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+ <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="#introduction">Introduction</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#required">Required components in the code generator</a></li>
- <li><a href="#high-level-design">The high-level design of the code generator</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#high-level-design">The high-level design of the code
+ generator</a></li>
<li><a href="#tablegen">Using TableGen for target description</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#mregisterinfo">The <tt>MRegisterInfo</tt> class</a></li>
<li><a href="#targetinstrinfo">The <tt>TargetInstrInfo</tt> class</a></li>
<li><a href="#targetframeinfo">The <tt>TargetFrameInfo</tt> class</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#targetsubtarget">The <tt>TargetSubtarget</tt> class</a></li>
<li><a href="#targetjitinfo">The <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> class</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#codegendesc">Machine code description classes</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#machineinstr">The <tt>MachineInstr</tt> class</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#machinebasicblock">The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt>
+ class</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#machinefunction">The <tt>MachineFunction</tt> class</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#codegenalgs">Target-independent code generation algorithms</a>
Construction</a></li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_legalize">SelectionDAG Legalize Phase</a></li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">SelectionDAG Optimization
- Phase</a></li>
+ Phase: the DAG Combiner</a></li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_select">SelectionDAG Select Phase</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#selectiondag_sched">SelectionDAG Scheduling and Formation
+ Phase</a></li>
<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="#codeemit_bin">Generating Binary Machine Code</a></li>
+ </ul></li>
</ul>
</li>
- <li><a href="#targetimpls">Target description implementations</a>
+ <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></p>
+ <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>,
+ <a href="mailto:isanbard@gmail.com">Bill Wendling</a>, and
+ <a href="mailto:pronesto@gmail.com">Fernando Magno Quintao
+ Pereira</a></p>
</div>
<div class="doc_warning">
<p>The LLVM target-independent code generator is a framework that provides a
suite of reusable components for translating the LLVM internal representation to
-the machine code for a specified target -- either in assembly form (suitable for
-a static compiler) or in binary machine code format (usable for a JIT compiler).
-The LLVM target-independent code generator consists of five main components:</p>
+the machine code for a specified target—either in assembly form (suitable
+for a static compiler) or in binary machine code format (usable for a JIT
+compiler). The LLVM target-independent code generator consists of five main
+components:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="#targetdesc">Abstract target description</a> interfaces which
implement radically different code generators in the LLVM system that do not
make use of any of the built-in components. Doing so is not recommended at all,
but could be required for radically different targets that do not fit into the
-LLVM machine description model: programmable FPGAs for example.</p>
-
-<p><b>Important Note:</b> For historical reasons, the LLVM SparcV9 code
-generator uses almost entirely different code paths than described in this
-document. For this reason, there are some deprecated interfaces (such as
-<tt>TargetRegInfo</tt> and <tt>TargetSchedInfo</tt>), which are only used by the
-V9 backend and should not be used by any other targets. Also, all code in the
-<tt>lib/Target/SparcV9</tt> directory and subdirectories should be considered
-deprecated, and should not be used as the basis for future code generator work.
-The SparcV9 backend is slowly being merged into the rest of the
-target-independent code generators, but this is a low-priority process with no
-predictable completion date.</p>
+LLVM machine description model: FPGAs for example.</p>
</div>
generation in this model is divided into the following stages:</p>
<ol>
-<li><b><a href="#instselect">Instruction Selection</a></b> - Determining an
-efficient implementation of the input LLVM code in the target instruction set.
+<li><b><a href="#instselect">Instruction Selection</a></b> - This phase
+determines an efficient way to express the input LLVM code in the target
+instruction set.
This stage produces the initial code for the program in the target instruction
set, then makes use of virtual registers in SSA form and physical registers that
represent any required register assignments due to target constraints or calling
-conventions.</li>
+conventions. This step turns the LLVM code into a DAG of target
+instructions.</li>
+
+<li><b><a href="#selectiondag_sched">Scheduling and Formation</a></b> - This
+phase takes the DAG of target instructions produced by the instruction selection
+phase, determines an ordering of the instructions, then emits the instructions
+as <tt><a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a></tt>s with that ordering. Note
+that we describe this in the <a href="#instselect">instruction selection
+section</a> because it operates on a <a
+href="#selectiondag_intro">SelectionDAG</a>.
+</li>
<li><b><a href="#ssamco">SSA-based Machine Code Optimizations</a></b> - This
optional stage consists of a series of machine-code optimizations that
operate on the SSA-form produced by the instruction selector. Optimizations
-like modulo-scheduling, normal scheduling, or peephole optimization work here.
+like modulo-scheduling or peephole optimization work here.
</li>
-<li><b><a name="#regalloc">Register Allocation</a></b> - The
+<li><b><a href="#regalloc">Register Allocation</a></b> - The
target code is transformed from an infinite virtual register file in SSA form
to the concrete register file used by the target. This phase introduces spill
code and eliminates all virtual register references from the program.</li>
-<li><b><a name="#proepicode">Prolog/Epilog Code Insertion</a></b> - Once the
+<li><b><a href="#proepicode">Prolog/Epilog Code Insertion</a></b> - Once the
machine code has been generated for the function and the amount of stack space
required is known (used for LLVM alloca's and spill slots), the prolog and
epilog code for the function can be inserted and "abstract stack location
references" can be eliminated. This stage is responsible for implementing
optimizations like frame-pointer elimination and stack packing.</li>
-<li><b><a name="latemco">Late Machine Code Optimizations</a></b> - Optimizations
+<li><b><a href="#latemco">Late Machine Code Optimizations</a></b> - Optimizations
that operate on "final" machine code can go here, such as spill code scheduling
and peephole optimizations.</li>
-<li><b><a name="codemission">Code Emission</a></b> - The final stage actually
+<li><b><a href="#codeemit">Code Emission</a></b> - The final stage actually
puts out the code for the current function, either in the target assembler
format or in machine code.</li>
</ol>
-<p>
-The code generator is based on the assumption that the instruction selector will
-use an optimal pattern matching selector to create high-quality sequences of
+<p>The code generator is based on the assumption that the instruction selector
+will use an optimal pattern matching selector to create high-quality sequences of
native instructions. Alternative code generator designs based on pattern
-expansion and
-aggressive iterative peephole optimization are much slower. This design
-permits efficient compilation (important for JIT environments) and
+expansion and aggressive iterative peephole optimization are much slower. This
+design permits efficient compilation (important for JIT environments) and
aggressive optimization (used when generating code offline) by allowing
components of varying levels of sophistication to be used for any step of
compilation.</p>
-<p>
-In addition to these stages, target implementations can insert arbitrary
+<p>In addition to these stages, target implementations can insert arbitrary
target-specific passes into the flow. For example, the X86 target uses a
special pass to handle the 80x87 floating point stack architecture. Other
-targets with unusual requirements can be supported with custom passes as needed.
