<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
- <title>LLVM 1.8 Release Notes</title>
+ <title>LLVM 2.1 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
-<div class="doc_title">LLVM 1.8 Release Notes</div>
+<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.1 Release Notes</div>
<ol>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
-infrastructure, release 1.8. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
-known problems and major improvements from the previous release. The most
-up-to-date version of this document (corresponding to LLVM CVS) can be found
-on the <a
-href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM releases web site</a>. If you are
-not reading this on the LLVM web pages, you should probably go there because
-this document may be updated after the release.</p>
+infrastructure, release 2.1. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
+major improvements from the previous release and any known problems. All LLVM
+releases may be downloaded from the <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM
+releases web site</a>.</p>
<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM
href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
-<p>Note that if you are reading this file from CVS or the main LLVM web page,
-this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the current one. To see
-the release notes for the current or previous releases, see the <a
-href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
+<p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the
+main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the
+current one. To see the release notes for a specific releases, please see the
+<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>This is the nineth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure. This
-release incorporates a large number of enhancements and new features,
-including DWARF debugging support (C and C++ on Darwin/PPC), improved inline
-assembly support, a new <a href="http://llvm.org/nightlytest/">nightly
-tester</a>, llvm-config enhancements, many bugs
-fixed, and performance and compile time improvements.
-</p>
+<p>This is the twelfth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.
+It includes many features and refinements from LLVM 2.0.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="newfeatures">New Features in LLVM 1.8</a>
+<a name="frontends">New Frontends</a>
</div>
-<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="dwarf">DWARF debugging
-support </a></div>
-
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>The llvm-gcc4 C front-end now generates debugging info for C and C++. This
-information is propagated through the compiler and the code generator can
-currently produce DWARF debugging information from it. DWARF is a standard
-debugging format used on many platforms, but currently LLVM only includes
-target support for Mac OS X targets for the 1.8 release.
-</p>
+<p>LLVM 2.1 brings two new beta C front-ends. First, a new version of llvm-gcc
+based on GCC 4.2, innovatively called "llvm-gcc-4.2". This promises to bring
+FORTRAN and Ada support to LLVM as well as features like atomic builtins and
+OpenMP. None of these actually work yet, but don't let that stop you checking
+it out!</p>
+
+<p>Second, LLVM now includes its own native C and Objective-C front-end (C++ is
+in progress, but is not very far along) code named "<a
+href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang</a>". This front-end has a number of great
+features, primarily aimed at source-level analysis and speeding up compile-time.
+At this point though, the LLVM Code Generator component is still very early in
+development, so it's mostly useful for people looking to build source-level
+analysis tools or source-to-source translators.</p>
</div>
-<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="inlineasm">Inline Assembly
-Support</a></div>
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
+</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>Inline assembly support is substantially improved in LLVM 1.8 over LLVM 1.7.
-Many unsupported features are now supported, and inline asm support in the X86
-backend is far better. llvm-gcc4 now supports global register variables as
-well.</p>
+<p>Some of the most noticable feature improvements this release have been in the
+optimizer, speeding it up and making it more aggressive. For example:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Owen Anderson wrote the new MemoryDependenceAnalysis pass, which provides
+ a lazy, caching layer on top of <a
+ href="AliasAnalysis.html">AliasAnalysis</a>. He then used it to rewrite
+ DeadStoreElimination which resulted in significantly better compile time in
+ common cases, </li>
+<li>Owen implemented the new GVN pass, which is also based on
+ MemoryDependenceAnalysis. This pass replaces GCSE/LoadVN in the standard
+ set of passes, providing more aggressive optimization at a some-what
+ improved compile-time cost.</li>
+<li>Owen implemented GVN-PRE, a partial redundancy elimination algorithm that
+ shares some details with the new GVN pass. It is still in need of compile
+ time tuning, and is not turned on by default.</li>
+<li>Devang merged ETForest and DomTree into a single easier to use data
+ structure. This makes it more obvious which datastructure to choose
+ (because there is only one) and makes the compiler more memory and time
+ efficient (less stuff to keep up-to-date).</li>
+<li>Nick Lewycky improved loop trip count analysis to handle many more common
+ cases.</li>
+
+</ul>
</div>
-<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="loopopt">Loop Optimizer Improvements</a></div>
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
+</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>The loop optimizer passes now uses "Loop-Closed SSA Form", which makes it
-easier to update SSA form as loop transformations change the code. An
-immediate benefit of this is that the loop unswitching pass can now unswitch
-loops in more cases.
