>
+ addq %rdi, %rbx
+ jno LBB0_2
+ </pre>
+</li>
+
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="mc">MC Level Improvements</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
and a number of other related areas that CPU instruction-set level tools work
in.</p>
-<p>The MC subproject has made great leaps in LLVM 2.8. For example, support for
- directly writing .o files from LLC (and clang) now works reliably for
- darwin/x86[-64] (including inline assembly support) and the integrated
- assembler is turned on by default in Clang for these targets. This provides
- improved compile times among other things.</p>
-
<ul>
-<li>The entire compiler has converted over to using the MCStreamer assembler API
- instead of writing out a .s file textually.</li>
-<li>The "assembler parser" is far more mature than in 2.7, supporting a full
- complement of directives, now supports assembler macros, etc.</li>
-<li>The "assembler backend" has been completed, including support for relaxation
- relocation processing and all the other things that an assembler does.</li>
-<li>The MachO file format support is now fully functional and works.</li>
-<li>The MC disassembler now fully supports ARM and Thumb. ARM assembler support
- is still in early development though.</li>
-<li>The X86 MC assembler now supports the X86 AES and AVX instruction set.</li>
-<li>Work on ELF and COFF support is well underway, but isn't useful yet in LLVM
- 2.8. Please contact the llvmdev mailing list if you're interested in
- this.</li>
+<li>ELF MC support has matured enough for the integrated assembler to be turned
+ on by default in Clang on X86-32 and X86-64 ELF systems.</li>
+
+<li>MC supports and CodeGen uses the <tt>.file</tt> and <tt>.loc</tt> directives
+ for producing line number debug info. This produces more compact line
+ tables and easier to read .s files.</li>
+
+<li>MC supports the <tt>.cfi_*</tt> directives for producing DWARF
+ frame information, but it is still not used by CodeGen by default.</li>
+
+
+<li>The MC assembler now generates much better diagnostics for common errors,
+ is much faster at matching instructions, is much more bug-compatible with
+ the GAS assembler, and is now generally useful for a broad range of X86
+ assembly.</li>
+
+<li>We now have some basic <a href="CodeGenerator.html#mc">internals
+ documentation</a> for MC.</li>
+
+<li>.td files can now specify assembler aliases directly with the <a
+ href="CodeGenerator.html#na_instparsing">MnemonicAlias and InstAlias</a>
+ tblgen classes.</li>
+
+<li>LLVM now has an experimental format-independent object file manipulation
+ library (lib/Object). It supports both PE/COFF and ELF. The llvm-nm tool has
+ been extended to work with native object files, and the new llvm-objdump tool
+ supports disassembly of object files (but no relocations are displayed yet).
+</li>
+
+<li>Win32 PE-COFF support in the MC assembler has made a lot of progress in the
+ 2.9 timeframe, but is still not generally useful.</li>
+
</ul>
<p>For more information, please see the <a
LLVM MC Project Blog Post</a>.
</p>
-</div>
-
-
+</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="codegen">Target Independent Code Generator Improvements</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
it run faster:</p>
<ul>
-<li></li>
-
- MachineCSE tuned and on by default.
-
- Rewrote tblgen's type inference for backends to be more consistent and
- diagnose more target bugs. This also allows limited support for writing
- patterns for instructions that return multiple results, e.g. a virtual
- register and a flag result. Stuff that used 'parallel' before should use
- this.
-
- New -regalloc=fast, =local got removed
- New -regalloc=default option that chooses a register allocator based on the -O optimization level.
- New SubRegIndex tblgen class for targets -> jakob
-
- Bottom up fast isel. Simple Load reuse. No more machinedce.
- IR ABI: <3 x float> is passed as <4 x float> instead of 3 floats.
-
- New COPY instruction. copyRegToReg -> copyPhysReg, isMoveInstr is gone.
- RenderMachineFunction: -rendermf
- SplitKit?
- Evan: Teach bottom up pre-ra scheduler to track register pressure. Work in progress.
- Evan: Add an ILP scheduler. On x86_64, this is a win for all tests in CFP2000. It also sped up 256.bzip2 by 16%.
-
- New OptimizeExts+OptimizeCmps -> PeepholeOptimizer pass
- New LocalStackSlotAllocation.cpp pass (jimg)
- Atomics now get legalized when not natively supported (jim g)
+<li>The pre-register-allocation (preRA) instruction scheduler models register
+ pressure much more accurately in some cases. This allows the adoption of more
+ aggressive scheduling heuristics without causing spills to be generated.
