"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
- <title>LLVM 1.4 Release Notes</title>
+ <title>LLVM 1.6 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
-<div class="doc_title">LLVM 1.4 Release Notes</div>
+<div class="doc_title">LLVM 1.6 Release Notes</div>
<ol>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
<li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
<li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
- <ul>
- <li><a href="#experimental">Experimental features included in this
- release</a>
- <li><a href="#core">Known problems with the LLVM Core</a>
- <li><a href="#c-fe">Known problems with the C Front-end</a>
- <li><a href="#c++-fe">Known problems with the C++ Front-end</a>
- <li><a href="#x86-be">Known problems with the X86 Back-end</a>
- <li><a href="#sparcv9-be">Known problems with the SparcV9 Back-end</a>
- <li><a href="#c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
- </ul></li>
<li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">
- <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">LLVM team</a><p>
+ <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">LLVM Team</a><p>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
-infrastructure, release 1.4. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
-known problems and bug fixes from the previous release. The most up-to-date
-version of this document can be found on the <a
-href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/1.4/">LLVM 1.4 web site</a>. If you are
+infrastructure, release 1.6. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
+known problems and major improvements from the previous release. The most
+up-to-date version of this document can be found on the <a
+href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/1.6/">LLVM 1.6 web site</a>. If you are
not reading this on the LLVM web pages, you should probably go there because
this document may be updated after the release.</p>
-<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about potentially more
-current releases, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">main
+<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
+release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">main LLVM
web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a
href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
-<p>Note that if you are reading this file from CVS, this document applies
-to the <i>next</i> release, not the current one. To see the release notes for
-the current or previous releases, see the <a
+<p>Note that if you are reading this file from CVS or the main LLVM web page,
+this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the current one. To see
+the release notes for the current or previous releases, see the <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>This is the fifth public release of the LLVM compiler infrastructure.</p>
+<p>This is the seventh public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.</p>
-<p> At this time, LLVM is known to correctly compile and run all C & C++
-SPEC CPU95 & 2000 benchmarks, the Olden benchmarks, and the Ptrdist
-benchmarks, and <b>many</b> other programs. LLVM now also works
-with a broad variety of C++ programs.</p>
+<p>LLVM 1.6 is known to correctly compile a wide range of C and C++ programs,
+includes bug fixes for those problems found since the 1.5 release, and includes
+a large number of new features and enhancements, described below.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-<a name="newfeatures">This release implements the following new features:</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ol>
- <li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR257">move test/Programs out of the main llvm
- tree</a></li>
-<li></li>
-</ol>
-
-</div>
-
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-In this release, the following missing features were implemented:
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-
-<ol>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR419">JIT interface should support arbitrary
- calls</a></li>
-</ol>
-
-</div>
-
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-<a name="qualityofimp">In this release, the following Quality of Implementation
-issues were fixed:</a>
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="newfeatures">New Features in LLVM 1.6</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-
+<h1>
+ See <a href="/releases/1.5/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 1.5 Release Notes</a>
+</h1>
<ol>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR426">[llvmg++] Tons of warnings are spewed when
- linking to libstdc++</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR352">include/{Support,Config} ->
- include/llvm/{Support,Config}</a></li>
+ <li>The JIT now uses mutexes to protect its internal data structures. This
+ allows multi-threaded programs to be run from the JIT or interpreter without
+ corruption of the internal data structures. See
+ <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR418">PR418</a> and
+ <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR540">PR540</a> for the details.