-</p>
+<p>One of the main focuses of this release was performance tuning and bug
+ fixing. In addition to these, several new major changes occurred:</p>
-</div>
+<ul>
-<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="jumptab">Jump Table Support for Switches
-</a></div>
+<li>Dale finished up the Tail Merging optimization in the code generator, and
+ enabled it by default. This produces smaller code that is also faster in
+ some cases.</li>
-<div class="doc_text">
+<li>Christopher Lamb implemented support for virtual register sub-registers,
+ which can be used to better model many forms of subregisters. As an example
+ use, he modified the X86 backend to use this to model truncates and
+ extends more accurately (leading to better code).</li>
+
+<li>Dan Gohman changed the way we represent vectors before legalization,
+ significantly simplifying the SelectionDAG representation for these and
+ making the code generator faster for vector code.</li>
+
+<li>Evan contributed a new target independent if-converter. While it is
+ target independent, so far only the ARM backend uses it.</li>
-<p>The code generator now lowers switch statements to jump tables, providing
-significant performance boosts for applications (e.g. interpreters) whose
-performance is highly correlated to switch statement performance.</p>
+<li>Evan rewrote the way the register allocator handles rematerialization,
+ allowing it to be much more effective on two-address targets like X86,
+ and taught it to fold loads away when possible (also a big win on X86).</li>
+
+<li>Dan Gohman contributed support for better alignment and volatility handling
+ in the code generator, and significantly enhanced alignment analysis for SSE
+ load/store instructions. With his changes, an insufficiently-aligned SSE
+ load instruction turns into <tt>movups</tt>, for example.</li>
+
+<li>Duraid Madina contributed a new "bigblock" register allocator, and Roman
+ Levenstein contributed several big improvements. BigBlock is optimized for
+ code that uses very large basic blocks. It is slightly slower than the
+ "local" allocator, but produces much better code.</li>
+
+<li>David Greene refactored the register allocator to split coalescing out from
+ allocation, making coalescers pluggable.</li>
+
+</ul>
</div>
-<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="jitrelease">Deallocation of JIT'd
-Machine Code
-</a></div>
-<div class="doc_text">
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="targetspecific">Target Specific Improvements</a>
+</div>
-<p>The LLVM JIT now allows clients to deallocate machine code JIT'd to its code
-buffer. This is important for long living applications that depend on the JIT.
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>New features include:
</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Bruno Cardoso Lopes contributed initial MIPS support. It is sufficient to
+ run many small programs, but is still incomplete and is not yet
+ fully performant.</li>
+
+<li>Bill Wendling added SSSE3 support to the X86 backend.</li>
+
+<li>Nicholas Geoffray contributed improved linux/ppc ABI and JIT support.</li>
+
+<li>Dale Johannesen rewrote handling of 32-bit float values in the X86 backend
+ when using the floating point stack, fixing several nasty bugs.</li>
+
+<li>Dan contributed rematerialization support for the X86 backend, in addition
+ to several X86-specific micro optimizations.</li>
+</ul>
+
</div>
-<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection"><a name="other">Other Improvements</a></div>
+
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="llvmgccimprovements">llvm-gcc Improvements</a>
+</div>
<div class="doc_text">
+<p>New features include:
+</p>
-<p>This release includes many other improvements, including improvements to
- the optimizers and code generators (improving the generated code) changes to
- speed up the compiler in many ways (improving algorithms and fine tuning
- code), and changes to reduce the code size of the compiler itself.</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Duncan and Anton made significant progress chasing down a number of problems
+ with C++ Zero-Cost exception handling in llvm-gcc 4.0 and 4.2. It is now at
+ the point where it "just works" on linux/X86-32 and has partial support on
+ other targets.</li>
-<p>More specific changes include:</p>
+<li>Devang and Duncan fixed a huge number of bugs relating to bitfields, pragma
+ pack, and variable sized fields in structures.</li>
-<ul>
-<li>LLVM 1.8 includes an initial ARM backend. This backend is in early
- development stages.</li>
-<li>LLVM 1.8 now includes significantly better support for mingw and
- cygwin.</li>
-<li>The <a href="CommandGuide/html/llvm-config.html">llvm-config</a> tool is
- now built by default and has several new features.</li>
-<li>The X86 and PPC backends now use the correct platform ABI for passing
- vectors as arguments to functions.</li>
-<li>The X86 backend now includes support for the Microsoft ML assembler
- ("MASM").</li>
-<li>The PowerPC backend now pattern matches the 'rlwimi' instruction more
- aggressively.</li>
-<li>Most of LLVM is now built with "-pedantic", ensuring better portability
- to more C++ Compilers.</li>
-<li>The PowerPC backend now includes initial 64-bit support. The JIT is not
- complete, and the static compiler has a couple of known bugs, but support
- is mostly in place. LLVM 1.9 will include completed PPC-64 support. </li>
+<li>Tanya implemented support for <tt>__attribute__((noinline))</tt> in
+ llvm-gcc, and added support for generic variable annotations which are
+ propagated into the LLVM IR, e.g.
