<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
- <title>LLVM 2.4 Release Notes</title>
+ <title>LLVM 2.5 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
-<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.4 Release Notes</div>
-
+<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.5 Release Notes</div>
+
<ol>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
- <li><a href="#changes">Major Changes and Sub-project Status</a></li>
- <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM?</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><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a></li>
<li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">
- <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a><p>
+ <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a></p>
</div>
-<!-- Done through Week-of-Mon-20080324.txt -->
-
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="intro">Introduction</a>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
-infrastructure, release 2.4. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
-major improvements from the previous release and any known problems. All LLVM
-releases may be downloaded from the <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM
-releases web site</a>.</p>
+<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler
+Infrastructure, release 2.5. 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>
<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">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>
+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 a Subversion checkout or the
+<p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout 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 a specific releases, please see the
+current one. To see the release notes for a specific release, please see the
<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
</div>
+<!-- Unfinished features in 2.5:
+ Machine LICM
+ Machine Sinking
+ target-specific intrinsics
+ gold lto plugin
+ pre-alloc splitter, strong phi elim
+ llc -enable-value-prop, propagation of value info (sign/zero ext info) from
+ one MBB to another
+ debug info for optimized code
+
+ -->
+
+ <!-- for announcement email:
+ -->
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="changes">Major Changes and Sub-project Status</a>
+ <a name="subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
-
-<p>This is the fifteenth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.
-It includes a large number of features and refinements from LLVM 2.3.</p>
+<p>
+The LLVM 2.5 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
+repository (which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators and
+supporting tools) and the llvm-gcc repository. In addition to this code, the
+LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in development. The two which
+are the most actively developed are the <a href="#clang">Clang Project</a> and
+the <a href="#vmkit">VMKit Project</a>.
+</p>
</div>
-<!-- Unfinished features in 2.4:
- Machine LICM
- Machine Sinking
- LegalizeDAGTypes
- -->
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="changes">Major Changes in LLVM 2.4</a>
+<a name="clang">Clang: C/C++/Objective-C Frontend Toolkit</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>....</p>
-
-<p>LLVM API Changes:</p>
+<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang project</a> is an effort to build
+a set of new 'LLVM native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
+and code generator. While Clang is not included in the LLVM 2.5 release, it
+is continuing to make major strides forward in all areas. Its C and Objective-C
+parsing and code generation support is now very solid. For example, it is
+capable of successfully building many real applications for X86-32 and X86-64,
+including the FreeBSD kernel. C++ is also making <a
+href="http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html">incredible progress</a>, and work
+on templates has recently started.</p>
+
+<p>While Clang is not yet production quality, it is progressing very nicely and
+is quite usable for building many C and Objective-C applications. If you are
+interested in fast compiles and good diagnostics, we encourage you to try it out
+by <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html">building from mainline</a>
+and reporting any issues you hit to the <a
+href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/cfe-dev">Clang front-end mailing
+list</a>.</p>
+
+<p>In the LLVM 2.5 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements:</p>
<ul>
-<li>....</li>
-</ul>
+<li>Clang now has a new driver, which is focused on providing a GCC-compatible
+ interface.</li>
+<li>The X86-64 ABI is now supported.</li>
+<li>Precompiled header support is now implemented.</li>
+<li>Objective-C support is significantly improved beyond LLVM 2.4, supporting
+ many features, such as Objective-C Garbage Collection.</li>
+<li>Many many bugs are fixed.</li>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="otherprojects">Other LLVM Sub-Projects</a>
+<a name="clangsa">Clang Static Analyzer</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-The core LLVM 2.4 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
-repository (which roughly contains the LLVM optimizer, code generators and
-supporting tools) and the llvm-gcc repository. In addition to this code, the
-LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in development. The two which
-are the most actively developed are the <a href="#clang">Clang Project</a> and
-<a href="#vmkit">vmkit Project</a>.
