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<head>
+ <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>The LLVM Target-Independent Code Generator</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_future">Future directions for the
SelectionDAG</a></li>
</ul></li>
+ <li><a href="#liveintervals">Live Intervals</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#livevariable_analysis">Live Variable Analysis</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#liveintervals_analysis">Live Intervals Analysis</a></li>
+ </ul></li>
+ <li><a href="#regalloc">Register Allocation</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#regAlloc_represent">How registers are represented in
+ LLVM</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#regAlloc_howTo">Mapping virtual registers to physical
+ registers</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#regAlloc_twoAddr">Handling two address instructions</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#regAlloc_ssaDecon">The SSA deconstruction phase</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#regAlloc_fold">Instruction folding</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#regAlloc_builtIn">Built in register allocators</a></li>
+ </ul></li>
<li><a href="#codeemit">Code Emission</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#codeemit_asm">Generating Assembly Code</a></li>
<li><a href="#targetimpls">Target-specific Implementation Notes</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#x86">The X86 backend</a></li>
- </ul>
- </li>
+ <li><a href="#ppc">The PowerPC backend</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#ppc_abi">LLVM PowerPC ABI</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ppc_frame">Frame Layout</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ppc_prolog">Prolog/Epilog</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ppc_dynamic">Dynamic Allocation</a></li>
+ </ul></li>
+ </ul></li>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">
- <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a> &
- <a href="mailto:isanbard@gmail.com">Bill Wendling</a></p>
+ <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>,
+ <a href="mailto:isanbard@gmail.com">Bill Wendling</a>,
+ <a href="mailto:pronesto@gmail.com">Fernando Magno Quintao
+ Pereira</a> and
+ <a href="mailto:jlaskey@mac.com">Jim Laskey</a></p>
</div>
<div class="doc_warning">
<li>the type to use for shift amounts</li>
<li>various high-level characteristics, like whether it is profitable to turn
division by a constant into a multiplication sequence</li>
-</ol>
+</ul>
</div>
fragment can match multiple different patterns.</li>
<li>We don't automatically infer flags like isStore/isLoad yet.</li>
<li>We don't automatically generate the set of supported registers and
- operations for the <a href="#"selectiondag_legalize>Legalizer</a> yet.</li>
+ operations for the <a href="#selectiondag_legalize">Legalizer</a> yet.</li>
<li>We don't have a way of tying in custom legalized nodes yet.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>Optional function-at-a-time selection.</li>
<li>Auto-generate entire selector from <tt>.td</tt> file.</li>
-</li>
</ol>
</div>
<a name="ssamco">SSA-based Machine Code Optimizations</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text"><p>To Be Written</p></div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="liveintervals">Live Intervals</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>Live Intervals are the ranges (intervals) where a variable is <i>live</i>.
+They are used by some <a href="#regalloc">register allocator</a> passes to
+determine if two or more virtual registers which require the same physical
+register are live at the same point in the program (i.e., they conflict). When
+this situation occurs, one virtual register must be <i>spilled</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="livevariable_analysis">Live Variable Analysis</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The first step in determining the live intervals of variables is to
+calculate the set of registers that are immediately dead after the
+instruction (i.e., the instruction calculates the value, but it is
+never used) and the set of registers that are used by the instruction,
+but are never used after the instruction (i.e., they are killed). Live
+variable information is computed for each <i>virtual</i> register and
+<i>register allocatable</i> physical register in the function. This
+is done in a very efficient manner because it uses SSA to sparsely
+compute lifetime information for virtual registers (which are in SSA
+form) and only has to track physical registers within a block. Before