+ "<tt>int X __attribute__((annotate("myproperty")));</tt>".</li>
+
+<li>Sheng Zhou and Christopher Lamb implemented alias analysis support for
+"restrict" pointer arguments to functions.</li>
+
+<li>Duncan contributed support for trampolines (taking the address of a nested
+ function). Currently this is only supported on the X86-32 target.</li>
+<li>Lauro Ramos Venancio contributed support to encode alignment info in
+ load and store instructions, the foundation for other alignment-related
+ work.</li>
</ul>
+
</div>
+
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="changes">Significant Changes in LLVM 1.8</a>
+<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
+<p>New features include:
+</p>
+
<ul>
-<li>The LLVM "SparcV9" backend (deprecated in LLVM 1.7) has been removed in
-LLVM 1.8. The LLVM "Sparc" backend replaces it.</li>
-<li>The --version option now prints more useful information, including the
- build configuration for the tool.</li>
+<li>Neil Booth contributed a new "APFloat" class, which ensures that floating
+ point representation and constant folding is not dependent on the host
+ architecture that builds the application. This support is the foundation
+ for "long double" support that will be wrapped up in LLVM 2.2.</li>
+
+<li>Based on the APFloat class, Dale redesigned the internals of the ConstantFP
+ class and has been working on extending the core and optimizer components to
+ support various target-specific 'long double's. We expect this work to be
+ completed in LLVM 2.2.</li>
+
+<li>LLVM now provides an LLVMBuilder class, which makes it significantly easier
+ to create LLVM IR instructions.</li>
+
+<li>Reid contributed support for intrinsics that take arbitrary integer typed
+ arguments. Dan Gohman and Chandler extended it to support arbitrary
+ floating point arguments and vectors.</li>
</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>New features include:
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Sterling Stein contributed a new BrainF frontend, located in llvm/examples.
+ This shows a some of the more modern APIs for building a front-end, and
+ demonstrates JIT compiler support.</li>
+
+<li>David Green contributed a new <tt>--enable-expensive-checks</tt> configure
+ option which enables STL checking, and fixed several bugs exposed by
+ it.</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
<ul>
- <li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
+<li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
(and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
+<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.2 and above in 32-bit and
+ 64-bit modes.</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native)</li>
-<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
-<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.2 and above.</li>
+<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.</li>
<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
<li>Itanium-based machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
</ul>
components, please contact us on the <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
<ul>
-<li>The <tt>-cee</tt> pass is known to be buggy, and may be removed in in a
+<li>The <tt>-cee</tt> pass is known to be buggy, and may be removed in a
future release.</li>
+<li>The MSIL backend is experimental.</li>
<li>The IA64 code generator is experimental.</li>
-<li>The Alpha JIT is experimental.</li>
+<li>The Alpha backend is experimental.</li>
<li>"<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported value for the
<tt>-filetype</tt> llc option.</li>
</ul>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="build">Known problems with the Build System</a>
+ <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
-<li>none yet</li>
+<li>The X86 backend does not yet support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline
+ assembly that uses the X86 floating point stack</a>.</li>
+<li>The X86 backend occasionally has <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1649">alignment
+ problems</a> on operating systems that don't require 16-byte stack alignment
+ (including most non-darwin OS's like linux).</li>
</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR642">PowerPC backend does not correctly
+implement ordered FP comparisons</a>.</li>
+<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
+compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="core">Known problems with the LLVM Core</a>
+ <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
- <li>In the JIT, <tt>dlsym()</tt> on a symbol compiled by the JIT will not
- work.</li>
+<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
+processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
+results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
+<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported, but not fully tested.
+</li>
+<li>There is a bug in QEMU-ARM (<= 0.9.0) which causes it to incorrectly execute
+programs compiled with LLVM. Please use more recent versions of QEMU.</li>
</ul>
+
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the C front-end</a>
+ <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
</div>
-<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
+ support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
+</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-llvm-gcc3 has many significant problems that are fixed by llvm-gcc4.
