Updated the llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access semantics to include the possibility

to have only some of the loop's memory instructions be annotated and still _help_
the loop carried dependence analysis.

This was discussed in the llvmdev ML (topic: "parallel loop metadata question").

git-svn-id: https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk@209507 91177308-0d34-0410-b5e6-96231b3b80d8

diff --git a/docs/LangRef.rst b/docs/LangRef.rst
index ceec1bd5476d69fbca9c714fa832fe2f651ea1c9..fa8d3c0b75fe9d2e408216724c50f11ac038cd79 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/LangRef.rst
+++ b/docs/LangRef.rst
@@ -2785,15 +2785,29 @@ for optimizations are prefixed with ``llvm.mem``.
 '``llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access``' Metadata
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
-For a loop to be parallel, in addition to using
-the ``llvm.loop`` metadata to mark the loop latch branch instruction,
-also all of the memory accessing instructions in the loop body need to be
-marked with the ``llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access`` metadata. If there
-is at least one memory accessing instruction not marked with the metadata,
-the loop must be considered a sequential loop. This causes parallel loops to be
-converted to sequential loops due to optimization passes that are unaware of
-the parallel semantics and that insert new memory instructions to the loop
-body.
+The ``llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access`` metadata refers to a loop identifier, 
+or metadata containing a list of loop identifiers for nested loops. 
+The metadata is attached to memory accessing instructions and denotes that 
+no loop carried memory dependence exist between it and other instructions denoted 
+with the same loop identifier.
+
+Precisely, given two instructions ``m1`` and ``m2`` that both have the 
+``llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access`` metadata, with ``L1`` and ``L2`` being the 
+set of loops associated with that metadata, respectively, then there is no loop 
+carried dependence between ``m1`` and ``m2`` for loops ``L1`` or 
+``L2``.
+
+As a special case, if all memory accessing instructions in a loop have 
+``llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access`` metadata that refers to that loop, then the 
+loop has no loop carried memory dependences and is considered to be a parallel 
+loop.  
+
+Note that if not all memory access instructions have such metadata referring to 
+the loop, then the loop is considered not being trivially parallel. Additional 
+memory dependence analysis is required to make that determination.  As a fail 
+safe mechanism, this causes loops that were originally parallel to be considered 
+sequential (if optimization passes that are unaware of the parallel semantics 
+insert new memory instructions into the loop body).
 
 Example of a loop that is considered parallel due to its correct use of
 both ``llvm.loop`` and ``llvm.mem.parallel_loop_access``