+ </li>
</ol>
-
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-In this release, the following build problems were fixed:
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<ol>
-<li></li>
-</ol>
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="codequality">Code Quality Improvements in LLVM 1.6</a>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-<a name="codequality">This release includes the following Code Quality
-improvements:</a>
-</div>
-
-<div class="doc_text">
-<ol>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR362">Ugly code generator for
- std::min/std::max</a></li>
-</ol>
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="codequality">Code Generator Improvements in LLVM 1.6</a>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-<a name="bugfix">In this release, the following bugs in the previous release
-were fixed:</a>
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="bugfix">Significant Bugs Fixed in LLVM 1.6</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>Bugs fixed in the LLVM Core:</p>
-
-<ol>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR420">[licm] LICM invalidates alias analysis info
- and uses broken information</a> (optimizer crash)</li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR422">[asmwriter] Asmwriter is really slow for
- functions with lots of values</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR423">[anders-aa] Andersen's AA is completely
- broken in LLVM 1.3</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR430">[bcwriter] Empty compaction tables
- defined</a></li>
-</ol>
-
-<p>Bugs in the C/C++ front-end:</p>
-
<ol>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR445">[llvmg++] not enough templates are instantiated</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR450">[llvmg++] Extern const globals cannot be
-marked 'constant' if they have nontrivial ctors or dtors</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR591">[simplify-libcalls] The simplify-libcalls pass generates ill-formed LLVM code</a>.</li>
</ol>
-
-<p>Bugs fixed in the Sparc V9 back-end:</p>
-
-<ol>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR428">[sparcv9] regalloc assertion
- failure with certain indirect calls</a></li>
-</ol>
-
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>LLVM is known to work in the following platforms:</p>
+<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
<ul>
-<li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux and FreeBSD (and probably
- other unix-like systems).</li>
+ <li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
+ (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.</li>
-<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries.</li>
-<li>PowerPC-based Mac OS X boxes, running 10.2 and above. Note that no JIT
-support is available yet, and LLC support is beta. The C backend can be used
-to produce stable code for this platform.</li>
+<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
+ support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
+<li>PowerPC-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.2 and above.</li>
+<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
+<li>Itanium-based machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
</ul>
<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses
porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
-<p>Note that the LLVM build system does not currently support directories with
-spaces on them when running on Win32/cygwin. We strongly recommend running
-LLVM and the C frontend out of a top-level directory without spaces (e.g.,
-<tt>/cygdrive/c/llvm</tt>). Also, make sure to install <b>all</b> of the
-cygwin packages. By default, many important tools are not installed that
-are needed by the LLVM build process or test suite (e.g., /bin/time). Finally,
-please make sure that there are no directories with spaces in them in your
-PATH environment variable.</p>
-
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
components, please contact us on the llvmdev list.</p>
<ul>
-<li>The PowerPC backend is incomplete and is known to miscompile several SPEC
-benchmarks. The file <tt>llvm/lib/Target/PowerPC/README.txt</tt> has
-details.</li>
-<li>The following passes are incomplete or buggy: <tt>-pgmdep, -memdep,
- -ipmodref, -cee, -branch-combine, -instloops, -paths</tt></li>
-<li>The <tt>-pre</tt> pass is incomplete (there are cases it doesn't handle that
- it should) and not thoroughly tested.</li>
-<li>The <tt>llvm-ar</tt> tool is incomplete and probably buggy.</li>
-<li>The <tt>llvm-db</tt> tool is in a very early stage of development.</li>
+<li>The following passes are incomplete or buggy, and may be removed in future
+ releases: <tt>-cee, -branch-combine, -instloops, -paths, -pre</tt></li>
+<li>The <tt>llvm-db</tt> tool is in a very early stage of development, but can
+ be used to step through programs and inspect the stack.</li>
+<li>The "iterative scan" register allocator (enabled with
+ <tt>-regalloc=iterativescan</tt>) is not stable.</li>
+<li>The SparcV8, Alpha, and IA64 code generators are experimental.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
-
-<li>In the JIT, <tt>dlsym</tt> on a symbol compiled by the JIT will not
-work.</li>
-
-<li>The JIT does not use mutexes to protect its internal data structures. As
-such, execution of a threaded program could cause these data structures to be
-corrupted.</li>
-
-<li>Linking in static archive files (.a files) is slow (there is no symbol
-table in the archive).</li>
-
-<li>The gccld program <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR139">does not link
-objects/archives in the order specified on the command line.</a></li>
-
-<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR240">The lower-invoke pass does not mark
-values live across a setjmp as volatile</a>. This missing feature only affects
-targets whose setjmp/longjmp libraries do not save and restore the entire
-register file.</li>
+ <li>In the JIT, <tt>dlsym()</tt> on a symbol compiled by the JIT will not
+ work.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR240">The lower-invoke pass does not
+ mark values live across a setjmp as volatile</a>. This missing feature
+ only affects targets whose setjmp/longjmp libraries do not save and restore
+ the entire register file.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</pre></li>
<li>Initialization of global union variables can only be done <a
-href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=162">with the largest union
-member</a>.</li>
-
-<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR244">[llvm-gcc] Error when an implicitly
-external function is re-declared as static</a></li>
+href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR162">with the largest union member</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Explicit-Reg-Vars.html#Explicit%20Reg%20Vars">Explicit Reg Vars</a>: Defining variables residing in specified registers.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Vector-Extensions.html#Vector%20Extensions">Vector Extensions</a>: Using vector instructions through built-in functions.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Target-Builtins.html#Target%20Builtins">Target Builtins</a>: Built-in functions specific to particular targets.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Thread-Local.html#Thread-Local">Thread-Local</a>: Per-thread variables.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Thread_002dLocal.html">Thread-Local</a>: Per-thread variables.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pragmas.html#Pragmas">Pragmas</a>: Pragmas accepted by GCC.</li>