-</p>
+targets with unusual requirements can be supported with custom passes as
+needed.</p>
</div>
code generator uses the <a href="TableGenFundamentals.html">TableGen</a> tool to
describe big chunks of the target machine, which allows the use of
domain-specific and target-specific abstractions to reduce the amount of
-repetition.
-</p>
+repetition.</p>
+
+<p>As LLVM continues to be developed and refined, we plan to move more and more
+of the target description to the <tt>.td</tt> form. Doing so gives us a
+number of advantages. The most important is that it makes it easier to port
+LLVM because it reduces the amount of C++ code that has to be written, and the
+surface area of the code generator that needs to be understood before someone
+can get something working. Second, it makes it easier to change things. In
+particular, if tables and other things are all emitted by <tt>tblgen</tt>, we
+only need a change in one place (<tt>tblgen</tt>) to update all of the targets
+to a new interface.</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>The LLVM target description classes (which are located in the
+<p>The LLVM target description classes (located in the
<tt>include/llvm/Target</tt> directory) provide an abstract description of the
-target machine; independent of any particular client. These classes are
+target machine independent of any particular client. These classes are
designed to capture the <i>abstract</i> properties of the target (such as the
instructions and registers it has), and do not incorporate any particular pieces
-of code generation algorithms. These interfaces do not take interference graphs
-as inputs or other algorithm-specific data structures.</p>
+of code generation algorithms.</p>
<p>All of the target description classes (except the <tt><a
href="#targetdata">TargetData</a></tt> class) are designed to be subclassed by
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The <tt>TargetData</tt> class is the only required target description class,
-and it is the only class that is not extensible. You cannot derived a new
-class from it. <tt>TargetData</tt> specifies information about how the target
+and it is the only class that is not extensible (you cannot derived a new
+class from it). <tt>TargetData</tt> specifies information about how the target
lays out memory for structures, the alignment requirements for various data
types, the size of pointers in the target, and whether the target is
little-endian or big-endian.</p>
<p>The <tt>TargetLowering</tt> class is used by SelectionDAG based instruction
selectors primarily to describe how LLVM code should be lowered to SelectionDAG
-operations. Among other things, this class indicates:
-<ul><li>an initial register class to use for various ValueTypes,</li>
- <li>which operations are natively supported by the target machine,</li>
- <li>the return type of setcc operations, and</li>
- <li>the type to use for shift amounts, etc</li>.
-</ol></p>
-
-</div>
-
+operations. Among other things, this class indicates:</p>
-
+<ul>
+ <li>an initial register class to use for various <tt>ValueType</tt>s</li>
+ <li>which operations are natively supported by the target machine</li>
+ <li>the return type of <tt>setcc</tt> operations</li>
+ <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>
+</ul>
+</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
target and any interactions between the registers.</p>
<p>Registers in the code generator are represented in the code generator by
-unsigned numbers. Physical registers (those that actually exist in the target
+unsigned integers. Physical registers (those that actually exist in the target
description) are unique small numbers, and virtual registers are generally
-large.</p>
+large. Note that register #0 is reserved as a flag value.</p>
<p>Each register in the processor description has an associated
-<tt>MRegisterDesc</tt> entry, which provides a textual name for the register
-(used for assembly output and debugging dumps), a set of aliases (used to
-indicate that one register overlaps with another), and some flag bits.
+<tt>TargetRegisterDesc</tt> entry, which provides a textual name for the
+register (used for assembly output and debugging dumps) and a set of aliases
+(used to indicate whether one register overlaps with another).
</p>
<p>In addition to the per-register description, the <tt>MRegisterInfo</tt> class
<a name="targetinstrinfo">The <tt>TargetInstrInfo</tt> class</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+ <p>The <tt>TargetInstrInfo</tt> class is used to describe the machine
+ instructions supported by the target. It is essentially an array of
+ <tt>TargetInstrDescriptor</tt> objects, each of which describes one
+ instruction the target supports. Descriptors define things like the mnemonic
+ for the opcode, the number of operands, the list of implicit register uses
+ and defs, whether the instruction has certain target-independent properties
+ (accesses memory, is commutable, etc), and holds any target-specific
+ flags.</p>
+</div>
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="targetframeinfo">The <tt>TargetFrameInfo</tt> class</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+ <p>The <tt>TargetFrameInfo</tt> class is used to provide information about the
+ stack frame layout of the target. It holds the direction of stack growth,
+ the known stack alignment on entry to each function, and the offset to the
+ local area. The offset to the local area is the offset from the stack
+ pointer on function entry to the first location where function data (local
+ variables, spill locations) can be stored.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="targetsubtarget">The <tt>TargetSubtarget</tt> class</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+ <p>The <tt>TargetSubtarget</tt> class is used to provide information about the
+ specific chip set being targeted. A sub-target informs code generation of
+ which instructions are supported, instruction latencies and instruction
+ execution itinerary; i.e., which processing units are used, in what order, and
+ for how long.</p>
+</div>
+
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="targetjitinfo">The <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> class</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+ <p>The <tt>TargetJITInfo</tt> class exposes an abstract interface used by the
+ Just-In-Time code generator to perform target-specific activities, such as
+ emitting stubs. If a <tt>TargetMachine</tt> supports JIT code generation, it
+ should provide one of these objects through the <tt>getJITInfo</tt>
+ method.</p>
+</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="codegendesc">Machine code description classes</a>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-At the high-level, LLVM code is translated to a machine specific representation
-formed out of MachineFunction, MachineBasicBlock, and <a
+<p>At the high-level, LLVM code is translated to a machine specific
+representation formed out of
+<a href="#machinefunction"><tt>MachineFunction</tt></a>,
+<a href="#machinebasicblock"><tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt></a>, and <a
href="#machineinstr"><tt>MachineInstr</tt></a> instances
-(defined in include/llvm/CodeGen). This representation is completely target
-agnostic, representing instructions in their most abstract form: an opcode and a
-series of operands. This representation is designed to support both SSA
-representation for machine code, as well as a register allocated, non-SSA form.