-Two major ones include:</p>
+<ul>
+
+<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
+appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
+
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
-<li>With llvm-gcc3,
- C99 variable sized arrays do not release stack memory when they go out of
- scope. Thus, the following program may run out of stack space:
-<pre>
- for (i = 0; i != 1000000; ++i) {
- int X[n];
- foo(X);
- }
-</pre></li>
-
-<li>With llvm-gcc3, Initialization of global union variables can only be done <a
-href="http://llvm.org/PR162">with the largest union member</a>.</li>
+<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
+made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
+speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
+when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
+
+<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
+ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
+pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
+mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
+compilers.</li>
+
+<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
+output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
+programs.</li>
+
+<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is ok).</li>
+
+<li>The Itanium backend has bitrotted somewhat.</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend does not support inline
+ assembly code</a>.</li>
+<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1126">The C backend does not support vectors
+ yet</a>.</li>
+<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
+ C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
+ C++ code compiled with LLC or native compilers.</li>
</ul>
-<p>llvm-gcc4 is far more stable and produces better code than llvm-gcc3, but
-does not currently support Link-Time-Optimization or C++ Exception Handling,
-which llvm-gcc3 does.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the C front-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>llvm-gcc4 does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
+Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
+llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-
<ul>
-<li>"long double" is transformed by the front-end into "double". There is no
-support for floating point data types of any size other than 32 and 64
-bits.</li>
+<li><p>"long double" is silently transformed by the front-end into "double". There
+is no support for floating point data types of any size other than 32 and 64
+bits.</p></li>
-<li>The following Unix system functionality has not been tested and may not
-work:
- <ol>
- <li><tt>sigsetjmp</tt>, <tt>siglongjmp</tt> - These are not turned into the
- appropriate <tt>invoke</tt>/<tt>unwind</tt> instructions. Note that
- <tt>setjmp</tt> and <tt>longjmp</tt> <em>are</em> compiled correctly.
- <li><tt>getcontext</tt>, <tt>setcontext</tt>, <tt>makecontext</tt>
- - These functions have not been tested.
- </ol></li>
+<li><p>llvm-gcc does <b>not</b> support <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> yet.
+ See <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constructing-Calls.html#Constructing%20Calls">Constructing Calls</a>: Dispatching a call to another function.</p>
+</li>
-<li>Although many GCC extensions are supported, some are not. In particular,
- the following extensions are known to <b>not be</b> supported:
+<li><p>llvm-gcc <b>partially</b> supports these GCC extensions:</p>
<ol>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Local-Labels.html#Local%20Labels">Local Labels</a>: Labels local to a block.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html#Nested%20Functions">Nested Functions</a>: As in Algol and Pascal, lexical scoping of functions.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constructing-Calls.html#Constructing%20Calls">Constructing Calls</a>: Dispatching a call to another function.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Extended-Asm.html#Extended%20Asm">Extended Asm</a>: Assembler instructions with C expressions as operands.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constraints.html#Constraints">Constraints</a>: Constraints for asm operands.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Asm-Labels.html#Asm%20Labels">Asm Labels</a>: Specifying the assembler name to use for a C symbol.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Explicit-Reg-Vars.html#Explicit%20Reg%20Vars">Explicit Reg Vars</a>: Defining variables residing in specified registers.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Vector-Extensions.html#Vector%20Extensions">Vector Extensions</a>: Using vector instructions through built-in functions.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Target-Builtins.html#Target%20Builtins">Target Builtins</a>: Built-in functions specific to particular targets.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Thread_002dLocal.html">Thread-Local</a>: Per-thread variables.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pragmas.html#Pragmas">Pragmas</a>: Pragmas accepted by GCC.</li>
- </ol>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html#Nested%20Functions">Nested Functions</a>:
- <p>The following GCC extensions are <b>partially</b> supported. An ignored
- attribute means that the LLVM compiler ignores the presence of the attribute,
- but the code should still work. An unsupported attribute is one which is
- ignored by the LLVM compiler and will cause a different interpretation of
- the program.</p>
-
- <ol>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Length.html#Variable%20Length">Variable Length</a>:
- Arrays whose length is computed at run time.<br>
- Supported, but allocated stack space is not freed until the function returns (noted above).</li>
+ As in Algol and Pascal, lexical scoping of functions.
