1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
<title>LLVM 3.1 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>LLVM 3.1 Release Notes</h1>
<div>
<img style="float:right" src="http://llvm.org/img/DragonSmall.png"
width="136" height="136" alt="LLVM Dragon Logo">
</div>
<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 3.1</a></li>
<li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM?</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>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">
<p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Team</a></p>
</div>
<h1 style="color:red">These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 3.1
release.<br>
You may prefer the
<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/3.0/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 3.0
Release Notes</a>.</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
<a name="intro">Introduction</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div>
<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler
Infrastructure, release 3.1. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
major improvements from the previous release, improvements in various
subprojects of LLVM, and some of the current users of the code.
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 web
site</a>. If you have questions or comments,
the <a href="http://lists.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 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 release, please see the
<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
<a name="subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div>
<p>The LLVM 3.1 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
repository (which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators and
supporting tools), and the Clang repository. In
addition to this code, the LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are
in development. Here we include updates on these subprojects.</p>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="clang">Clang: C/C++/Objective-C Frontend Toolkit</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p><a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang</a> is an LLVM front end for the C,
C++, and Objective-C languages. Clang aims to provide a better user
experience through expressive diagnostics, a high level of conformance to
language standards, fast compilation, and low memory use. Like LLVM, Clang
provides a 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 3.1 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements:</p>
<ul>
<li>...</li>
</ul>
<p>For more details about the changes to Clang since the 2.9 release, see the
<a href="http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">Clang release notes</a>
</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>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: GCC front-ends, LLVM back-end</a>
</h3>
<div>
<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. It works with gcc-4.5 or gcc-4.6,
targets the x86-32 and x86-64 processor families, and has been successfully
used on the Darwin, FreeBSD, KFreeBSD, Linux and OpenBSD platforms. It fully
supports Ada, C, C++ and Fortran. It has partial support for Go, Java, Obj-C
and Obj-C++.</p>
<p>The 3.1 release has the following notable changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>...</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="compiler-rt">compiler-rt: Compiler Runtime Library</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>The new LLVM <a href="http://compiler-rt.llvm.org/">compiler-rt project</a>
is a simple library that provides an implementation of the low-level
target-specific hooks required by code generation and other runtime
components. For example, when compiling for a 32-bit target, converting a
double to a 64-bit unsigned integer is compiled into a runtime call to the
"__fixunsdfdi" function. The compiler-rt library provides highly optimized
implementations of this and other low-level routines (some are 3x faster than
the equivalent libgcc routines).</p>
<p>....</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="lldb">LLDB: Low Level Debugger</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>LLDB is a ground-up implementation of a command line debugger, as well as a
debugger API that can be used from other applications. LLDB makes use of the
Clang parser to provide high-fidelity expression parsing (particularly for
C++) and uses the LLVM JIT for target support.</p>
<p>...</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="libc++">libc++: C++ Standard Library</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>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>
<p>...</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="vmkit">VMKit</a>
</h3>
<div>
<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.
<p>In the LLVM 3.1 time-frame, VMKit has had significant improvements on both
runtime and startup performance:</p>
<ul>
<li>...</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="Polly">Polly: Polyhedral Optimizer</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p><a href="http://polly.llvm.org/">Polly</a> is an <em>experimental</em>
optimizer for data locality and parallelism. It currently provides high-level
loop optimizations and automatic parallelisation (using the OpenMP run time).
Work in the area of automatic SIMD and accelerator code generation was
started.
<p>Within the LLVM 3.1 time-frame there were the following highlights:</p>
<ul>
<li>Polly became an official LLVM project</li>
<li>Polly can be loaded directly into clang (Enabled by '-O3 -mllvm -polly'
)</li>
<li>An automatic scheduling optimizer (derived from <a
href="http://pluto-compiler.sourceforge.net/">Pluto</a>) was integrated. It
performs loop transformations to optimize for data-locality and parallelism.
The transformations include, but are not limited to interchange, fusion,
fission, skewing and tiling.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
<a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 3.1</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div>
<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 3.1.</p>
... to be filled in right before the release ...
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
<a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 3.1?</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div>
<p>This release includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and
minor improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are
listed in this section.</p>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
</h3>
<div>
<!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 3.1:
ARM EHABI
combiner-aa?
strong phi elim
loop dependence analysis
CorrelatedValuePropagation
lib/Transforms/IPO/MergeFunctions.cpp => consider for 3.1.
Integrated assembler on by default for arm/thumb?