-</p>
+(defined in <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen</tt>). This representation is completely
+target agnostic, representing instructions in their most abstract form: an
+opcode and a series of operands. This representation is designed to support
+both an SSA representation for machine code, as well as a register allocated,
+non-SSA form.</p>
</div>
representing machine instructions. In particular, it only keeps track of
an opcode number and a set of operands.</p>
-<p>The opcode number is a simple unsigned number that only has meaning to a
+<p>The opcode number is a simple unsigned integer that only has meaning to a
specific backend. All of the instructions for a target should be defined in
the <tt>*InstrInfo.td</tt> file for the target. The opcode enum values
are auto-generated from this description. The <tt>MachineInstr</tt> class does
not have any information about how to interpret the instruction (i.e., what the
-semantics of the instruction are): for that you must refer to the
+semantics of the instruction are); for that you must refer to the
<tt><a href="#targetinstrinfo">TargetInstrInfo</a></tt> class.</p>
<p>The operands of a machine instruction can be of several different types:
-they can be a register reference, constant integer, basic block reference, etc.
-In addition, a machine operand should be marked as a def or a use of the value
+a register reference, a constant integer, a basic block reference, etc. In
+addition, a machine operand should be marked as a def or a use of the value
(though only registers are allowed to be defs).</p>
<p>By convention, the LLVM code generator orders instruction operands so that
list has several advantages. In particular, the debugging printer will print
the instruction like this:</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
- %r3 = add %i1, %i2
+%r3 = add %i1, %i2
</pre>
+</div>
-<p>If the first operand is a def, and it is also easier to <a
+<p>Also if the first operand is a def, it is easier to <a
href="#buildmi">create instructions</a> whose only def is the first
operand.</p>
<p>Machine instructions are created by using the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions,
located in the <tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/MachineInstrBuilder.h</tt> file. The
<tt>BuildMI</tt> functions make it easy to build arbitrary machine
-instructions. Usage of the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions look like this:
-</p>
+instructions. Usage of the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions look like this:</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
- // Create a 'DestReg = mov 42' (rendered in X86 assembly as 'mov DestReg, 42')
- // instruction. The '1' specifies how many operands will be added.
- MachineInstr *MI = BuildMI(X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42);
+// Create a 'DestReg = mov 42' (rendered in X86 assembly as 'mov DestReg, 42')
+// instruction. The '1' specifies how many operands will be added.
+MachineInstr *MI = BuildMI(X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42);
- // Create the same instr, but insert it at the end of a basic block.
- MachineBasicBlock &MBB = ...
- BuildMI(MBB, X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42);
+// Create the same instr, but insert it at the end of a basic block.
+MachineBasicBlock &MBB = ...
+BuildMI(MBB, X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42);
- // Create the same instr, but insert it before a specified iterator point.
- MachineBasicBlock::iterator MBBI = ...
- BuildMI(MBB, MBBI, X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42);
+// Create the same instr, but insert it before a specified iterator point.
+MachineBasicBlock::iterator MBBI = ...
+BuildMI(MBB, MBBI, X86::MOV32ri, 1, DestReg).addImm(42);
- // Create a 'cmp Reg, 0' instruction, no destination reg.
- MI = BuildMI(X86::CMP32ri, 2).addReg(Reg).addImm(0);
- // Create an 'sahf' instruction which takes no operands and stores nothing.
- MI = BuildMI(X86::SAHF, 0);
+// Create a 'cmp Reg, 0' instruction, no destination reg.
+MI = BuildMI(X86::CMP32ri, 2).addReg(Reg).addImm(0);
+// Create an 'sahf' instruction which takes no operands and stores nothing.
+MI = BuildMI(X86::SAHF, 0);
- // Create a self looping branch instruction.
- BuildMI(MBB, X86::JNE, 1).addMBB(&MBB);
+// Create a self looping branch instruction.
+BuildMI(MBB, X86::JNE, 1).addMBB(&MBB);
</pre>
+</div>
-<p>
-The key thing to remember with the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions is that you have
-to specify the number of operands that the machine instruction will take. This
-allows for efficient memory allocation. You also need to specify if operands
-default to be uses of values, not definitions. If you need to add a definition
-operand (other than the optional destination register), you must explicitly
-mark it as such.
-</p>
+<p>The key thing to remember with the <tt>BuildMI</tt> functions is that you
+have to specify the number of operands that the machine instruction will take.