+register allocation, LLVM can assume that physical registers are only
+live within a single basic block. This allows it to do a single,
+local analysis to resolve physical register lifetimes within each
+basic block. If a physical register is not register allocatable (e.g.,
+a stack pointer or condition codes), it is not tracked.</p>
+
+<p>Physical registers may be live in to or out of a function. Live in values
+are typically arguments in registers. Live out values are typically return
+values in registers. Live in values are marked as such, and are given a dummy
+"defining" instruction during live intervals analysis. If the last basic block
+of a function is a <tt>return</tt>, then it's marked as using all live out
+values in the function.</p>
+
+<p><tt>PHI</tt> nodes need to be handled specially, because the calculation
+of the live variable information from a depth first traversal of the CFG of
+the function won't guarantee that a virtual register used by the <tt>PHI</tt>
+node is defined before it's used. When a <tt>PHI</tt> node is encounted, only
+the definition is handled, because the uses will be handled in other basic
+blocks.</p>
+
+<p>For each <tt>PHI</tt> node of the current basic block, we simulate an
+assignment at the end of the current basic block and traverse the successor
+basic blocks. If a successor basic block has a <tt>PHI</tt> node and one of
+the <tt>PHI</tt> node's operands is coming from the current basic block,
+then the variable is marked as <i>alive</i> within the current basic block
+and all of its predecessor basic blocks, until the basic block with the
+defining instruction is encountered.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="liveintervals_analysis">Live Intervals Analysis</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>We now have the information available to perform the live intervals analysis
+and build the live intervals themselves. We start off by numbering the basic
+blocks and machine instructions. We then handle the "live-in" values. These
+are in physical registers, so the physical register is assumed to be killed by
+the end of the basic block. Live intervals for virtual registers are computed
+for some ordering of the machine instructions <tt>[1, N]</tt>. A live interval
+is an interval <tt>[i, j)</tt>, where <tt>1 <= i <= j < N</tt>, for which a
+variable is live.</p>
+
+<p><i><b>More to come...</b></i></p>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="regalloc">Register Allocation</a>
</div>
-<div class="doc_text"><p>To Be Written</p></div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The <i>Register Allocation problem</i> consists in mapping a program
+<i>P<sub>v</sub></i>, that can use an unbounded number of virtual
+registers, to a program <i>P<sub>p</sub></i> that contains a finite
+(possibly small) number of physical registers. Each target architecture has
+a different number of physical registers. If the number of physical
+registers is not enough to accommodate all the virtual registers, some of
+them will have to be mapped into memory. These virtuals are called
+<i>spilled virtuals</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="regAlloc_represent">How registers are represented in LLVM</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>In LLVM, physical registers are denoted by integer numbers that
+normally range from 1 to 1023. To see how this numbering is defined
+for a particular architecture, you can read the
+<tt>GenRegisterNames.inc</tt> file for that architecture. For
+instance, by inspecting
+<tt>lib/Target/X86/X86GenRegisterNames.inc</tt> we see that the 32-bit
+register <tt>EAX</tt> is denoted by 15, and the MMX register
+<tt>MM0</tt> is mapped to 48.</p>
+
+<p>Some architectures contain registers that share the same physical
+location. A notable example is the X86 platform. For instance, in the
+X86 architecture, the registers <tt>EAX</tt>, <tt>AX</tt> and
+<tt>AL</tt> share the first eight bits. These physical registers are
+marked as <i>aliased</i> in LLVM. Given a particular architecture, you
+can check which registers are aliased by inspecting its
+<tt>RegisterInfo.td</tt> file. Moreover, the method
+<tt>MRegisterInfo::getAliasSet(p_reg)</tt> returns an array containing
+all the physical registers aliased to the register <tt>p_reg</tt>.</p>
+
+<p>Physical registers, in LLVM, are grouped in <i>Register Classes</i>.
+Elements in the same register class are functionally equivalent, and can
+be interchangeably used. Each virtual register can only be mapped to
+physical registers of a particular class. For instance, in the X86
+architecture, some virtuals can only be allocated to 8 bit registers.
+A register class is described by <tt>TargetRegisterClass</tt> objects.
