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- <title>LLVM 2.7 Release Notes</title>
+ <title>LLVM 2.8 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
-<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.7 Release Notes</div>
+<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.8 Release Notes</div>
<img align=right src="http://llvm.org/img/DragonSmall.png"
width="136" height="136" alt="LLVM Dragon Logo">
<ol>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="#subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a></li>
- <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 2.7</a></li>
- <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.7?</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 2.8</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 2.8?</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></li>
<p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a></p>
</div>
-<!--
<h1 style="color:red">These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 2.8
release.<br>
You may prefer the
-<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/2.6/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 2.7
-Release Notes</a>.</h1>-->
+<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/2.7/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 2.7
+Release Notes</a>.</h1>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler
-Infrastructure, release 2.7. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
+Infrastructure, release 2.8. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
major improvements from the previous release and significant known problems.
All LLVM releases may be downloaded from the <a
href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM releases web site</a>.</p>
-->
-<!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 2.7:
+<!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 2.8:
combiner-aa?
strong phi elim
llvm.dbg.value: variable debug info for optimized code
<!-- for announcement email:
Logo web page.
- llvm devmtg
- compiler_rt
- KLEE web page at klee.llvm.org
Many new papers added to /pubs/
- Mention gcc plugin.
-->
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
<p>
-The LLVM 2.7 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
+The LLVM 2.8 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
repository (which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators
and supporting tools), the Clang repository and the llvm-gcc repository. In
addition to this code, the LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang project</a> is ...</p>
+<p><a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang</a> is an LLVM front end for the C,
+C++, and Objective-C languages. Clang aims to provide a better user experience
+through expressive diagnostics, a high level of conformance to language
+standards, fast compilation, and low memory use. Like LLVM, Clang provides a
+modular, library-based architecture that makes it suitable for creating or
+integrating with other development tools. Clang is considered a
+production-quality compiler for C and Objective-C on x86 (32- and 64-bit).</p>
<p>In the LLVM 2.7 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements:</p>
<ul>
-<li>FIXME: C++! Include a link to cxx_compatibility.html</li>
+
+<li>C++ Support: Clang is now capable of self-hosting! While still
+alpha-quality, Clang's C++ support has matured enough to build LLVM and Clang,
+and C++ is now enabled by default. See the <a
+href="http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_compatibility.html">Clang C++ compatibility
+page</a> for common C++ migration issues.</li>
+
+<li>Objective-C: Clang now includes experimental support for an updated
+Objective-C ABI on non-Darwin platforms. This includes support for non-fragile
+instance variables and accelerated proxies, as well as greater potential for
+future optimisations. The new ABI is used when compiling with the
+-fobjc-nonfragile-abi and -fgnu-runtime options. Code compiled with these
+options may be mixed with code compiled with GCC or clang using the old GNU ABI,
+but requires the libobjc2 runtime from the GNUstep project.</li>
+
+<li>New warnings: Clang contains a number of new warnings, including
+control-flow warnings (unreachable code, missing return statements in a
+non-<code>void</code> function, etc.), sign-comparison warnings, and improved
+format-string warnings.</li>
<li>CIndex API and Python bindings: Clang now includes a C API as part of the
-CIndex library. Although we make make some changes to the API in the future, it
+CIndex library. Although we may make some changes to the API in the future, it
is intended to be stable and has been designed for use by external projects. See
the Clang
doxygen <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen/group__CINDEX.html">CIndex</a>
-documentation for more details. The CIndex API also includings an preliminary
+documentation for more details. The CIndex API also includes a preliminary
set of Python bindings.</li>
<li>ARM Support: Clang now has ABI support for both the Darwin and Linux ARM
ABIs. Coupled with many improvements to the LLVM ARM backend, Clang is now
-suitable for use as a a beta quality ARM compiler.</li>
+suitable for use as a beta quality ARM compiler.</li>
+
</ul>
</div>
<p>2.7 includes major parts of the work required by the new MC Project. A few
targets have been refactored to support it, and work is underway to support a
- native assembler in LLVM. This work is not complete in LLVM 2.7, but you has
+ native assembler in LLVM. This work is not complete in LLVM 2.7, but it has
made substantially more progress on LLVM mainline.</p>
<p>One minor example of what MC can do is to transcode an AT&T syntax
- X86 .s file into intel syntax. You can do this with something like:
-
+ X86 .s file into intel syntax. You can do this with something like:</p>
<pre>
llvm-mc foo.s -output-asm-variant=1 -o foo-intel.s
</pre>
-</p>
</div>
</p>
</div>
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="icedtea">IcedTea Java Virtual Machine Implementation</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+<a href="http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page">IcedTea</a> provides a
+harness to build OpenJDK using only free software build tools and to provide
+replacements for the not-yet free parts of OpenJDK. One of the extensions that
+IcedTea provides is a new JIT compiler named <a
+href="http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/ZeroSharkFaq">Shark</a> which uses LLVM
+to provide native code generation without introducing processor-dependent
+code.