+This allows for efficient memory allocation. You also need to specify if
+operands default to be uses of values, not definitions. If you need to add a
+definition operand (other than the optional destination register), you must
+explicitly mark it as such:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+MI.addReg(Reg, MachineOperand::Def);
+</pre>
+</div>
</div>
<p>For example, consider this simple LLVM example:</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
- int %test(int %X, int %Y) {
- %Z = div int %X, %Y
- ret int %Z
- }
+int %test(int %X, int %Y) {
+ %Z = div int %X, %Y
+ ret int %Z
+}
</pre>
+</div>
-<p>The X86 instruction selector produces this machine code for the div
-and ret (use
+<p>The X86 instruction selector produces this machine code for the <tt>div</tt>
+and <tt>ret</tt> (use
"<tt>llc X.bc -march=x86 -print-machineinstrs</tt>" to get this):</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
- ;; Start of div
- %EAX = mov %reg1024 ;; Copy X (in reg1024) into EAX
- %reg1027 = sar %reg1024, 31
- %EDX = mov %reg1027 ;; Sign extend X into EDX
- idiv %reg1025 ;; Divide by Y (in reg1025)
- %reg1026 = mov %EAX ;; Read the result (Z) out of EAX
-
- ;; Start of ret
- %EAX = mov %reg1026 ;; 32-bit return value goes in EAX
- ret
+;; Start of div
+%EAX = mov %reg1024 ;; Copy X (in reg1024) into EAX
+%reg1027 = sar %reg1024, 31
+%EDX = mov %reg1027 ;; Sign extend X into EDX
+idiv %reg1025 ;; Divide by Y (in reg1025)
+%reg1026 = mov %EAX ;; Read the result (Z) out of EAX
+
+;; Start of ret
+%EAX = mov %reg1026 ;; 32-bit return value goes in EAX
+ret
</pre>
+</div>
<p>By the end of code generation, the register allocator has coalesced
-the registers and deleted the resultant identity moves, producing the
+the registers and deleted the resultant identity moves producing the
following code:</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
- ;; X is in EAX, Y is in ECX
- mov %EAX, %EDX
- sar %EDX, 31
- idiv %ECX
- ret
+;; X is in EAX, Y is in ECX
+mov %EAX, %EDX
+sar %EDX, 31
+idiv %ECX
+ret
</pre>
+</div>
<p>This approach is extremely general (if it can handle the X86 architecture,
it can handle anything!) and allows all of the target specific
knowledge about the instruction stream to be isolated in the instruction
selector. Note that physical registers should have a short lifetime for good
-code generation, and all physical registers are assumed dead on entry and
-exit of basic blocks (before register allocation). Thus if you need a value
+code generation, and all physical registers are assumed dead on entry to and
+exit from basic blocks (before register allocation). Thus, if you need a value
to be live across basic block boundaries, it <em>must</em> live in a virtual
register.</p>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
- <a name="ssa">Machine code SSA form</a>
+ <a name="ssa">Machine code in SSA form</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p><tt>MachineInstr</tt>'s are initially selected in SSA-form, and
are maintained in SSA-form until register allocation happens. For the most
-part, this is trivially simple since LLVM is already in SSA form: LLVM PHI nodes
+part, this is trivially simple since LLVM is already in SSA form; LLVM PHI nodes
become machine code PHI nodes, and virtual registers are only allowed to have a
single definition.</p>
-<p>After register allocation, machine code is no longer in SSA-form, as there
+<p>After register allocation, machine code is no longer in SSA-form because there
are no virtual registers left in the code.</p>
</div>
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="machinebasicblock">The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> class</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> class contains a list of machine instructions
+(<tt><a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a></tt> instances). It roughly
+corresponds to the LLVM code input to the instruction selector, but there can be
+a one-to-many mapping (i.e. one LLVM basic block can map to multiple machine
+basic blocks). The <tt>MachineBasicBlock</tt> class has a
+"<tt>getBasicBlock</tt>" method, which returns the LLVM basic block that it
+comes from.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="machinefunction">The <tt>MachineFunction</tt> class</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The <tt>MachineFunction</tt> class contains a list of machine basic blocks
+(<tt><a href="#machinebasicblock">MachineBasicBlock</a></tt> instances). It
+corresponds one-to-one with the LLVM function input to the instruction selector.
+In addition to a list of basic blocks, the <tt>MachineFunction</tt> contains a
+a <tt>MachineConstantPool</tt>, a <tt>MachineFrameInfo</tt>, a
+<tt>MachineFunctionInfo</tt>, a <tt>SSARegMap</tt>, and a set of live in and
+live out registers for the function. See
+<tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/MachineFunction.h</tt> for more information.</p>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="codegenalgs">Target-independent code generation algorithms</a>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This section documents the phases described in the <a
-href="high-level-design">high-level design of the code generator</a>. It
+href="#high-level-design">high-level design of the code generator</a>. It
explains how they work and some of the rationale behind their design.</p>
</div>
Instruction Selection is the process of translating LLVM code presented to the
code generator into target-specific machine instructions. There are several
well-known ways to do this in the literature. In LLVM there are two main forms:
-the old-style 'simple' instruction selector (which effectively peephole selects
-each LLVM instruction into a series of machine instructions), and the new
-SelectionDAG based instruction selector.
+the SelectionDAG based instruction selector framework and an old-style 'simple'
+instruction selector, which effectively peephole selects each LLVM instruction
+into a series of machine instructions. We recommend that all targets use the
+SelectionDAG infrastructure.