+To discover if a virtual register is compatible with a given physical,
+this code can be used:
+</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+bool RegMapping_Fer::compatible_class(MachineFunction &mf,
+ unsigned v_reg,
+ unsigned p_reg) {
+ assert(MRegisterInfo::isPhysicalRegister(p_reg) &&
+ "Target register must be physical");
+ const TargetRegisterClass *trc = mf.getSSARegMap()->getRegClass(v_reg);
+ return trc->contains(p_reg);
+}
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sometimes, mostly for debugging purposes, it is useful to change
+the number of physical registers available in the target
+architecture. This must be done statically, inside the
+<tt>TargetRegsterInfo.td</tt> file. Just <tt>grep</tt> for
+<tt>RegisterClass</tt>, the last parameter of which is a list of
+registers. Just commenting some out is one simple way to avoid them
+being used. A more polite way is to explicitly exclude some registers
+from the <i>allocation order</i>. See the definition of the
+<tt>GR</tt> register class in
+<tt>lib/Target/IA64/IA64RegisterInfo.td</tt> for an example of this
+(e.g., <tt>numReservedRegs</tt> registers are hidden.)</p>
+
+<p>Virtual registers are also denoted by integer numbers. Contrary to
+physical registers, different virtual registers never share the same
+number. The smallest virtual register is normally assigned the number
+1024. This may change, so, in order to know which is the first virtual
+register, you should access
+<tt>MRegisterInfo::FirstVirtualRegister</tt>. Any register whose
+number is greater than or equal to
+<tt>MRegisterInfo::FirstVirtualRegister</tt> is considered a virtual
+register. Whereas physical registers are statically defined in a
+<tt>TargetRegisterInfo.td</tt> file and cannot be created by the
+application developer, that is not the case with virtual registers.
+In order to create new virtual registers, use the method
+<tt>SSARegMap::createVirtualRegister()</tt>. This method will return a
+virtual register with the highest code.
+</p>
+
+<p>Before register allocation, the operands of an instruction are
+mostly virtual registers, although physical registers may also be
+used. In order to check if a given machine operand is a register, use
+the boolean function <tt>MachineOperand::isRegister()</tt>. To obtain
+the integer code of a register, use
+<tt>MachineOperand::getReg()</tt>. An instruction may define or use a
+register. For instance, <tt>ADD reg:1026 := reg:1025 reg:1024</tt>
+defines the registers 1024, and uses registers 1025 and 1026. Given a
+register operand, the method <tt>MachineOperand::isUse()</tt> informs
+if that register is being used by the instruction. The method
+<tt>MachineOperand::isDef()</tt> informs if that registers is being
+defined.</p>
+
+<p>We will call physical registers present in the LLVM bitcode before
+register allocation <i>pre-colored registers</i>. Pre-colored
+registers are used in many different situations, for instance, to pass
+parameters of functions calls, and to store results of particular
+instructions. There are two types of pre-colored registers: the ones
+<i>implicitly</i> defined, and those <i>explicitly</i>
+defined. Explicitly defined registers are normal operands, and can be
+accessed with <tt>MachineInstr::getOperand(int)::getReg()</tt>. In
+order to check which registers are implicitly defined by an
+instruction, use the
+<tt>TargetInstrInfo::get(opcode)::ImplicitDefs</tt>, where
+<tt>opcode</tt> is the opcode of the target instruction. One important
+difference between explicit and implicit physical registers is that
+the latter are defined statically for each instruction, whereas the
+former may vary depending on the program being compiled. For example,
+an instruction that represents a function call will always implicitly
+define or use the same set of physical registers. To read the
+registers implicitly used by an instruction, use
+<tt>TargetInstrInfo::get(opcode)::ImplicitUses</tt>. Pre-colored
+registers impose constraints on any register allocation algorithm. The
+register allocator must make sure that none of them is been
+overwritten by the values of virtual registers while still alive.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="regAlloc_howTo">Mapping virtual registers to physical registers</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>There are two ways to map virtual registers to physical registers (or to
+memory slots). The first way, that we will call <i>direct mapping</i>,
+is based on the use of methods of the classes <tt>MRegisterInfo</tt>,
+and <tt>MachineOperand</tt>. The second way, that we will call
+<i>indirect mapping</i>, relies on the <tt>VirtRegMap</tt> class in
+order to insert loads and stores sending and getting values to and from
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>The direct mapping provides more flexibility to the developer of
+the register allocator; however, it is more error prone, and demands
+more implementation work. Basically, the programmer will have to
+specify where load and store instructions should be inserted in the
+target function being compiled in order to get and store values in