-->
<!-- Near dead:
Analysis/RegionInfo.h + Dom Frontiers
SparseBitVector: used in LiveVar.
llvm/lib/Archive - replace with lib object?
-->
<p>LLVM 3.1 includes several major changes and big features:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="../tools/clang/docs/AddressSanitizer.html">AddressSanitizer</a>,
a fast memory error detector.</li>
<li><a href="CodeGenerator.html#machineinstrbundle">MachineInstr Bundles</a>,
Support to model instruction bundling / packing.</li>
<li><a href="#armintegratedassembler">ARM Integrated Assembler</a>,
A full featured assembler and direct-to-object support for ARM.</li>
<li><a href="#blockplacement">Basic Block Placement</a>
Probability driven basic block placement.</li>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM IR and Core Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>LLVM IR has several new features for better support of new targets and that
expose new optimization opportunities:</p>
<ul>
<li>IR support for half float</li>
<li>IR support for vectors of pointers, including vector GEPs.</li>
<li>Module flags have been introduced. They convey information about the
module as a whole to LLVM subsystems.</li>
<li>Loads can now have range metadata attached to them to describe the
possible values being loaded.</li>
<li>Inline cost heuristics have been completely overhauled and now closely
model constant propagation through call sites, disregard trivially dead
code costs, and can model C++ STL iterator patterns.</li>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>In addition to many minor performance tweaks and bug fixes, this
release includes a few major enhancements and additions to the
optimizers:</p>
<ul>
<li>The loop unroll pass now is able to unroll loops with run-time trip counts.
This feature is turned off by default, and is enabled with the
<code>-unroll-runtime</code> flag.</li>
<li>A new basic-block autovectorization pass is available. Pass
<code>-vectorize</code> to run this pass along with some associated
post-vectorization cleanup passes. For more information, see the EuroLLVM
2012 slides: <a href="http://llvm.org/devmtg/2012-04-12/Slides/Hal_Finkel.pdf">
Autovectorization with LLVM</a>.</li>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="mc">MC Level Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>The LLVM Machine Code (aka MC) subsystem was created to solve a number of
problems in the realm of assembly, disassembly, object file format handling,
and a number of other related areas that CPU instruction-set level tools work
in. For more information, please see
the <a href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/intro-to-llvm-mc-project.html">Intro
to the LLVM MC Project Blog Post</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="codegen">Target Independent Code Generator Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>We have changed the way that the Type Legalizer legalizes vectors. The type
legalizer now attempts to promote integer elements. This enabled the
implementation of vector-select. Additionally, we see a performance boost on
workloads which use vectors of chars and shorts, since they are now promoted
to 32-bit types, which are better supported by the SIMD instruction set.
Floating point types are still widened as before.</p>
<p>We have put a significant amount of work into the code generator
infrastructure, which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and
make it run faster:</p>
<ul>
<li>TableGen can now synthesize register classes that are only needed to
represent combinations of constraints from instructions and sub-registers.
The synthetic register classes inherit most of their properties form their
closest user-defined super-class.</li>
<li><code>MachineRegisterInfo</code> now allows the reserved registers to be
frozen when register allocation starts. Target hooks should use the
<code>MRI->canReserveReg(FramePtr)</code> method to avoid accidentally
disabling frame pointer elimination during register allocation.</li>
<li>A new kind of <code>MachineOperand</code> provides a compact
representation of large clobber lists on call instructions. The register
mask operand references a bit mask of preserved registers. Everything else
is clobbered.</li>
</ul>
<p> We added new TableGen infrastructure to support bundling for
Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architectures. TableGen can now
automatically generate a deterministic finite automaton from a VLIW
target's schedule description which can be queried to determine
legal groupings of instructions in a bundle.</p>
<p> We have added a new target independent VLIW packetizer based on the
DFA infrastructure to group machine instructions into bundles.</p>
</div>
<h4>
<a name="blockplacement">Basic Block Placement</a>
</h4>
<div>
<p>A probability based block placement and code layout algorithm was added to
LLVM's code generator. This layout pass supports probabilities derived from
static heuristics as well as source code annotations such as
<code>__builtin_expect</code>.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="x86">X86-32 and X86-64 Target Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>New features and major changes in the X86 target include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bug fixes and improved support for AVX1</li>
<li>Support for AVX2 (still incomplete at this point)</li>
<li>Call instructions use the new register mask operands for faster compile
times and better support for different calling conventions. The old WINCALL
instructions are no longer needed.</li>
<li>DW2 Exception Handling is enabled on Cygwin and MinGW.</li>
<li>Support for implicit TLS model used with MS VC runtime</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="ARM">ARM Target Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>New features of the ARM target include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The constant island pass now supports basic block and constant pool entry
alignments greater than 4 bytes.</li>
<li>On Darwin, the ARM target now has a full-featured integrated assembler.