+</li>
+
+<li>LiveDebugVariables is a new pass that keeps track of debugging information
+ for user variables that are promoted to registers in optimized builds.</li>
- -ffunction-sections and -fdata-sections are supported on ELF targets.
- -momit-leaf-frame-pointer now supported.
+<li>The scheduler now models operand latency and pipeline forwarding.</li>
+<li>A major register allocator infrastructure rewrite is underway. It is not on
+ by default for 2.9 and you are not advised to use it, but it has made
+ substantial progress in the 2.9 timeframe:
+ <ul>
+ <li>A new -regalloc=basic "basic" register allocator can be used as a simple
+ fallback when debugging. It uses the new infrastructure.</li>
+ <li>New infrastructure is in place for live range splitting. "SplitKit" can
+ break a live interval into smaller pieces while preserving SSA form, and
+ SpillPlacement can help find the best split points. This is a work in
+ progress so the API is changing quickly.</li>
+ <li>The inline spiller has learned to clean up after live range splitting. It
+ can hoist spills out of loops, and it can eliminate redundant spills.</li>
+ <li>Rematerialization works with live range splitting.</li>
+ <li>The new "greedy" register allocator using live range splitting. This will
+ be the default register allocator in the next LLVM release, but it is not
+ turned on by default in 2.9.</li>
+ </ul>
+</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="x86">X86-32 and X86-64 Target Improvements</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>New features of the X86 target include:
+<p>New features and major changes in the X86 target include:
</p>
<ul>
-<li>The X86 backend now supports holding X87 floating point stack values
- in registers across basic blocks, dramatically improving performance of code
- that uses long double, and when targetting CPUs that don't support SSE.</li>
-
- New SSEDomainFix pass:
- On Nehalem and newer CPUs there is a 2 cycle latency penalty on using a
- register in a different domain than where it was defined. Some instructions
- have equvivalents for different domains, like por/orps/orpd. The
- SSEDomainFix pass tries to minimize the number of domain crossings by
- changing between equvivalent opcodes where possible.
-
- X86 backend attempts to promote 16-bit integer operations to 32-bits to avoid
- 0x66 prefixes, which are slow on some microarchitectures and bloat the code
- on others.
-
- New support for X86 "thiscall" calling convention (x86_thiscallcc in IR) for windows.
-
- New llvm.x86.int intrinsic (for int $42 and int3)
-
- Verbose assembly decodes X86 shuffle instructions, e.g.:
- insertps $113, %xmm3, %xmm0 ## xmm0 = zero,xmm0[1,2],xmm3[1]
- unpcklps %xmm1, %xmm0 ## xmm0 = xmm0[0],xmm1[0],xmm0[1],xmm1[1]
- pshufd $1, %xmm1, %xmm1 ## xmm1 = xmm1[1,0,0,0]
-
- X86 ABI: <2 x float> in IR no longer maps onto MMX, it turns into <4 x float>
-
- new GHC calling convention
+<li>LLVM 2.9 includes a complete reimplementation of the MMX instruction set.
+ The reimplementation uses a new LLVM IR <a
+ href="LangRef.html#t_x86mmx">x86_mmx</a> type to ensure that MMX operations
+ are <em>only</em> generated from source that uses MMX builtin operations. With
+ this, random types like <2 x i32> are not turned into MMX operations
+ (which can be catastrophic without proper "emms" insertion). Because the X86
+ code generator always generates reliable code, the -disable-mmx flag is now
+ removed.
+</li>
+
+<li>X86 support for FS/GS relative loads and stores using <a
+ href="CodeGenerator.html#x86_memory">address space 256/257</a> works reliably
+ now.</li>
+
+<li>LLVM 2.9 generates much better code in several cases by using adc/sbb to
+ avoid generation of conditional move instructions for conditional increment
+ and other idioms.</li>
+
+<li>The X86 backend has adopted a new preRA scheduling mode, "list-ilp", to
+ shorten the height of instruction schedules without inducing register spills.
