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5 <title>LLVM Test Suite Guide</title>
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10 <div class="doc_title">
15 <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
16 <li><a href="#Requirements">Requirements</a></li>
17 <li><a href="#quick">Quick Start</a></li>
18 <li><a href="#org">LLVM Test Suite Organization</a>
20 <li><a href="#codefragments">Code Fragments</a></li>
21 <li><a href="#wholeprograms">Whole Programs</a></li>
23 <li><a href="#tree">LLVM Test Suite Tree</a></li>
24 <li><a href="#qmstructure">QMTest Structure</a></li>
25 <li><a href="#progstructure">Programs Structure</a></li>
26 <li><a href="#run">Running the LLVM Tests</a></li>
27 <li><a href="#nightly">Running the nightly tester</a></li>
30 <div class="doc_author">
31 <p>Written by John T. Criswell</p>
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35 <div class="doc_section"><a name="overview">Overview</a></div>
36 <!--===============================================================-->
38 <div class="doc_text">
40 <p>This document is the reference manual for the LLVM test suite. It documents
41 the structure of the LLVM test suite, the tools needed to use it, and how to add
46 <!--===============================================================-->
47 <div class="doc_section"><a name="Requirements">Requirements</a></div>
48 <!--===============================================================-->
50 <div class="doc_text">
52 <p>In order to use the LLVM test suite, you will need all of the software
53 required to build LLVM, plus the following:</p>
56 <dt><a href="http://www.qmtest.com">QMTest</A></dt>
57 <dd>The LLVM test suite uses QMTest to organize and run tests. <b>Note:
58 you will need <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/qm-2.0.3.tar.gz">QMTest
59 2.0.3 (source tar.gz file)</a> to be successful. The tests do not run with
60 any other version.</b></dd>
62 <dt><a href="http://www.python.org">Python</A></dt>
63 <dd>You will need a Python interpreter that works with QMTest. Python will
64 need zlib and SAX support enabled.</dd>
69 <!--===============================================================-->
70 <div class="doc_section"><a name="quick">Quick Start</a></div>
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73 <div class="doc_text">
75 <p> The tests are located in the LLVM source tree under the directory
76 <tt>llvm/test</tt>. To run all of the tests in LLVM, use the Master Makefile in
83 <p>To run only the code fragment tests (i.e. those that do basic testing of
84 LLVM), run the tests organized by QMTest:</p>
87 % gmake -C llvm/test qmtest
90 <p>To run only the tests that compile and execute whole programs, run the
94 % gmake -C llvm/test/Programs
99 <!--===============================================================-->
100 <div class="doc_section"><a name="org">LLVM Test Suite Organization</a></div>
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103 <div class="doc_text">
105 <p>The LLVM test suite contains two major categories of tests: code
106 fragments and whole programs.</p>
110 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="codefragments">Code Fragments</a>
113 <div class="doc_text">
115 <p>Code fragments are small pieces of code that test a specific feature of LLVM
116 or trigger a specific bug in LLVM. They are usually written in LLVM assembly
117 language, but can be written in other languages if the test targets a particular
118 language front end.</p>
120 <p>Code fragments are not complete programs, and they are never executed to
121 determine correct behavior.</p>
123 <p>The tests in the Features and Regression directories contain code
128 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="wholeprograms">Whole Programs</a></div>
130 <div class="doc_text">
132 <p>Whole Programs are pieces of code which can be compiled and linked into a
133 stand-alone program that can be executed. These programs are generally written
134 in high level languages such as C or C++, but sometimes they are written
135 straight in LLVM assembly.</p>
137 <p>These programs are compiled and then executed using several different
138 methods (native compiler, LLVM C backend, LLVM JIT, LLVM native code generation,
139 etc). The output of these programs is compared to ensure that LLVM is compiling
140 the program correctly.</p>
142 <p>In addition to compiling and executing programs, whole program tests serve as
143 a way of benchmarking LLVM performance, both in terms of the efficiency of the
144 programs generated as well as the speed with which LLVM compiles, optimizes, and
147 <p>The Programs directory contains all tests which compile and benchmark whole
152 <!--===============================================================-->
153 <div class="doc_section"><a name="tree">LLVM Test Suite Tree</a></div>
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156 <div class="doc_text">
158 <p>Each type of test in the LLVM test suite has its own directory. The major
159 subtrees of the test suite directory tree are as follows:</p>
163 <p>This directory contains sample codes that test various features of the
164 LLVM language. These pieces of sample code are run through various
165 assembler, disassembler, and optimizer passes.</p>
168 <p>This directory contains regression tests for LLVM. When a bug is found
169 in LLVM, a regression test containing just enough code to reproduce the
170 problem should be written and placed somewhere underneath this directory.