</p>
-<p>The 'simple' instruction selectors are tedious to write, require a lot of
-boiler plate code, and are difficult to get correct. Additionally, any
-optimizations written for a simple instruction selector cannot be used by other
-targets. For this reason, LLVM is moving to a new SelectionDAG based
-instruction selector, which is described in this section. If you are starting a
-new port, we recommend that you write the instruction selector using the
-SelectionDAG infrastructure.</p>
-
-<p>In time, most of the target-specific code for instruction selection will be
-auto-generated from the target description (<tt>*.td</tt>) files. For now,
-however, the <a href="#selectiondag_select">Select Phase</a> must still be
-written by hand.</p>
+<p>Portions of the DAG instruction selector are generated from the target
+description (<tt>*.td</tt>) files. Our goal is for the entire instruction
+selector to be generated from these <tt>.td</tt> files.</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-The SelectionDAG provides an abstraction for code representation in a way that
-is amenable to instruction selection using automatic techniques
-(e.g. dynamic-programming based optimal pattern matching selectors), It is also
-well suited to other phases of code generation; in particular, instruction scheduling. Additionally, the SelectionDAG provides a host representation where a
-large variety of very-low-level (but target-independent)
+<p>The SelectionDAG provides an abstraction for code representation in a way
+that is amenable to instruction selection using automatic techniques
+(e.g. dynamic-programming based optimal pattern matching selectors). It is also
+well-suited to other phases of code generation; in particular,
+instruction scheduling (SelectionDAG's are very close to scheduling DAGs
+post-selection). Additionally, the SelectionDAG provides a host representation
+where a large variety of very-low-level (but target-independent)
<a href="#selectiondag_optimize">optimizations</a> may be
-performed: ones which require extensive information about the instructions
-efficiently supported by the target.
-</p>
+performed; ones which require extensive information about the instructions
+efficiently supported by the target.</p>
-<p>
-The SelectionDAG is a Directed-Acyclic-Graph whose nodes are instances of the
+<p>The SelectionDAG is a Directed-Acyclic-Graph whose nodes are instances of the
<tt>SDNode</tt> class. The primary payload of the <tt>SDNode</tt> is its
-operation code (Opcode) that indicates what operation the node performs.
+operation code (Opcode) that indicates what operation the node performs and
+the operands to the operation.
The various operation node types are described at the top of the
-<tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/SelectionDAGNodes.h</tt> file. Depending on the
-operation, nodes may contain additional information (e.g. the condition code
-for a SETCC node) contained in a derived class.</p>
+<tt>include/llvm/CodeGen/SelectionDAGNodes.h</tt> file.</p>
<p>Although most operations define a single value, each node in the graph may
define multiple values. For example, a combined div/rem operation will define
values as well. Each node also has some number of operands, which are edges
to the node defining the used value. Because nodes may define multiple values,
edges are represented by instances of the <tt>SDOperand</tt> class, which is
-a <SDNode, unsigned> pair, indicating the node and result
-value being used, respectively. Each value produced by an SDNode has an
-associated MVT::ValueType, indicating what type the value is.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-SelectionDAGs contain two different kinds of values: those that represent data
-flow and those that represent control flow dependencies. Data values are simple
-edges with an integer or floating point value type. Control edges are
-represented as "chain" edges which are of type MVT::Other. These edges provide
-an ordering between nodes that have side effects (such as
-loads/stores/calls/return/etc). All nodes that have side effects should take a
-token chain as input and produce a new one as output. By convention, token
-chain inputs are always operand #0, and chain results are always the last
+a <tt><SDNode, unsigned></tt> pair, indicating the node and result
+value being used, respectively. Each value produced by an <tt>SDNode</tt> has
+an associated <tt>MVT::ValueType</tt> indicating what type the value is.</p>
+
+<p>SelectionDAGs contain two different kinds of values: those that represent
+data flow and those that represent control flow dependencies. Data values are
+simple edges with an integer or floating point value type. Control edges are
+represented as "chain" edges which are of type <tt>MVT::Other</tt>. These edges
+provide an ordering between nodes that have side effects (such as
+loads, stores, calls, returns, etc). All nodes that have side effects should
+take a token chain as input and produce a new one as output. By convention,
+token chain inputs are always operand #0, and chain results are always the last
value produced by an operation.</p>
-<p>
-A SelectionDAG has designated "Entry" and "Root" nodes. The Entry node is
-always a marker node with an Opcode of ISD::TokenFactor. The Root node is the
-final side-effecting node in the token chain. For example, in a single basic
-block function, this would be the return node.
-</p>
+<p>A SelectionDAG has designated "Entry" and "Root" nodes. The Entry node is
+always a marker node with an Opcode of <tt>ISD::EntryToken</tt>. The Root node
+is the final side-effecting node in the token chain. For example, in a single
+basic block function it would be the return node.</p>
+
+<p>One important concept for SelectionDAGs is the notion of a "legal" vs.
+"illegal" DAG. A legal DAG for a target is one that only uses supported
+operations and supported types. On a 32-bit PowerPC, for example, a DAG with
+a value of type i1, i8, i16, or i64 would be illegal, as would a DAG that uses a
+SREM or UREM operation. The
+<a href="#selectiondag_legalize">legalize</a> phase is responsible for turning
+an illegal DAG into a legal DAG.</p>
-<p>
-One important concept for SelectionDAGs is the notion of a "legal" vs. "illegal"
-DAG. A legal DAG for a target is one that only uses supported operations and
-supported types. On PowerPC, for example, a DAG with any values of i1, i8, i16,
-or i64 type would be illegal. The <a href="#selectiondag_legalize">legalize</a>
-phase is responsible for turning an illegal DAG into a legal DAG.
-</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-SelectionDAG-based instruction selection consists of the following steps:
-</p>
+<p>SelectionDAG-based instruction selection consists of the following steps:</p>
<ol>
-<li><a href="#selectiondag_build">Build initial DAG</a> - This stage performs
- a simple translation from the input LLVM code to an illegal SelectionDAG.
- </li>
+<li><a href="#selectiondag_build">Build initial DAG</a> - This stage
+ performs a simple translation from the input LLVM code to an illegal
+ SelectionDAG.</li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">Optimize SelectionDAG</a> - This stage
- performs simple optimizations on the SelectionDAG to simplify it and
- recognize meta instructions (like rotates and div/rem pairs) for
- targets that support these meta operations. This makes the resultant code
- more efficient and the 'select instructions from DAG' phase (below) simpler.