+</p>
+<p>Icedtea6 1.8 and later have been tested and are known to work with
+LLVM 2.7 (and continue to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.6 as well).
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="llvm-lua">LLVM-Lua</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+<a href="http://code.google.com/p/llvm-lua/">LLVM-Lua</a> uses LLVM
+ to add JIT and static compiling support to the Lua VM. Lua
+bytecode is analyzed to remove type checks, then LLVM is used to compile the
+bytecode down to machine code.
+</p>
+<p>LLVM-Lua 1.2.0 have been tested and is known to work with LLVM 2.7.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="MacRuby">MacRuby</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+<a href="http://macruby.org">MacRuby</a> is an implementation of Ruby based on
+core Mac OS technologies, sponsored by Apple Inc. It uses LLVM at runtime for
+optimization passes, JIT compilation and exception handling. It also allows
+static (ahead-of-time) compilation of Ruby code straight to machine code.
+</p>
+<p>The upcoming MacRuby 0.6 release works with LLVM 2.7.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!--=========================================================================-->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="GHC">Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC)</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+<a href="http://www.haskell.org/ghc/">GHC</a> is an open source,
+state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell, a standard lazy
+functional programming language. It includes an optimizing static
+compiler generating good code for a variety of platforms, together
+with an interactive system for convenient, quick development.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the existing C and native code generators, GHC now
+supports an <a
+href="http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Commentary/Compiler/Backends/LLVM">LLVM
+code generator</a>. GHC supports LLVM 2.7.</p>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<ul>
-<li>The inliner reuses now merges arrays stack objects in different callees when
+<li>The inliner now merges arrays stack objects in different callees when
inlining multiple call sites into one function. This reduces the stack size
of the resultant function.</li>
<li>The -basicaa alias analysis pass (which is the default) has been improved to
Advanced Topics in Redundant Load Elimination with a Focus on PHI Translation
Blog Post</a> for more details.</li>
<li>The module <a href="LangRef.html#datalayout">target data string</a> now
- includes a notion of what the 'native' integer data types a for the target,
- which allows various optimizations to use. This helps mid-level
- optimizations avoid promoting complex sequences of operations to data types
- that are not natively supported (e.g. converting i32 operations to i64 on
- a 32-bit chip).</li>
+ includes a notion of 'native' integer data types for the target. This
+ helps mid-level optimizations avoid promoting complex sequences of
+ operations to data types that are not natively supported (e.g. converting
+ i32 operations to i64 on 32-bit chips).</li>
<li>The mid-level optimizer is now conservative when operating on a module with
no target data. Previously, it would default to SparcV9 settings, which is
not what most people expected.</li>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
-<li>The JIT now supports generating debug information, which is compatible with
-the new GDB 7.0 (and later) interfaces for registering debug info for
-dynamically generated code.</li>
+<li>The JIT now supports generating debug information and is compatible with
+the new GDB 7.0 (and later) interfaces for registering dynamically generated
+debug info.</li>
<li>The JIT now <a href="http://llvm.org/PR5184">defaults
to compiling eagerly</a> to avoid a race condition in the lazy JIT.
understand assembly files. This is wired up in llvm-gcc and clang to
the <tt>-fverbose-asm</tt> option.</li>
-<li>New LSR with "full strength reduction" mode. FIXME: Description?</li>
+<li>New LSR with "full strength reduction" mode, which can reduce address
+ register pressure in loops where address generation is important.</li>
<li>A new codegen level Common Subexpression Elimination pass (MachineCSE)
is available and enabled by default. It catches redundancies exposed by
registers, making the code generator more aggressive in cases where scalars
and vector types are mixed.</li>
-<li>PostRA scheduler for X86? FIXME: is this on by default in 2.7?</li>
-
</ul>
</div>
ARM Advanced SIMD (NEON) Intrinsics and Types in LLVM Blog Post</a> for
helpful information if migrating code from GCC to LLVM-GCC.</li>
-<li>The ARM and Thumb code generators now using register scavenging for stack
- object address materialization.(FIXME: WHAT BENEFIT DOES THIS PROVIDE?)</li>
-
-<li>The ARM backend now has good support for ARMv4 targets, and has been tested
+<li>The ARM and Thumb code generators now use register scavenging for stack
+ object address materialization. This allows the use of R3 as a general
+ purpose register in Thumb1 code, as it was previous reserved for use in
+ stack address materialization. Secondly, sequential uses of the same
+ value will now re-use the materialized constant.</li>
+
+<li>The ARM backend now has good support for ARMv4 targets and has been tested
on StrongARM hardware. Previously, LLVM only supported ARMv4T and
newer chips.</li>
+
+<li>Atomic builtins are now supported for ARMv6 and ARMv7 (__sync_synchronize,
+ __sync_fetch_and_add, etc.).</li>
+
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The optimizer uses the new CodeMetrics class to measure the size of code.