</ol>
return.<br>
<b>Supported:</b> <tt>format</tt>, <tt>format_arg</tt>, <tt>non_null</tt>,
- <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>,
+ <tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>,
+ <tt>unused</tt>,
<tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>warn_unused_result</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
- <b>Ignored:</b> <tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>noinline</tt>,
+ <b>Ignored:</b> <tt>noinline</tt>,
<tt>always_inline</tt>, <tt>pure</tt>, <tt>const</tt>, <tt>nothrow</tt>,
<tt>malloc</tt>, <tt>no_instrument_function</tt>, <tt>cdecl</tt><br>
<tt>__builtin_types_compatible_p</tt>, <tt>__builtin_choose_expr</tt>,
<tt>__builtin_constant_p</tt>, and <tt>__builtin_expect</tt>
(currently ignored). We also support builtins for ISO C99 floating
- point comparison macros (e.g., <tt>__builtin_islessequal</tt>).</li>
+ point comparison macros (e.g., <tt>__builtin_islessequal</tt>),
+ <tt>__builtin_prefetch</tt>, <tt>__builtin_popcount[ll]</tt>,
+ <tt>__builtin_clz[ll]</tt>, and <tt>__builtin_ctz[ll]</tt>.</li>
</ol>
<p>The following extensions <b>are</b> known to be supported:</p>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Case-Ranges.html#Case%20Ranges">Case Ranges</a>: `case 1 ... 9' and such.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Mixed-Declarations.html#Mixed%20Declarations">Mixed Declarations</a>: Mixing declarations and code.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Prototypes.html#Function%20Prototypes">Function Prototypes</a>: Prototype declarations and old-style definitions.</li>
- <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C---Comments.html#C++%20Comments">C++ Comments</a>: C++ comments are recognized.</li>
+ <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C_002b_002b-Comments.html#C_002b_002b-Comments">C++ Comments</a>: C++ comments are recognized.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Dollar-Signs.html#Dollar%20Signs">Dollar Signs</a>: Dollar sign is allowed in identifiers.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Character-Escapes.html#Character%20Escapes">Character Escapes</a>: <code>\e</code> stands for the character <ESC>.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Alignment.html#Alignment">Alignment</a>: Inquiring about the alignment of a type or variable.</li>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>For this release, the C++ front-end is considered to be fully functional but
-has not been tested as thoroughly as the C front-end. It has been tested and
-works for a number of non-trivial programs, but there may be lurking bugs.
-Please report any bugs or problems.</p>
+<p>For this release, the C++ front-end is considered to be fully
+tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
+itself.</p>
</div>
<li>The C++ front-end inherits all problems afflicting the <a href="#c-fe">C
front-end</a>.</li>
-<li><b>IA-64 specific</b>: The C++ front-end does not use <a
-href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR406">IA64 ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>.
-In particular, it just stores function pointers instead of function
-descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents mixing C++ code compiled with
-LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++ compilers.</li>
-
</ul>
</div>
</div>
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>The C back-end produces code that violates the ANSI C Type-Based Alias
+Analysis rules. As such, special options may be necessary to compile the code
+(for example, GCC requires the <tt>-fno-strict-aliasing</tt> option). This
+problem probably cannot be fixed.</li>
+
+<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR56">Zero arg vararg functions are not
+supported</a>. This should not affect LLVM produced by the C or C++
+frontends.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
- <li>none yet</li>
+<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR566">Memory Mapped I/O Intrinsics do not fence memory</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+<li>None yet</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
- <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
+ <a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
-<li>The C back-end produces code that violates the ANSI C Type-Based Alias
-Analysis rules. As such, special options may be necessary to compile the code
-(for example, GCC requires the <tt>-fno-strict-aliasing</tt> option). This
-problem probably cannot be fixed.</li>
+<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
+appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR33">Initializers for global variables</a>
-cannot include special floating point numbers like Not-A-Number or
-Infinity.</li>
+<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is ok).</li>
-<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR56">Zero arg vararg functions are not
-supported</a>. This should not affect LLVM produced by the C or C++
-frontends.</li>
+<li>Due to the vararg problems, C++ exceptions do not work. Small changes are required to the CFE (which break correctness in the exception handler) to compile the exception handling library (and thus the C++ standard library).</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
+made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
+speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
+when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
+
+<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR406">IA64
+ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
+pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
+mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
+compilers.</li>
+
+<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
+output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
+programs.</li>
+
+<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is ok).</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="sparcv8">Known problems with the SPARC-V8 back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+<li>Many features are still missing (e.g. support for 64-bit integer
+arithmetic).</li>
+<li>This backend needs to be updated to use the SelectionDAG instruction
+selection framework.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the LLVM web page,
-including mailing lists and publications describing algorithms and components
-implemented in LLVM. The web page also contains versions of the API
-documentation which is up-to-date with the CVS version of the source code. You
-can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going into
-the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
+<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
+href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">LLVM web page</a>, including <a
+href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/docs/">documentation</a> and <a
+href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/pubs/">publications describing algorithms and
+components implemented in LLVM</a>. The web page also contains versions of the
+API documentation which is up-to-date with the CVS version of the source code.
+You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
+into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
-us via the <a href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">mailing
+us via the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/docs/#maillist"> mailing
lists</a>.</p>
</div>