-</p>
-</div>
-<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-<a name="vmkit">vmkit</a>
-</div>
+<p>The Clang project also includes an early stage static source code analysis
+tool for <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/StaticAnalysis.html">automatically
+finding bugs</a> in C and Objective-C programs. The tool performs a growing set
+of checks to find bugs that occur on a specific path within a program. Examples
+of bugs the tool finds include logic errors such as null dereferences,
+violations of various API rules, dead code, and potential memory leaks in
+Objective-C programs. Since its inception, public feedback on the tool has been
+extremely positive, and conservative estimates put the number of real bugs it
+has found in industrial-quality software on the order of thousands.</p>
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p>
-The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">"vmkit" project</a> is an implementation of
-a JVM and a CLI Virtual Machines (Microsoft .NET is an
-implementation of the CLI) using the Just-In-Time compiler of LLVM.</p>
+<p>The tool also provides a simple web GUI to inspect potential bugs found by
+the tool. While still early in development, the GUI illustrates some of the key
+features of Clang: accurate source location information, which is used by the
+GUI to highlight specific code expressions that relate to a bug (including those
+that span multiple lines); and built-in knowledge of macros, which is used to
+perform inline expansion of macros within the GUI itself.</p>
-<p>...</p>
+<p>The set of checks performed by the static analyzer is gradually expanding,
+and future plans for the tool include full source-level inter-procedural
+analysis and deeper checks such as buffer overrun detection. There are many
+opportunities to extend and enhance the static analyzer, and anyone interested
+in working on this project is encouraged to get involved!</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
-<div class="doc_subsubsection">
-<a name="clang">Clang</a>
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+<a name="vmkit">VMKit: JVM/CLI Virtual Machine Implementation</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
+<p>
+The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">VMKit project</a> is an implementation of
+a JVM and a CLI Virtual Machines (Microsoft .NET is an
+implementation of the CLI) using the Just-In-Time compiler of LLVM.</p>
-<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang project</a> is an effort to build
-a set of new 'LLVM native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
-and code generator. Clang is continuing to make major strides forward in all
-areas. Its C and Objective-C parsing support is very solid, and the code
-generation support is far enough along to build many C applications. While not
-yet production quality, it is progressing very nicely. In addition, C++
-front-end work has started to make significant progress.</p>
+<p>Following LLVM 2.5, VMKit has its first release ? that you can find on its
+<a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/releases/">webpage</a>. The release includes
+bug fixes, cleanup and new features. The major changes are:</p>
-<p>Codegen progress/state
-</p>
+<ul>
-<p>
-<a href="http://clang.llvm.org/StaticAnalysis.html">static analysis tool</a>
-</p>
+<li>?</li>
+</ul>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
- <a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
+ <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM?</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>LLVM 2.4 includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and minor
-improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are listed in
-this section.
+<p>This release includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks, and
+minor improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are listed
+in this section.
</p>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>LLVM 2.4 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
+<p>LLVM 2.5 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
<ul>
-<li>
- <p>MRVs got generalized to FCAs.</p>
- </li>
-
-<li><p>fast isel, -O0 compile times</p></li>
-
-<li><p>Attrs changes?</p></li>
-
-<li><p>...</p></li>
+<li><p>The code generator now supports arbitrary precision integers.
+Types like <tt>i33</tt> have long been valid in the LLVM IR, but previously
+could only be used with the interpreter.
+Now IR using such types can be compiled to native code on all targets.
+All operations are supported if the integer is not bigger than twice the
+target machine word size.
+Simple operations like loads, stores and shifts by a constant amount are
+supported for integers of any size.
+</p></li>
+
+<!--
+Random stuff:
+
+xcore backend!
+fortran on darwin!
+
+.ll parser rewrite.
+GCC inliner off.
+cmake mature?
+x86 backend FS/GS segment address spaces?
+nocapture
+memdep is faster / more aggressive.
+how to write a backend doc docs/WritingAnLLVMBackend.html
+fastisel + exception handling
+vector widening <3 x float> -> <4 x float>
+arm port improvements? arm jit encoding stuff, constant island support?
+JIT TLS support on x86
+mem2reg now faster on code with huge basic blocks
+stack protectors/stack canaries, -fstack-protector, controllable on a
+ per-function basis with attributes.
+shufflevector is generalized to allow different shuffle mask width than its
+ input vectors.
+loop optimizer improves floating point induction variables
+llvm/Analysis/DebugInfo.h classes, llvm-gcc and clang and codegen use them.
+asmprinters seperate from targets for jits
+-->
</ul>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>LLVM 2.4 fully supports the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end, and includes support
-for the C, C++, Objective-C, Ada, and Fortran front-ends.</p>
+<p>LLVM fully supports the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end, which marries the GCC
+front-ends and driver with the LLVM optimizer and code generator. It currently
+includes support for the C, C++, Objective-C, Ada, and Fortran front-ends.</p>
-<p>
<ul>
-<li>...</li>
-
+<li>?</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>New features include:
-</p>
+<p>New features include:</p>
<ul>
-<li>...</li>
+<li>?</li>
+
</ul>
-
+
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, the
-LLVM 2.4 optimizers support a few major enhancements:</p>
+<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, this
+release includes a few major enhancements and additions to the optimizers:</p>
<ul>
-<li>.</li>
-
+<li>?</li>
+
</ul>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>We put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
+<p>We have put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make it run
faster:</p>
<ul>
-<li>Selection dag speedups</li>
-<li>...</li>
+<li>The type legalization logic has been completely rewritten, and is now
+more powerful (it supports arbitrary precision integer types for example)
+and hopefully more correct.