</li>
</ul>
<h4>
<a name="armintegratedassembler">ARM Integrated Assembler</a>
</h4>
<div>
<p>The ARM target now includes a full featured macro assembler, including
direct-to-object module support for clang. The assembler is currently enabled
by default for Darwin only pending testing and any additional necessary
platform specific support for Linux.</p>
<p>Full support is included for Thumb1, Thumb2 and ARM modes, along with
subtarget and CPU specific extensions for VFP2, VFP3 and NEON.</p>
<p>The assembler is Unified Syntax only (see ARM Architecural Reference Manual
for details). While there is some, and growing, support for pre-unfied (divided)
syntax, there are still significant gaps in that support.</p>
</div>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="MIPS">MIPS Target Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>This release has seen major new work on just about every aspect of the MIPS
backend. Some of the major new features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="OtherTS">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>Support for Qualcomm's Hexagon VLIW processor has been added.</p>
<ul>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based on
LLVM 3.1, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
from the previous release.</p>
<ul>
<li>LLVM 3.1 removes support for reading LLVM 2.9 bitcode files. Going
forward, we aim for all future versions of LLVM to read bitcode files and
<tt>.ll</tt> files produced by LLVM 3.0 and later.</li>
<li>The <tt>unwind</tt> instruction is now gone. With the introduction of the
new exception handling system in LLVM 3.0, the <tt>unwind</tt> instruction
became obsolete.</li>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="api_changes">Internal API Changes</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major
LLVM API changes are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Target specific options have been moved from global variables to members
on the new <code>TargetOptions</code> class, which is local to each
<code>TargetMachine</code>. As a consequence, the associated flags will
no longer be accepted by <tt>clang -mllvm</tt>. This includes:
<ul>
<li><code>llvm::PrintMachineCode</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::NoFramePointerElim</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::NoFramePointerElimNonLeaf</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::DisableFramePointerElim(const MachineFunction &)</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::LessPreciseFPMADOption</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::LessPrecideFPMAD()</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::NoExcessFPPrecision</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::UnsafeFPMath</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::NoInfsFPMath</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::NoNaNsFPMath</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::HonorSignDependentRoundingFPMathOption</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::HonorSignDependentRoundingFPMath()</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::UseSoftFloat</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::FloatABIType</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::NoZerosInBSS</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::JITExceptionHandling</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::JITEmitDebugInfo</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::JITEmitDebugInfoToDisk</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::GuaranteedTailCallOpt</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::StackAlignmentOverride</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::RealignStack</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::DisableJumpTables</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::EnableFastISel</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::getTrapFunctionName()</code></li>
<li><code>llvm::EnableSegmentedStacks</code></li>
</ul></li>
<li>The MDBuilder class has been added to simplify the creation of
metadata.</li>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="tools_changes">Tools Changes</a>
</h3>
<div>
<p>In addition, some tools have changed in this release. Some of the changes
are:</p>
<ul>
<li>llvm-stress is a command line tool for generating random .ll files to fuzz
different LLVM components. </li>
<li>llvm-ld has been removed. Use llvm-link or Clang instead.</li>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>....</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
<a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div>
<p>LLVM is generally a production quality compiler, and is used by a broad range
of applications and shipping in many products. That said, not every
subsystem is as mature as the aggregate, particularly the more obscure
targets. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
there isn't already one or ask on the <a
href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev
list</a>.</p>
<p>Known problem areas include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Alpha, Blackfin, CellSPU, MSP430, PTX, SystemZ and
XCore backends are experimental, and the Alpha, Blackfin and SystemZ
targets have already been removed from mainline.</li>
<li>The integrated assembler, disassembler, and JIT is not supported by
several targets. If an integrated assembler is not supported, then a
system assembler is required. For more details, see the <a
href="CodeGenerator.html#targetfeatures">Target Features Matrix</a>.
</li>
<li>The C backend has numerous problems and is not being actively maintained.
Depending on it for anything serious is not advised.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
<a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div>
<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on
the <a 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>
<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing lists</a>.</p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<hr>
<address>
<a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"><img
src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss-blue" alt="Valid CSS"></a>
<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401-blue" alt="Valid HTML 4.01"></a>
<a href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Last modified: $Date$
</address>
</body>
</html>
|