+ Nested functions are supported, but llvm-gcc does not support
+ taking the address of a nested function (except on the X86-32 target)
+ or non-local gotos.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html#Function%20Attributes">Function Attributes</a>:
Declaring that functions have no side effects or that they can never
return.<br>
- <b>Supported:</b> <tt>format</tt>, <tt>format_arg</tt>, <tt>non_null</tt>,
- <tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>,
- <tt>unused</tt>, <tt>used</tt>,
- <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>warn_unused_result</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
-
- <b>Ignored:</b> <tt>noinline</tt>,
- <tt>always_inline</tt>, <tt>pure</tt>, <tt>const</tt>, <tt>nothrow</tt>,
- <tt>malloc</tt>, <tt>no_instrument_function</tt>, <tt>cdecl</tt><br>
+ <b>Supported:</b> <tt>alias</tt>, <tt>always_inline</tt>, <tt>cdecl</tt>,
+ <tt>const</tt>, <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>,
+ <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>fastcall</tt>, <tt>format</tt>,
+ <tt>format_arg</tt>, <tt>non_null</tt>, <tt>noinline</tt>,
+ <tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>pure</tt>, <tt>regparm</tt>
+ <tt>section</tt>, <tt>stdcall</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>, <tt>used</tt>,
+ <tt>visibility</tt>, <tt>warn_unused_result</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
- <b>Unsupported:</b> <tt>section</tt>, <tt>alias</tt>,
- <tt>visibility</tt>, <tt>regparm</tt>, <tt>stdcall</tt>,
- <tt>fastcall</tt>, all other target specific attributes</li>
-
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Attributes.html#Variable%20Attributes">Variable Attributes</a>:
- Specifying attributes of variables.<br>
- <b>Supported:</b> <tt>cleanup</tt>, <tt>common</tt>, <tt>nocommon</tt>,
- <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>transparent_union</tt>,
- <tt>unused</tt>, <tt>used</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
-
- <b>Unsupported:</b> <tt>aligned</tt>, <tt>mode</tt>, <tt>packed</tt>,
- <tt>section</tt>, <tt>shared</tt>, <tt>tls_model</tt>,
- <tt>vector_size</tt>, <tt>dllimport</tt>,
- <tt>dllexport</tt>, all target specific attributes.</li>
-
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Type-Attributes.html#Type%20Attributes">Type Attributes</a>: Specifying attributes of types.<br>
- <b>Supported:</b> <tt>transparent_union</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>,
- <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>may_alias</tt><br>
-
- <b>Unsupported:</b> <tt>aligned</tt>, <tt>packed</tt>,
- all target specific attributes.</li>
-
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Other-Builtins.html#Other%20Builtins">Other Builtins</a>:
- Other built-in functions.<br>
- We support all builtins which have a C language equivalent (e.g.,
- <tt>__builtin_cos</tt>), <tt>__builtin_alloca</tt>,
- <tt>__builtin_types_compatible_p</tt>, <tt>__builtin_choose_expr</tt>,
- <tt>__builtin_constant_p</tt>, and <tt>__builtin_expect</tt>
- (currently ignored). We also support builtins for ISO C99 floating
- point comparison macros (e.g., <tt>__builtin_islessequal</tt>),
- <tt>__builtin_prefetch</tt>, <tt>__builtin_popcount[ll]</tt>,
- <tt>__builtin_clz[ll]</tt>, and <tt>__builtin_ctz[ll]</tt>.</li>
+ <b>Ignored:</b> <tt>nothrow</tt>, <tt>malloc</tt>,
+ <tt>no_instrument_function</tt></li>
</ol>
+</li>
- <p>The following extensions <b>are</b> known to be supported:</p>
+<li><p>llvm-gcc supports the vast majority of GCC extensions, including:</p>
<ol>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pragmas.html#Pragmas">Pragmas</a>: Pragmas accepted by GCC.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Local-Labels.html#Local%20Labels">Local Labels</a>: Labels local to a block.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Other-Builtins.html#Other%20Builtins">Other Builtins</a>:
+ Other built-in functions.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Attributes.html#Variable%20Attributes">Variable Attributes</a>:
+ Specifying attributes of variables.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Type-Attributes.html#Type%20Attributes">Type Attributes</a>: Specifying attributes of types.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Thread_002dLocal.html">Thread-Local</a>: Per-thread variables.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Length.html#Variable%20Length">Variable Length</a>:
+ Arrays whose length is computed at run time.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Labels-as-Values.html#Labels%20as%20Values">Labels as Values</a>: Getting pointers to labels and computed gotos.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement-Exprs.html#Statement%20Exprs">Statement Exprs</a>: Putting statements and declarations inside expressions.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Typeof.html#Typeof">Typeof</a>: <code>typeof</code>: referring to the type of an expression.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Empty-Structures.html#Empty%20Structures">Empty Structures</a>: Structures with no members.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variadic-Macros.html#Variadic%20Macros">Variadic Macros</a>: Macros with a variable number of arguments.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Escaped-Newlines.html#Escaped%20Newlines">Escaped Newlines</a>: Slightly looser rules for escaped newlines.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Extended-Asm.html#Extended%20Asm">Extended Asm</a>: Assembler instructions with C expressions as operands.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constraints.html#Constraints">Constraints</a>: Constraints for asm operands.