171 In most cases, this will be a small piece of LLVM assembly language code,
172 often distilled from an actual application or benchmark.</p>
175 <p>The Programs directory contains programs that can be compiled with LLVM
176 and executed. These programs are compiled using the native compiler and
177 various LLVM backends. The output from the program compiled with the native
178 compiler is assumed correct; the results from the other programs are
179 compared to the native program output and pass if they match. </p>
181 <p> In addition for testing correctness, the Programs directory also
182 performs timing tests of various LLVM optimizations. It also records
183 compilation times for the compilers and the JIT. This information can be
184 used to compare the effectiveness of LLVM's optimizations and code
187 <p>The Programs directory is subdivided into several smaller subdirectories:
191 <li>Programs/SingleSource
192 <p>The SingleSource directory contains test programs that are only a
193 single source file in size. These are usually small benchmark programs
194 or small programs that calculate a particular value. Several such
195 programs are grouped together in each directory.</p></li>
197 <li>Programs/MultiSource
198 <p>The MultiSource directory contains subdirectories which contain
199 entire programs with multiple source files. Large benchmarks and whole
200 applications go here.</p></li>
202 <li>Programs/External
203 <p>The External directory contains Makefiles for building code that is
204 external to (i.e. not distributed with) LLVM. The most prominent member
205 of this directory is the SPEC 2000 benchmark suite. The presence and
206 location of these external programs is configured by the LLVM
207 <tt>configure</tt> script.</p></li>
212 <p>This directory contains the QMTest information files. Inside this
213 directory are QMTest administration files and the Python code that
214 implements the LLVM test and database classes.</p>
220 <!--===============================================================-->
221 <div class="doc_section"><a name="qmstructure">QMTest Structure</a></div>
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224 <div class="doc_text">
226 <p>The LLVM test suite is partially driven by QMTest and partially
227 driven by GNU Make. Specifically, the Features and Regression tests
228 are all driven by QMTest. The Programs directory is currently
229 driven by a set of Makefiles.</p>
231 <p>The QMTest system needs to have several pieces of information
232 available; these pieces of configuration information are known
233 collectively as the "context" in QMTest parlance. Since the context
234 for LLVM is relatively large, the master Makefile in llvm/test
237 <p>The LLVM database class makes the subdirectories of llvm/test a
238 QMTest test database. For each directory that contains tests driven by
239 QMTest, it knows what type of test the source file is and how to run it.</p>
241 <p>Hence, the QMTest namespace is essentially what you see in the
242 Feature and Regression directories, but there is some magic that
243 the database class performs (as described below).</p>
245 <p>The QMTest namespace is currently composed of the following tests and test
251 These are the feature tests found in the Feature directory.
252 They are broken up into the following categories:
256 <p>Assembler/Disassembler tests. These tests verify that a piece of LLVM
257 assembly language can be assembled into bytecode and then disassembled
258 into the original assembly language code. It does this several times to
259 ensure that assembled output can be disassembled and disassembler output
260 can be assembled. It also verifies that the give assembly language file
261 can be assembled correctly.</p></li>
264 <p>Optimizer tests. These tests verify that two of the optimizer passes
265 completely optimize a program (i.e. after a single pass, they cannot
266 optimize a program any further).</p></li>
269 <p> Machine code tests. These tests verify that the LLVM assembly
270 language file can be translated into native assembly code.</p></li>
273 <p>C code tests. These tests verify that the specified LLVM assembly
274 code can be converted into C source code using the C backend.</p></li>
277 <p>The LLVM database class looks at every file in the Feature directory and
278 creates a fake test hierarchy containing
279 <tt>Feature.<testtype>.<testname></tt>. So, if you add an LLVM
280 assembly language file to the Feature directory, it actually creates 5 new
281 tests: assembler/disassembler, assembler, optimizer, machine code, and C code.