-</li>
+ performs simple optimizations on the SelectionDAG to simplify it, and
+ recognize meta instructions (like rotates and <tt>div</tt>/<tt>rem</tt>
+ pairs) for targets that support these meta operations. This makes the
+ resultant code more efficient and the <a href="#selectiondag_select">select
+ instructions from DAG</a> phase (below) simpler.</li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_legalize">Legalize SelectionDAG</a> - This stage
- converts the illegal SelectionDAG to a legal SelectionDAG, by eliminating
+ converts the illegal SelectionDAG to a legal SelectionDAG by eliminating
unsupported operations and data types.</li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_optimize">Optimize SelectionDAG (#2)</a> - This
- second run of the SelectionDAG optimized the newly legalized DAG, to
+ second run of the SelectionDAG optimizes the newly legalized DAG to
eliminate inefficiencies introduced by legalization.</li>
<li><a href="#selectiondag_select">Select instructions from DAG</a> - Finally,
the target instruction selector matches the DAG operations to target
- instructions, emitting them and building the MachineFunction being
- compiled.</li>
+ instructions. This process translates the target-independent input DAG into
+ another DAG of target instructions.</li>
+<li><a href="#selectiondag_sched">SelectionDAG Scheduling and Formation</a>
+ - The last phase assigns a linear order to the instructions in the
+ target-instruction DAG and emits them into the MachineFunction being
+ compiled. This step uses traditional prepass scheduling techniques.</li>
</ol>
<p>After all of these steps are complete, the SelectionDAG is destroyed and the
rest of the code generation passes are run.</p>
+<p>One great way to visualize what is going on here is to take advantage of a
+few LLC command line options. In particular, the <tt>-view-isel-dags</tt>
+option pops up a window with the SelectionDAG input to the Select phase for all
+of the code compiled (if you only get errors printed to the console while using
+this, you probably <a href="ProgrammersManual.html#ViewGraph">need to configure
+your system</a> to add support for it). The <tt>-view-sched-dags</tt> option
+views the SelectionDAG output from the Select phase and input to the Scheduler
+phase.</p>
+
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-The initial SelectionDAG is naively peephole expanded from the LLVM input by
-the <tt>SelectionDAGLowering</tt> class in the SelectionDAGISel.cpp file. The
-intent of this pass is to expose as much low-level, target-specific details
-to the SelectionDAG as possible. This pass is mostly hard-coded (e.g. an LLVM
-add turns into an SDNode add while a geteelementptr is expanded into the obvious
-arithmetic). This pass requires target-specific hooks to lower calls and
-returns, varargs, etc. For these features, the TargetLowering interface is
-used.
-</p>
+<p>The initial SelectionDAG is naïvely peephole expanded from the LLVM
+input by the <tt>SelectionDAGLowering</tt> class in the
+<tt>lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/SelectionDAGISel.cpp</tt> file. The intent of this
+pass is to expose as much low-level, target-specific details to the SelectionDAG
+as possible. This pass is mostly hard-coded (e.g. an LLVM <tt>add</tt> turns
+into an <tt>SDNode add</tt> while a <tt>geteelementptr</tt> is expanded into the
+obvious arithmetic). This pass requires target-specific hooks to lower calls,
+returns, varargs, etc. For these features, the
+<tt><a href="#targetlowering">TargetLowering</a></tt> interface is used.</p>
</div>
<ol>
<li><p>Convert values of unsupported types to values of supported types.</p>
- <p>There are two main ways of doing this: promoting a small type to a larger
- type (e.g. f32 -> f64, or i16 -> i32), and breaking up large
- integer types
- to smaller ones (e.g. implementing i64 with i32 operations where
- possible). Type conversions can insert sign and zero extensions as
- needed to make sure that the final code has the same behavior as the
- input.</p>
+ <p>There are two main ways of doing this: converting small types to
+ larger types ("promoting"), and breaking up large integer types
+ into smaller ones ("expanding"). For example, a target might require
+ that all f32 values are promoted to f64 and that all i1/i8/i16 values
+ are promoted to i32. The same target might require that all i64 values
+ be expanded into i32 values. These changes can insert sign and zero
+ extensions as needed to make sure that the final code has the same
+ behavior as the input.</p>
+ <p>A target implementation tells the legalizer which types are supported
+ (and which register class to use for them) by calling the
+ <tt>addRegisterClass</tt> method in its TargetLowering constructor.</p>
</li>
-<li><p>Eliminate operations that are not supported by the target in a supported
- type.</p>
- <p>Targets often have wierd constraints, such as not supporting every
+<li><p>Eliminate operations that are not supported by the target.</p>
+ <p>Targets often have weird constraints, such as not supporting every
operation on every supported datatype (e.g. X86 does not support byte
- conditional moves). Legalize takes care of either open-coding another
- sequence of operations to emulate the operation (this is known as
- expansion), promoting to a larger type that supports the operation
- (promotion), or using a target-specific hook to implement the
- legalization.</p>
+ conditional moves and PowerPC does not support sign-extending loads from
+ a 16-bit memory location). Legalize takes care of this by open-coding
+ another sequence of operations to emulate the operation ("expansion"), by
+ promoting one type to a larger type that supports the operation
+ ("promotion"), or by using a target-specific hook to implement the
+ legalization ("custom").</p>
+ <p>A target implementation tells the legalizer which operations are not
+ supported (and which of the above three actions to take) by calling the
+ <tt>setOperationAction</tt> method in its <tt>TargetLowering</tt>
+ constructor.</p>
</li>
</ol>
-<p>
-Instead of using a Legalize pass, we could require that every target-specific
-<a href="#selectiondag_optimize">selector</a> supports and expands every
-operator and type even if they are not supported and may require many
-instructions to implement (in fact, this is the approach taken by the
-"simple" selectors). However, using a Legalize pass allows all of the
-cannonicalization patterns to be shared across targets which makes it very
-easy to optimize the cannonicalized code because it is still in the form of
-a DAG.