+memory. To assign a physical register to a virtual register present in
+a given operand, use <tt>MachineOperand::setReg(p_reg)</tt>. To insert
+a store instruction, use
+<tt>MRegisterInfo::storeRegToStackSlot(...)</tt>, and to insert a load
+instruction, use <tt>MRegisterInfo::loadRegFromStackSlot</tt>.</p>
+
+<p>The indirect mapping shields the application developer from the
+complexities of inserting load and store instructions. In order to map
+a virtual register to a physical one, use
+<tt>VirtRegMap::assignVirt2Phys(vreg, preg)</tt>. In order to map a
+certain virtual register to memory, use
+<tt>VirtRegMap::assignVirt2StackSlot(vreg)</tt>. This method will
+return the stack slot where <tt>vreg</tt>'s value will be located. If
+it is necessary to map another virtual register to the same stack
+slot, use <tt>VirtRegMap::assignVirt2StackSlot(vreg,
+stack_location)</tt>. One important point to consider when using the
+indirect mapping, is that even if a virtual register is mapped to
+memory, it still needs to be mapped to a physical register. This
+physical register is the location where the virtual register is
+supposed to be found before being stored or after being reloaded.</p>
+
+<p>If the indirect strategy is used, after all the virtual registers
+have been mapped to physical registers or stack slots, it is necessary
+to use a spiller object to place load and store instructions in the
+code. Every virtual that has been mapped to a stack slot will be
+stored to memory after been defined and will be loaded before being
+used. The implementation of the spiller tries to recycle load/store
+instructions, avoiding unnecessary instructions. For an example of how
+to invoke the spiller, see
+<tt>RegAllocLinearScan::runOnMachineFunction</tt> in
+<tt>lib/CodeGen/RegAllocLinearScan.cpp</tt>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="regAlloc_twoAddr">Handling two address instructions</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>With very rare exceptions (e.g., function calls), the LLVM machine
+code instructions are three address instructions. That is, each
+instruction is expected to define at most one register, and to use at
+most two registers. However, some architectures use two address
+instructions. In this case, the defined register is also one of the
+used register. For instance, an instruction such as <tt>ADD %EAX,
+%EBX</tt>, in X86 is actually equivalent to <tt>%EAX = %EAX +
+%EBX</tt>.</p>
+
+<p>In order to produce correct code, LLVM must convert three address
+instructions that represent two address instructions into true two
+address instructions. LLVM provides the pass
+<tt>TwoAddressInstructionPass</tt> for this specific purpose. It must
+be run before register allocation takes place. After its execution,
+the resulting code may no longer be in SSA form. This happens, for
+instance, in situations where an instruction such as <tt>%a = ADD %b
+%c</tt> is converted to two instructions such as:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+%a = MOVE %b
+%a = ADD %a %b
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>Notice that, internally, the second instruction is represented as
+<tt>ADD %a[def/use] %b</tt>. I.e., the register operand <tt>%a</tt> is
+both used and defined by the instruction.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="regAlloc_ssaDecon">The SSA deconstruction phase</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>An important transformation that happens during register allocation is called
+the <i>SSA Deconstruction Phase</i>. The SSA form simplifies many
+analyses that are performed on the control flow graph of
+programs. However, traditional instruction sets do not implement
+PHI instructions. Thus, in order to generate executable code, compilers
+must replace PHI instructions with other instructions that preserve their
+semantics.</p>
+
+<p>There are many ways in which PHI instructions can safely be removed
+from the target code. The most traditional PHI deconstruction
+algorithm replaces PHI instructions with copy instructions. That is
+the strategy adopted by LLVM. The SSA deconstruction algorithm is
+implemented in n<tt>lib/CodeGen/>PHIElimination.cpp</tt>. In order to
+invoke this pass, the identifier <tt>PHIEliminationID</tt> must be
+marked as required in the code of the register allocator.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="regAlloc_fold">Instruction folding</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p><i>Instruction folding</i> is an optimization performed during
+register allocation that removes unnecessary copy instructions. For
+instance, a sequence of instructions such as:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+%EBX = LOAD %mem_address
+%EAX = COPY %EBX
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>can be safely substituted by the single instruction:
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+%EAX = LOAD %mem_address
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>Instructions can be folded with the
+<tt>MRegisterInfo::foldMemoryOperand(...)</tt> method. Care must be