+</li>
+<li>The MC assembler supports 3dNow! and 3DNowA instructions.</li>
+
+<li>Several bugs have been fixed for Windows x64 code generator.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="ARM">ARM Target Improvements</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>New features of the ARM target include:
</p>
<ul>
+<li>The ARM backend now has a fast instruction selector, which dramatically
+ improves -O0 compile times.</li>
+<li>The ARM backend has new tuning for Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 CPUs.</li>
+<li>The __builtin_prefetch builtin (and llvm.prefetch intrinsic) is compiled
+ into prefetch instructions instead of being discarded.</li>
- NEON: Better performance for QQQQ (4-consecutive Q register) instructions. New reg sequence abstraction?
- ARM: Better scheduling (list-hybrid, hybrid?)
- ARM: Tail call support.
- ARM: General performance work and tuning.
-
- ARM: Half float support through intrinsics LangRef.html#int_fp16
-<li>ARMGlobalMerge: <!-- Anton --> </li>
-
-<li>The ARM NEON intrinsics have been substantially reworked to reduce
- redundancy and improve code generation. Some of the major changes are:
- <ol>
- <li>
- All of the NEON load and store intrinsics (llvm.arm.neon.vld* and
- llvm.arm.neon.vst*) take an extra parameter to specify the alignment in bytes
- of the memory being accessed.
- </li>
- <li>
- The llvm.arm.neon.vaba intrinsic (vector absolute difference and
- accumulate) has been removed. This operation is now represented using
- the llvm.arm.neon.vabd intrinsic (vector absolute difference) followed by a
- vector add.
- </li>
- <li>
- The llvm.arm.neon.vabdl and llvm.arm.neon.vabal intrinsics (lengthening
- vector absolute difference with and without accumlation) have been removed.
- They are represented using the llvm.arm.neon.vabd intrinsic (vector absolute
- difference) followed by a vector zero-extend operation, and for vabal,
- a vector add.
- </li>
- <li>
- The llvm.arm.neon.vmovn intrinsic has been removed. Calls of this intrinsic
- are now replaced by vector truncate operations.
- </li>
- <li>
- The llvm.arm.neon.vmovls and llvm.arm.neon.vmovlu intrinsics have been
- removed. They are now represented as vector sign-extend (vmovls) and
- zero-extend (vmovlu) operations.
- </li>
- <li>
- The llvm.arm.neon.vaddl*, llvm.arm.neon.vaddw*, llvm.arm.neon.vsubl*, and
- llvm.arm.neon.vsubw* intrinsics (lengthening vector add and subtract) have
- been removed. They are replaced by vector add and vector subtract operations
- where one (vaddw, vsubw) or both (vaddl, vsubl) of the operands are either
- sign-extended or zero-extended.
- </li>
- <li>
- The llvm.arm.neon.vmulls, llvm.arm.neon.vmullu, llvm.arm.neon.vmlal*, and
- llvm.arm.neon.vmlsl* intrinsics (lengthening vector multiply with and without
- accumulation and subtraction) have been removed. These operations are now
- represented as vector multiplications where the operands are either
- sign-extended or zero-extended, followed by a vector add for vmlal or a
- vector subtract for vmlsl. Note that the polynomial vector multiply
- intrinsic, llvm.arm.neon.vmullp, remains unchanged.
- </li>
- </ol>
-</li>
+<li> The ARM backend preRA scheduler now models machine resources at cycle
+ granularity. This allows the scheduler to both accurately model
+ instruction latency and avoid overcommitting functional units.</li>
+
+<li>Countless ARM microoptimizations have landed in LLVM 2.9.</li>
</ul>
</div>
-
+
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="newapis">New Useful APIs</a>
-</div>
+<h2>
+<a name="OtherTS">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>This release includes a number of new APIs that are used internally, which
- may also be useful for external clients.
-</p>
-
<ul>
-<li></li>
-</ul>
+<li>MicroBlaze: major updates for aggressive delay slot filler, MC-based
+ assembly printing, assembly instruction parsing, ELF .o file emission, and MC
+ instruction disassembler have landed.</li>
+<li>SPARC: Many improvements, including using the Y registers for
+ multiplications and addition of a simple delay slot filler.</li>
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements and New Features</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>Other miscellaneous features include:</p>
-
-<ul>
-<li></li>
+<li>PowerPC: The backend has been largely MC'ized and is ready to support
+ directly writing out mach-o object files. No one seems interested in finishing
+ this final step though.</li>
+
</ul>
-
</div>
-
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based
-on LLVM 2.7, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
+on LLVM 2.8, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
from the previous release.</p>
-
- renamed "Release" -> "Release+Asserts"; "Release-Asserts" -> "Release etc.