-</p>
+<p>Prior to the existance of the Legalize pass, we required that every target
+<a href="#selectiondag_optimize">selector</a> supported and handled every
+operator and type even if they are not natively supported. The introduction of
+the Legalize phase allows all of the cannonicalization patterns to be shared
+across targets, and makes it very easy to optimize the cannonicalized code
+because it is still in the form of a DAG.</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
- <a name="selectiondag_optimize">SelectionDAG Optimization Phase</a>
+ <a name="selectiondag_optimize">SelectionDAG Optimization Phase: the DAG
+ Combiner</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-The SelectionDAG optimization phase is run twice for code generation: once
+<p>The SelectionDAG optimization phase is run twice for code generation: once
immediately after the DAG is built and once after legalization. The first run
of the pass allows the initial code to be cleaned up (e.g. performing
optimizations that depend on knowing that the operators have restricted type
inputs). The second run of the pass cleans up the messy code generated by the
-Legalize pass, allowing Legalize to be very simple since it can ignore many
-special cases.
-</p>
+Legalize pass, which allows Legalize to be very simple (it can focus on making
+code legal instead of focusing on generating <em>good</em> and legal code).</p>
-<p>
-One important class of optimizations that this pass will do in the future is
-optimizing inserted sign and zero extension instructions. Here are some good
-papers on the subject:</p>
+<p>One important class of optimizations performed is optimizing inserted sign
+and zero extension instructions. We currently use ad-hoc techniques, but could
+move to more rigorous techniques in the future. Here are some good papers on
+the subject:</p>
<p>
-"<a href="http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/pubs/widen-abstract.html">Widening
-integer arithmetic</a>"<br>
-Kevin Redwine and Norman Ramsey<br>
-International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC) 2004
+ "<a href="http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/pubs/widen-abstract.html">Widening
+ integer arithmetic</a>"<br>
+ Kevin Redwine and Norman Ramsey<br>
+ International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC) 2004
</p>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The Select phase is the bulk of the target-specific code for instruction
-selection. This phase takes a legal SelectionDAG as input, and does simple
-pattern matching on the DAG to generate code. In time, the Select phase will
-be automatically generated from the target's InstrInfo.td file, which is why we
-want to make the Select phase as simple and mechanical as possible.</p>
+selection. This phase takes a legal SelectionDAG as input, pattern matches the
+instructions supported by the target to this DAG, and produces a new DAG of
+target code. For example, consider the following LLVM fragment:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+%t1 = add float %W, %X
+%t2 = mul float %t1, %Y
+%t3 = add float %t2, %Z
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>This LLVM code corresponds to a SelectionDAG that looks basically like
+this:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+(fadd:f32 (fmul:f32 (fadd:f32 W, X), Y), Z)
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>If a target supports floating point multiply-and-add (FMA) operations, one
+of the adds can be merged with the multiply. On the PowerPC, for example, the
+output of the instruction selector might look like this DAG:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+(FMADDS (FADDS W, X), Y, Z)
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>The <tt>FMADDS</tt> instruction is a ternary instruction that multiplies its
+first two operands and adds the third (as single-precision floating-point
+numbers). The <tt>FADDS</tt> instruction is a simple binary single-precision
+add instruction. To perform this pattern match, the PowerPC backend includes
+the following instruction definitions:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+def FMADDS : AForm_1<59, 29,
+ (ops F4RC:$FRT, F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRC, F4RC:$FRB),
+ "fmadds $FRT, $FRA, $FRC, $FRB",
+ [<b>(set F4RC:$FRT, (fadd (fmul F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRC),
+ F4RC:$FRB))</b>]>;
+def FADDS : AForm_2<59, 21,
+ (ops F4RC:$FRT, F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRB),
+ "fadds $FRT, $FRA, $FRB",
+ [<b>(set F4RC:$FRT, (fadd F4RC:$FRA, F4RC:$FRB))</b>]>;
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+<p>The portion of the instruction definition in bold indicates the pattern used
+to match the instruction. The DAG operators (like <tt>fmul</tt>/<tt>fadd</tt>)
+are defined in the <tt>lib/Target/TargetSelectionDAG.td</tt> file.
+"<tt>F4RC</tt>" is the register class of the input and result values.<p>
+
+<p>The TableGen DAG instruction selector generator reads the instruction
+patterns in the <tt>.td</tt> file and automatically builds parts of the pattern
+matching code for your target. It has the following strengths:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>At compiler-compiler time, it analyzes your instruction patterns and tells
+ you if your patterns make sense or not.</li>
+<li>It can handle arbitrary constraints on operands for the pattern match. In
+ particular, it is straight-forward to say things like "match any immediate
+ that is a 13-bit sign-extended value". For examples, see the
+ <tt>immSExt16</tt> and related <tt>tblgen</tt> classes in the PowerPC
+ backend.</li>
+<li>It knows several important identities for the patterns defined. For
+ example, it knows that addition is commutative, so it allows the
+ <tt>FMADDS</tt> pattern above to match "<tt>(fadd X, (fmul Y, Z))</tt>" as
+ well as "<tt>(fadd (fmul X, Y), Z)</tt>", without the target author having
+ to specially handle this case.</li>
+<li>It has a full-featured type-inferencing system. In particular, you should
+ rarely have to explicitly tell the system what type parts of your patterns
+ are. In the <tt>FMADDS</tt> case above, we didn't have to tell
+ <tt>tblgen</tt> that all of the nodes in the pattern are of type 'f32'. It
+ was able to infer and propagate this knowledge from the fact that
+ <tt>F4RC</tt> has type 'f32'.</li>
+<li>Targets can define their own (and rely on built-in) "pattern fragments".