+taken when folding instructions; a folded instruction can be quite
+different from the original instruction. See
+<tt>LiveIntervals::addIntervalsForSpills</tt> in
+<tt>lib/CodeGen/LiveIntervalAnalysis.cpp</tt> for an example of its use.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="regAlloc_builtIn">Built in register allocators</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The LLVM infrastructure provides the application developer with
+three different register allocators:</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li><i>Simple</i> - This is a very simple implementation that does
+ not keep values in registers across instructions. This register
+ allocator immediately spills every value right after it is
+ computed, and reloads all used operands from memory to temporary
+ registers before each instruction.</li>
+ <li><i>Local</i> - This register allocator is an improvement on the
+ <i>Simple</i> implementation. It allocates registers on a basic
+ block level, attempting to keep values in registers and reusing
+ registers as appropriate.</li>
+ <li><i>Linear Scan</i> - <i>The default allocator</i>. This is the
+ well-know linear scan register allocator. Whereas the
+ <i>Simple</i> and <i>Local</i> algorithms use a direct mapping
+ implementation technique, the <i>Linear Scan</i> implementation
+ uses a spiller in order to place load and stores.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>The type of register allocator used in <tt>llc</tt> can be chosen with the
+command line option <tt>-regalloc=...</tt>:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+$ llc -f -regalloc=simple file.bc -o sp.s;
+$ llc -f -regalloc=local file.bc -o lc.s;
+$ llc -f -regalloc=linearscan file.bc -o ln.s;
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="proepicode">Prolog/Epilog Code Insertion</a>
<li><b>i386-unknown-freebsd5.3</b> - FreeBSD 5.3</li>
<li><b>i686-pc-cygwin</b> - Cygwin on Win32</li>
<li><b>i686-pc-mingw32</b> - MingW on Win32</li>
+<li><b>i386-pc-mingw32msvc</b> - MingW crosscompiler on Linux</li>
<li><b>i686-apple-darwin*</b> - Apple Darwin on X86</li>
</ul>
</div>
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="x86_cc">X86 Calling Conventions supported</a>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The folowing target-specific calling conventions are known to backend:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><b>x86_StdCall</b> - stdcall calling convention seen on Microsoft Windows
+platform (CC ID = 64).</li>
+<li><b>x86_FastCall</b> - fastcall calling convention seen on Microsoft Windows
+platform (CC ID = 65).</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
<a name="x86_memory">Representing X86 addressing modes in MachineInstrs</a>
</div>
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="ppc">The PowerPC backend</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The PowerPC code generator lives in the lib/Target/PowerPC directory. The
+code generation is retargetable to several variations or <i>subtargets</i> of
+the PowerPC ISA; including ppc32, ppc64 and altivec.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="ppc_abi">LLVM PowerPC ABI</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>LLVM follows the AIX PowerPC ABI, with two deviations. LLVM uses a PC
+relative (PIC) or static addressing for accessing global values, so no TOC (r2)
+is used. Second, r31 is used as a frame pointer to allow dynamic growth of a
+stack frame. LLVM takes advantage of having no TOC to provide space to save
+the frame pointer in the PowerPC linkage area of the caller frame. Other
+details of PowerPC ABI can be found at <a href=
+"http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/LowLevelABI/Articles/32bitPowerPC.html"
+>PowerPC ABI.</a> Note: This link describes the 32 bit ABI. The
+64 bit ABI is similar except space for GPRs are 8 bytes wide (not 4) and r13 is
+reserved for system use.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="ppc_frame">Frame Layout</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The size of a PowerPC frame is usually fixed for the duration of a
+function’s invocation. Since the frame is fixed size, all references into
+the frame can be accessed via fixed offsets from the stack pointer. The
+exception to this is when dynamic alloca or variable sized arrays are present,
+then a base pointer (r31) is used as a proxy for the stack pointer and stack
+pointer is free to grow or shrink. A base pointer is also used if llvm-gcc is
+not passed the -fomit-frame-pointer flag. The stack pointer is always aligned to
+16 bytes, so that space allocated for altivec vectors will be properly
+aligned.</p>
+<p>An invocation frame is layed out as follows (low memory at top);</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<table class="layout">
+ <tr>
+ <td>Linkage<br><br></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Parameter area<br><br></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Dynamic area<br><br></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Locals area<br><br></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Saved registers area<br><br></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr style="border-style: none hidden none hidden;">