-
-
<ul>
-<li>.ll file doesn't produce #uses comments anymore, to get them, run a .bc file
- through "llvm-dis --show-annotations".</li>
-<li>MSIL Backend removed.</li>
-<li>ABCD and SSI passes removed.</li>
-<li>'Union' LLVM IR feature removed.</li>
-<li>SCCVN pass removed.</li>
+<li><b>This is the last release to support the llvm-gcc frontend.</b></li>
+
+<li>LLVM has a new <a href="CodingStandards.html#ll_naming">naming
+ convention standard</a>, though the codebase hasn't fully adopted it yet.</li>
+
+<li>The new DIBuilder class provides a simpler interface for front ends to
+ encode debug info in LLVM IR, and has replaced DIFactory.</li>
+
+<li>LLVM IR and other tools always work on normalized target triples (which have
+ been run through <tt>Triple::normalize</tt>).</li>
+
+<li>The target triple x86_64--mingw64 is obsoleted. Use x86_64--mingw32
+ instead.</li>
+
+<li>The PointerTracking pass has been removed from mainline, and moved to The
+ ClamAV project (its only client).</li>
+
+<li>The LoopIndexSplit, LiveValues, SimplifyHalfPowrLibCalls, GEPSplitter, and
+ PartialSpecialization passes were removed. They were unmaintained,
+ buggy, or deemed to be a bad idea.</li>
</ul>
-<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major LLVM
-API changes are:</p>
-<ul>
-
- RegisterPass<> -> INTIALIZE_PASS()
+</div>
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<h2>
+<a name="api_changes">Internal API Changes</a>
+</h2>
+<div class="doc_text">
-<li>LLVM 2.8 changes the internal order of operands in <a
- href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1InvokeInst.html"><tt>InvokeInst</tt></a>
- and <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/classllvm_1_1CallInst.html"><tt>CallInst</tt></a>.
- To be portable across releases, resort to <tt>CallSite</tt> and the
- high-level accessors, such as <tt>getCalledValue</tt> and <tt>setUnwindDest</tt>.
-</li>
-<li>
- You can no longer pass use_iterators directly to cast<> (and similar), because
- these routines tend to perform costly dereference operations more than once. You
- have to dereference the iterators yourself and pass them in.
-</li>
-<li>
- llvm.memcpy.*, llvm.memset.*, llvm.memmove.* (and possibly other?) intrinsics
- take an extra parameter now (i1 isVolatile), totaling 5 parameters.
- If you were creating these intrinsic calls and prototypes yourself (as opposed
- to using Intrinsic::getDeclaration), you can use UpgradeIntrinsicFunction/UpgradeIntrinsicCall
- to be portable accross releases.
- Note that you cannot use Intrinsic::getDeclaration() in a backwards compatible
- way (needs 2/3 types now, in 2.7 it needed just 1).
-</li>
-<li>
- SetCurrentDebugLocation takes a DebugLoc now instead of a MDNode.
- Change your code to use
- SetCurrentDebugLocation(DebugLoc::getFromDILocation(...)).
-</li>
-<li>
- VISIBILITY_HIDDEN is gone.
-</li>
-<li>
- The <tt>RegisterPass</tt> and <tt>RegisterAnalysisGroup</tt> templates are
- considered deprecated, but continue to function in LLVM 2.8. Clients are
- strongly advised to use the upcoming <tt>INITIALIZE_PASS()</tt> and
- <tt>INITIALIZE_AG_PASS()</tt> macros instead.
-<li>
- SMDiagnostic takes different parameters now. //FIXME: how to upgrade?
-</li>
-<li>
- The constructor for the Triple class no longer tries to understand odd triple
- specifications. Frontends should ensure that they only pass valid triples to
- LLVM. The Triple::normalize utility method has been added to help front-ends
- deal with funky triples.