+The type legalizer converts operations on types that are not natively
+supported by the target machine into equivalent code sequences that only use
+natively supported types.
+The old type legalizer is still available and will be used if
+<tt>-disable-legalize-types</tt> is passed to <tt>llc</tt>.
+</li>
+<li>?</li>
</ul>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="x86specific">X86/X86-64 Specific Improvements</a>
+<a name="targetspecific">Target Specific Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
</p>
<ul>
-<li>Exception handling is supported by default on x86-64 linux platform.</li>
-<li>...</li>
-
+<li>?</li>
</ul>
-
+
</div>
+
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="targetspecific">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
+<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>New target-specific features include:
+<p>New features include:
</p>
<ul>
-<li>....</li>
-</ul>
-
-</div>
+<li>?</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
-<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
+<a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>New features include:
-</p>
+
+<p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based
+on LLVM 2.4, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
+from the previous release.</p>
<ul>
-<li>...</li>
+
+<li>?</li>
</ul>
-
+
+
+<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release. Some of the major LLVM
+API changes are:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>?</li>
+</ul>
+
+<li>?</li>
+</ul>
+
</div>
+
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
<a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
<ul>
-<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32) running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
- (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
-<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit and
- 64-bit modes.</li>
+<li>Intel and AMD machines (IA32, X86-64, AMD64, EMT-64) running Red Hat
+Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
+<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit
+and 64-bit modes.</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
<div class="doc_text">
-<p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
-component. As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
-sections. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
+<p>This section contains significant known problems with the LLVM system,
+listed by component. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
there isn't already one.</p>
href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
<ul>
-<li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, SPU, and MIPS backends are experimental.</li>
+<li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, SPU, MIPS, and PIC16 backends are experimental.</li>
<li>The llc "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported
value for this option.</li>
</ul>
</div>
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="mips-be">Known problems with the MIPS back-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<ul>
+<li>The O32 ABI is not fully supported.</li>
+<li>64-bit MIPS targets are not supported yet.</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
<ul>
<li>The Itanium backend is highly experimental, and has a number of known
issues. We are looking for a maintainer for the Itanium backend. If you
- are interested, please contact the llvmdev mailing list.</li>
+ are interested, please contact the LLVMdev mailing list.</li>
</ul>
</div>
C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
C++ code compiled with llc or native compilers.</li>
<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
+<li>The C backend does not support arbitrary precision integers.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>llvm-gcc does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
-llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
+LLVMdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
<p>The only major language feature of GCC not supported by llvm-gcc is
the <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> family of builtins. However, some extensions
<ul>
<li>Exception handling works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets. Currently
- only linux and darwin targets are supported (both 32 and 64 bit).</li>
+ only Linux and Darwin targets are supported (both 32 and 64 bit).</li>
</ul>
</div>
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="fortran-fe">Known problems with the llvm-gcc Fortran front-end</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+<ul>
+<li>Fortran support generally works, but there are still several unresolved bugs
+ in Bugzilla. Please see the tools/gfortran component for details.</li>
+
+<li>The Fortran front-end currently does not build on Darwin (without tweaks)
+ due to unresolved dependencies on the C front-end.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
however it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on X86-64</a>
which does support trampolines.</li>
<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
+This is due to lack of LLVM support for <tt>setjmp</tt>/<tt>longjmp</tt> style
+exception handling, which is used internally by the compiler.
Workaround: configure with --disable-bootstrap.</li>
-<li>The c380004 and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> ACATS tests
-fail (c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline). When built at -O3, the
-<a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS test also fails.</li>
-<li>Some gcc specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler. The testsuite
-reports most tests as having failed even though they pass.</li>
+<li>The c380004, <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
+and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2421">cxg2021</a> ACATS tests fail
+(c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline).
+If the compiler is built with checks disabled then <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a>
+causes the compiler to go into an infinite loop, using up all system memory.</li>
+<li>Some gcc specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler.</li>
<li>The -E binder option (exception backtraces)
<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use -E.</li>
<hr>
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