- Various passes that use thing (like the inliner, loop unswitcher, etc) all
- use this to make more accurate estimates of the code size impact of various
+ Various passes (like the inliner, loop unswitcher, etc) all use this to make
+ more accurate estimates of the code size impact of various
optimizations.</li>
<li>A new <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/InstructionSimplify_8h-source.html">
- llvm/Analysis/InstructionSimplify.h</a> interface available for doing
+ llvm/Analysis/InstructionSimplify.h</a> interface is available for doing
symbolic simplification of instructions (e.g. <tt>a+0</tt> -> <tt>a</tt>)
without requiring the instruction to exist. This centralizes a lot of
ad-hoc symbolic manipulation code scattered in various passes.</li>
href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/SSAUpdater_8h-source.html">SSAUpdater</a>
class which efficiently supports
doing unstructured SSA update operations. This centralized a bunch of code
- scattered through various passes (e.g. jump threading, lcssa, loop rotate,
- etc) for doing this sort of thing. The code generator has an similar
- <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/MachineSSAUpdater_8h-source.html">
+ scattered throughout various passes (e.g. jump threading, lcssa,
+ loop rotate, etc) for doing this sort of thing. The code generator has a
+
similar <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/MachineSSAUpdater_8h-source.html">
MachineSSAUpdater</a> class.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/Regex_8h-source.html">
llvm/Support/Regex.h</a> header exposes a platform independent regular
<li>You can now build LLVM as a big dynamic library (e.g. "libllvm2.7.so"). To
get this, configure LLVM with the --enable-shared option.</li>
-<li>LLVM command line tools now overwrite their output by default, before they
- would only do this with -f. This makes them more convenient to use, and
+<li>LLVM command line tools now overwrite their output by default. Previously,
+ they would only do this with -f. This makes them more convenient to use, and
behave more like standard unix tools.</li>
<li>The opt and llc tools now autodetect whether their input is a .ll or .bc
API changes are:</p>
<ul>
-<li>Just about everything has been converted to use raw_ostream instead of
- std::ostream.</li>
-<li>llvm/ADT/iterator.h has been removed, just use <iterator>
- instead.</li>
-<li>The Streams.h file and "DOUT" got removed, use "DEBUG(errs() << ...);"
- instead.</li>
-<li><tt>ModuleProvider</tt> has been <a
-href="http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?view=rev&revision=94686">removed</a>
-and its methods moved to <tt>Module</tt> and <tt>GlobalValue</tt>.
-Most clients can remove uses of <tt>ExistingModuleProvider</tt>,
-replace <tt>getBitcodeModuleProvider</tt> with
-<tt>getLazyBitcodeModule</tt>, and pass their <tt>Module</tt> to
-functions that used to accept <tt>ModuleProvider</tt>. Clients who
-wrote their own <tt>ModuleProvider</tt>s will need to derive from
-<tt>GVMaterializer</tt> instead and use
-<tt>Module::setMaterializer</tt> to attach it to a
-<tt>Module</tt>.</li>
-
-<li><tt>GhostLinkage</tt> has given up the ghost.
-<tt>GlobalValue</tt>s that have not yet been read from their backing
-storage have the same linkage they will have after being read in.
-Clients must replace calls to
-<tt>GlobalValue::hasNotBeenReadFromBitcode</tt> with
-<tt>GlobalValue::isMaterializable</tt>.</li>
-
-<li>The <tt>llvm/Support/DataTypes.h</tt> header has moved
-to <tt>llvm/System/DataTypes.h</tt>.</li>
-
-<li>The <tt>isInteger</tt>, <tt>isIntOrIntVector</tt>, <tt>isFloatingPoint</tt>,
-<tt>isFPOrFPVector</tt> and <tt>isFPOrFPVector</tt> methods have been renamed
-<tt>isIntegerTy</tt>, <tt>isIntOrIntVectorTy</tt>, <tt>isFloatingPointTy</tt>,
-<tt>isFPOrFPVectorTy</tt> and <tt>isFPOrFPVectorTy</tt> respectively.</li>
+
+<li>The <tt>add</tt>, <tt>sub</tt>, and <tt>mul</tt> instructions no longer
+support floating-point operands. The <tt>fadd</tt>, <tt>fsub</tt>, and
+<tt>fmul</tt> instructions should be used for this purpose instead.</li>
+
</ul>
</div>
projects / oota-llvm.git / blobdiff