-<li>
- Some APIs got renamed:
- <ul>
- <li>llvm_report_error -> report_fatal_error</li>
- <li>llvm_install_error_handler -> install_fatal_error_handler</li>
- <li>llvm::DwarfExceptionHandling -> llvm::JITExceptionHandling</li>
- </ul>
-</li>
+<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major
+ LLVM API changes are:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>include/llvm/System merged into include/llvm/Support.</li>
+<li>The <a href="http://llvm.org/PR5207">llvm::APInt API</a> was significantly
+ cleaned up.</li>
+
+<li>In the code generator, MVT::Flag was renamed to MVT::Glue to more accurately
+ describe its behavior.</li>
+
+<li>The system_error header from C++0x was added, and is now pervasively used to
+ capture and handle i/o and other errors in LLVM.</li>
+
+<li>The old sys::Path API has been deprecated in favor of the new PathV2 API,
+ which is more efficient and flexible.</li>
</ul>
-
</div>
-
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h1>
<a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
-</div>
+</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
<ul>
-<li>The Alpha, SPU, MIPS, PIC16, Blackfin, MSP430, SystemZ and MicroBlaze
- backends are experimental.</li>
+<li>The Alpha, Blackfin, CellSPU, MicroBlaze, MSP430, MIPS, PTX, SystemZ
+ and XCore backends are experimental.</li>
<li><tt>llc</tt> "<tt>-filetype=obj</tt>" is experimental on all targets
- other than darwin-i386 and darwin-x86_64.</li>
+ other than darwin and ELF X86 systems.</li>
+
</ul>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
all <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline assembly that uses the X86
floating point stack</a>. It supports the 'f' and 't' constraints, but not
'u'.</li>
- <li>Win64 code generation wasn't widely tested. Everything should work, but we
- expect small issues to happen. Also, llvm-gcc cannot build the mingw64
- runtime currently due to lack of support for the 'u' inline assembly
- constraint and for X87 floating point inline assembly.</li>
<li>The X86-64 backend does not yet support the LLVM IR instruction
<tt>va_arg</tt>. Currently, front-ends support variadic
argument constructs on X86-64 by lowering them manually.</li>
+ <li>Windows x64 (aka Win64) code generator has a few issues.
+ <ul>
+ <li>llvm-gcc cannot build the mingw-w64 runtime currently
+ due to lack of support for the 'u' inline assembly
+ constraint and for X87 floating point inline assembly.</li>
+ <li>On mingw-w64, you will see unresolved symbol <tt>__chkstk</tt>
+ due to <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=8919">Bug 8919</a>.
+ It is fixed in <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20110321/118499.html">r128206</a>.</li>
+ <li>Miss-aligned MOVDQA might crash your program. It is due to
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=9483">Bug 9483</a>,
+ lack of handling aligned internal globals.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
</ul>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="mips-be">Known problems with the MIPS back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
+<h2>
<a name="llvm-gcc">Known problems with the llvm-gcc front-end</a>
-</div>
+</h2>
<div class="doc_text">
+<p><b>LLVM 2.9 will be the last release of llvm-gcc.</b></p>
+
<p>llvm-gcc is generally very stable for the C family of languages. The only
major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is the
<tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
4.2. If you are interested in Fortran, we recommend that you consider using
<a href="#dragonegg">dragonegg</a> instead.</p>
-<p>The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler has basic functionality. However, this is not a
-mature technology, and problems should be expected. For example:</p>
-<ul>
-<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on X86-32. This is mainly due
-to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms.
-However, it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
-which does support trampolines.</li>
-<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
-This is due to lack of LLVM support for <tt>setjmp</tt>/<tt>longjmp</tt> style
-exception handling, which is used internally by the compiler.
-Workaround: configure with <tt>--disable-bootstrap</tt>.</li>
-<li>The c380004, <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
-and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS tests fail
-(c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline).
-If the compiler is built with checks disabled then <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
-causes the compiler to go into an infinite loop, using up all system memory.</li>
-<li>Some GCC specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler.</li>
-<li>The <tt>-E</tt> binder option (exception backtraces)
-<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
-crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use <tt>-E</tt>.</li>
-<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
-or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
-or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
-starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
-<li>The <tt>lli</tt> interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers
-'main' as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
-Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for <tt>argv</tt> and
-<tt>envp</tt> rather than integers.</li>
-<li>The <tt>-fstack-check</tt> option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is
-ignored</a>.</li>
-</ul>
+<p>The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler has basic functionality, but is no longer being
+actively maintained. If you are interested in Ada, we recommend that you
+consider using <a href="#dragonegg">dragonegg</a> instead.</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
-<div class="doc_section">
+<h1>
<a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
-</div>
+</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">