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Asm-Labels.html#Asm%20Labels">Asm Labels</a>: Specifying the assembler name to use for a C symbol.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Explicit-Reg-Vars.html#Explicit%20Reg%20Vars">Explicit Reg Vars</a>: Defining variables residing in specified registers.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Vector-Extensions.html#Vector%20Extensions">Vector Extensions</a>: Using vector instructions through built-in functions.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Target-Builtins.html#Target%20Builtins">Target Builtins</a>: Built-in functions specific to particular targets.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Subscripting.html#Subscripting">Subscripting</a>: Any array can be subscripted, even if not an lvalue.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pointer-Arith.html#Pointer%20Arith">Pointer Arith</a>: Arithmetic on <code>void</code>-pointers and function pointers.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Initializers.html#Initializers">Initializers</a>: Non-constant initializers.</li>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>For this release, the C++ front-end is considered to be fully
+<p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully
tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
-itself.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
+itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p>
<ul>
-<li>The C++ front-end inherits all problems afflicting the <a href="#c-fe">C
- front-end</a>.</li>
+<li>Exception handling only works well on the linux/X86-32 target.
+In some cases, illegally throwing an exception does not result
+in a call to terminate.</li>
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
- Notes
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
+<!-- NO EH Support!
<li>Destructors for local objects are not always run when a <tt>longjmp</tt> is
performed. In particular, destructors for objects in the <tt>longjmp</tt>ing
representation issues. Because we use this API, code generated by the LLVM
compilers should be binary compatible with machine code generated by other
Itanium ABI C++ compilers (such as G++, the Intel and HP compilers, etc).
- <i>However</i>, the exception handling mechanism used by LLVM is very
+ <i>However</i>, the exception handling mechanism used by llvm-gcc3 is very
different from the model used in the Itanium ABI, so <b>exceptions will not
interact correctly</b>. </li>
-
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>The C back-end produces code that violates the ANSI C Type-Based Alias
-Analysis rules. As such, special options may be necessary to compile the code
-(for example, GCC requires the <tt>-fno-strict-aliasing</tt> option). This
-problem probably cannot be fixed.</li>
-
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR56">Zero arg vararg functions are not
-supported</a>. This should not affect LLVM produced by the C or C++
-frontends.</li>
-
-<li>The C backend does not correctly implement the <a
-href="LangRef.html#i_stacksave"><tt>llvm.stacksave</tt></a> or
-<a href="LangRef.html#i_stackrestore"><tt>llvm.stackrestore</tt></a>
-intrinsics. This means that some code compiled by it can run out of stack
-space if they depend on these (e.g. C99 varargs).</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-<li>none yet.</li>
+-->
</ul>
</div>
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
-</div>
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR642">PowerPC backend does not correctly
-implement ordered FP comparisons</a>.</li>
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
-appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
-made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
-speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
-when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
-
-<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
-ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
-pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
-mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
-compilers.</li>
-
-<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
-output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
-programs.</li>
-
-<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is ok).</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
- support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
-</ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<!-- ======================================================================= -->
-<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ul>
-<li>The ARM backend is currently in early development stages, it is not
-ready for production use.</li>
-</ul>
-
-</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<div class="doc_text">
<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
-href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, including <a
-href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> and <a
-href="http://llvm.org/pubs/">publications describing algorithms and
-components implemented in LLVM</a>. The web page also contains versions of the
-API documentation which is up-to-date with the CVS version of the source code.
+href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
+href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
+contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
+Subversion version of the source code.
You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!" /></a>
- <a href="http://llvm.org/">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
+ <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Last modified: $Date$
</address>
projects / oota-llvm.git / blobdiff