+ <td><br></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Previous Frame<br><br></td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The <i>linkage</i> area is used by a callee to save special registers prior
+to allocating its own frame. Only three entries are relevant to LLVM. The
+first entry is the previous stack pointer (sp), aka link. This allows probing
+tools like gdb or exception handlers to quickly scan the frames in the stack. A
+function epilog can also use the link to pop the frame from the stack. The
+third entry in the linkage area is used to save the return address from the lr
+register. Finally, as mentioned above, the last entry is used to save the
+previous frame pointer (r31.) The entries in the linkage area are the size of a
+GPR, thus the linkage area is 24 bytes long in 32 bit mode and 48 bytes in 64
+bit mode.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>32 bit linkage area</p>
+<table class="layout">
+ <tr>
+ <td>0</td>
+ <td>Saved SP (r1)</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>4</td>
+ <td>Saved CR</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>8</td>
+ <td>Saved LR</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>12</td>
+ <td>Reserved</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>16</td>
+ <td>Reserved</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>20</td>
+ <td>Saved FP (r31)</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>64 bit linkage area</p>
+<table class="layout">
+ <tr>
+ <td>0</td>
+ <td>Saved SP (r1)</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>8</td>
+ <td>Saved CR</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>16</td>
+ <td>Saved LR</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>24</td>
+ <td>Reserved</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>32</td>
+ <td>Reserved</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>40</td>
+ <td>Saved FP (r31)</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The <i>parameter area</i> is used to store arguments being passed to a callee
+function. Following the PowerPC ABI, the first few arguments are actually
+passed in registers, with the space in the parameter area unused. However, if
+there are not enough registers or the callee is a thunk or vararg function,
+these register arguments can be spilled into the parameter area. Thus, the
+parameter area must be large enough to store all the parameters for the largest
+call sequence made by the caller. The size must also be mimimally large enough
+to spill registers r3-r10. This allows callees blind to the call signature,
+such as thunks and vararg functions, enough space to cache the argument
+registers. Therefore, the parameter area is minimally 32 bytes (64 bytes in 64
+bit mode.) Also note that since the parameter area is a fixed offset from the
+top of the frame, that a callee can access its spilt arguments using fixed
+offsets from the stack pointer (or base pointer.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>Combining the information about the linkage, parameter areas and alignment. A
+stack frame is minimally 64 bytes in 32 bit mode and 128 bytes in 64 bit
+mode.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The <i>dynamic area</i> starts out as size zero. If a function uses dynamic
+alloca then space is added to the stack, the linkage and parameter areas are
+shifted to top of stack, and the new space is available immediately below the
+linkage and parameter areas. The cost of shifting the linkage and parameter
+areas is minor since only the link value needs to be copied. The link value can
+be easily fetched by adding the original frame size to the base pointer. Note
+that allocations in the dynamic space need to observe 16 byte aligment.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The <i>locals area</i> is where the llvm compiler reserves space for local
+variables.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The <i>saved registers area</i> is where the llvm compiler spills callee saved
+registers on entry to the callee.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="ppc_prolog">Prolog/Epilog</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>The llvm prolog and epilog are the same as described in the PowerPC ABI, with
+the following exceptions. Callee saved registers are spilled after the frame is
+created. This allows the llvm epilog/prolog support to be common with other
+targets. The base pointer callee saved register r31 is saved in the TOC slot of
+linkage area. This simplifies allocation of space for the base pointer and
+makes it convenient to locate programatically and during debugging.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="ppc_dynamic">Dynamic Allocation</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p><i>TODO - More to come.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
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<address>
projects / oota-llvm.git / blobdiff