+ Pattern fragments are chunks of reusable patterns that get inlined into your
+ patterns during compiler-compiler time. For example, the integer
+ "<tt>(not x)</tt>" operation is actually defined as a pattern fragment that
+ expands as "<tt>(xor x, -1)</tt>", since the SelectionDAG does not have a
+ native '<tt>not</tt>' operation. Targets can define their own short-hand
+ fragments as they see fit. See the definition of '<tt>not</tt>' and
+ '<tt>ineg</tt>' for examples.</li>
+<li>In addition to instructions, targets can specify arbitrary patterns that
+ map to one or more instructions using the 'Pat' class. For example,
+ the PowerPC has no way to load an arbitrary integer immediate into a
+ register in one instruction. To tell tblgen how to do this, it defines:
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <div class="doc_code">
+ <pre>
+// Arbitrary immediate support. Implement in terms of LIS/ORI.
+def : Pat<(i32 imm:$imm),
+ (ORI (LIS (HI16 imm:$imm)), (LO16 imm:$imm))>;
+ </pre>
+ </div>
+ <br>
+ If none of the single-instruction patterns for loading an immediate into a
+ register match, this will be used. This rule says "match an arbitrary i32
+ immediate, turning it into an <tt>ORI</tt> ('or a 16-bit immediate') and an
+ <tt>LIS</tt> ('load 16-bit immediate, where the immediate is shifted to the
+ left 16 bits') instruction". To make this work, the
+ <tt>LO16</tt>/<tt>HI16</tt> node transformations are used to manipulate the
+ input immediate (in this case, take the high or low 16-bits of the
+ immediate).</li>
+<li>While the system does automate a lot, it still allows you to write custom
+ C++ code to match special cases if there is something that is hard to
+ express.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>While it has many strengths, the system currently has some limitations,
+primarily because it is a work in progress and is not yet finished:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Overall, there is no way to define or match SelectionDAG nodes that define
+ multiple values (e.g. <tt>ADD_PARTS</tt>, <tt>LOAD</tt>, <tt>CALL</tt>,
+ etc). This is the biggest reason that you currently still <em>have to</em>
+ write custom C++ code for your instruction selector.</li>
+<li>There is no great way to support matching complex addressing modes yet. In
+ the future, we will extend pattern fragments to allow them to define
+ multiple values (e.g. the four operands of the <a href="#x86_memory">X86
+ addressing mode</a>). In addition, we'll extend fragments so that a
+ 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>
+<li>We don't have a way of tying in custom legalized nodes yet.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Despite these limitations, the instruction selector generator is still quite
+useful for most of the binary and logical operations in typical instruction
+sets. If you run into any problems or can't figure out how to do something,
+please let Chris know!</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="selectiondag_sched">SelectionDAG Scheduling and Formation Phase</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The scheduling phase takes the DAG of target instructions from the selection
+phase and assigns an order. The scheduler can pick an order depending on
+various constraints of the machines (i.e. order for minimal register pressure or
+try to cover instruction latencies). Once an order is established, the DAG is
+converted to a list of <tt><a href="#machineinstr">MachineInstr</a></tt>s and
+the SelectionDAG is destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Note that this phase is logically separate from the instruction selection
+phase, but is tied to it closely in the code because it operates on
+SelectionDAGs.</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ol>
-<li>Optional whole-function selection.</li>
-<li>Select is a graph translation phase.</li>
-<li>Place the machine instructions resulting from Select according to register
-pressure or a schedule.</li>
-<li>DAG Scheduling.</li>
-<li>Auto-generate the Select phase from the target description (*.td) files.
-</li>
+<li>Optional function-at-a-time selection.</li>
+<li>Auto-generate entire selector from <tt>.td</tt> file.</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 bytecode 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>
<div class="doc_text"><p>To Be Written</p></div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="codemission">Code Emission</a>
+ <a name="codeemit">Code Emission</a>
+</div>
+<div class="doc_text"><p>To Be Written</p></div>
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="codeemit_asm">Generating Assembly Code</a>
+</div>
+<div class="doc_text"><p>To Be Written</p></div>
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="codeemit_bin">Generating Binary Machine Code</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+ <p>For the JIT or <tt>.o</tt> file writer</p>
+</div>
+
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="targetimpls">Target description implementations</a>
+ <a name="targetimpls">Target-specific Implementation Notes</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-The X86 code generator lives in the <tt>lib/Target/X86</tt> directory. This
+<p>The X86 code generator lives in the <tt>lib/Target/X86</tt> directory. This
code generator currently targets a generic P6-like processor. As such, it
produces a few P6-and-above instructions (like conditional moves), but it does
not make use of newer features like MMX or SSE. In the future, the X86 backend
</div>
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="x86_tt">X86 Target Triples Supported</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>The following are the known target triples that are supported by the X86
+backend. This is not an exhaustive list, and it would be useful to add those
+that people test.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><b>i686-pc-linux-gnu</b> - Linux</li>
+<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>
forming memory addresses of the following expression directly in integer
instructions (which use ModR/M addressing):</p>
+<div class="doc_code">
<pre>
- Base+[1,2,4,8]*IndexReg+Disp32
+Base + [1,2,4,8] * IndexReg + Disp32
</pre>
+</div>
<p>In order to represent this, LLVM tracks no less than 4 operands for each
-memory operand of this form. This means that the "load" form of 'mov' has the
-following <tt>MachineOperand</tt>s in this order:</p>
+memory operand of this form. This means that the "load" form of '<tt>mov</tt>'
+has the following <tt>MachineOperand</tt>s in this order:</p>
<pre>
Index: 0 | 1 2 3 4
</pre>
<p>Stores, and all other instructions, treat the four memory operands in the
-same way, in the same order.</p>
+same way and in the same order.</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-An instruction name consists of the base name, a default operand size, and a
+<p>An instruction name consists of the base name, a default operand size, and a
a character per operand with an optional special size. For example:</p>
<p>
</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>
+
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<hr>
<address>
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!" /></a>
<a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a><br>
- <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
+ <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Last modified: $Date$
</address>