285 <p>These are the regression tests. There is one suite for each
286 subdirectory of the Regression directory. If you add a new subdirectory
287 there, you will need to modify, at least, the <tt>RegressionMap</tt>
288 variable in <tt>QMTest/llvmdb.py</tt> so that QMTest knows how to run the
289 tests in the new subdirectory.</p>
295 <!--===============================================================-->
296 <div class="doc_section"><a name="progstructure">Programs Structure</a></div>
297 <!--===============================================================-->
299 <div class="doc_text">
301 <p>As mentioned previously, the Programs tree in llvm/test provides three types
302 of tests: MultiSource, SingleSource, and External. Each tree is then subdivided
303 into several categories, including applications, benchmarks, regression tests,
304 code that is strange grammatically, etc. These organizations should be
305 relatively self explanatory.</p>
307 <p>In addition to the regular Programs tests, the Programs tree also provides a
308 mechanism for compiling the programs in different ways. If the variable TEST is
309 defined on the gmake command line, the test system will include a Makefile named
310 <tt>TEST.<value of TEST variable>.Makefile</tt>. This Makefile can modify
311 build rules to yield different results.</p>
313 <p>For example, the LLVM nightly tester uses <tt>TEST.nightly.Makefile</tt> to
314 create the nightly test reports. To run the nightly tests, run <tt>gmake
315 TEST=nightly</tt>.</p>
317 <p>There are several TEST Makefiles available in the tree. Some of them are
318 designed for internal LLVM research and will not work outside of the LLVM
319 research group. They may still be valuable, however, as a guide to writing your
320 own TEST Makefile for any optimization or analysis passes that you develop with
325 <!--===============================================================-->
326 <div class="doc_section"><a name="run">Running the LLVM Tests</a></div>
327 <!--===============================================================-->
329 <div class="doc_text">
331 <p>First, all tests are executed within the LLVM object directory tree. They
332 <i>are not</i> executed inside of the LLVM source tree. This is because the
333 test suite creates temporary files during execution. </p>
335 <p>The master Makefile in llvm/test is capable of running both the QMTest driven
336 tests and the Programs tests. By default, it will run all of the tests.</p>
338 <p>To run only the QMTest driven tests, run <tt>gmake qmtest</tt> at the
339 command line in llvm/tests. To run a specific qmtest, suffix the test name with
340 ".t" when running gmake.</p>
342 <p>For example, to run the Regression.LLC tests, type <tt>gmake
343 Regression.LLC.t</tt> in llvm/tests.</p>
345 <p>Note that the Makefiles in llvm/test/Features and llvm/test/Regression are
346 gone. You must now use QMTest from the llvm/test directory to run them.</p>
348 <p>To run the Programs test, cd into the llvm/test/Programs directory and type
349 <tt>gmake</tt>. Alternatively, you can type <tt>gmake TEST=<type>
350 test</tt> to run one of the specialized tests in
351 llvm/test/Programs/TEST.<type>.Makefile. For example, you could run the
352 nightly tester tests using the following commands:</p>
355 % cd llvm/test/Programs
356 % gmake TEST=nightly test
359 <p>Regardless of which test you're running, the results are printed on standard
360 output and standard error. You can redirect these results to a file if you
363 <p>Some tests are known to fail. Some are bugs that we have not fixed yet;
364 others are features that we haven't added yet (or may never add). In QMTest,
365 the result for such tests will be XFAIL (eXpected FAILure). In this way, you
366 can tell the difference between an expected and unexpected failure.</p>
368 <p>The Programs tests have no such feature as of this time. If the test passes,
369 only warnings and other miscellaneous output will be generated. If a test
370 fails, a large <program> FAILED message will be displayed. This will help
371 you separate benign warnings from actual test failures.</p>
375 <!--===============================================================-->
376 <div class="doc_section"><a name="nightly">Running the nightly tester</a></div>
377 <!--===============================================================-->
379 <div class="doc_text">
382 The <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/testresults/">LLVM Nightly Testers</a>
383 automatically check out an LLVM tree, build it, run the "nightly"
384 program test (described above) and all of the regression tests, then
385 delete the checked out tree. This tester is designed to ensure that
386 programs don't break as well as keep track of LLVM's progress over time.</p>
389 If you'd like to set up an instance of the nightly tester to run on your
390 machine, take a look at the comments at the top of the utils/NightlyTester.pl
391 file. We usually run it from a crontab entry that looks ilke this:
395 5 3 * * * LLVM_LIB_SEARCH_PATH=.../llvm-gcc/bytecode-libs $HOME/llvm/utils/NightlyTest.pl -parallel -enable-linscan ...CVSREPOSTRING... $HOME/buildtest-X86 $HOME/cvs/testresults-X86
399 Take a look at the NightlyTest.pl file to see what all of the flags and
400 strings do. If you start running the nightly tests, please let us know and
401 we'll link your page to the global tester page. Thanks!
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