[cfe-dev] How to inline a C-function during code generation ?

[David Blaikie]

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:56 PM, Nat! <nat at mulle-kybernetik.com> wrote:

>
> > Am 26.05.2015 um 18:57 schrieb David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com>:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 11:05 AM, Nat! <nat at mulle-kybernetik.com> wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > I started hacking on clang itself and I have some questions, that I
> couldn't figure out with the help of the source code or the documentation.
> >
> > Looking at the IR code generated by -O2 and -O0 it seems, that function
> inlining is done in clang already. But I haven't figured out, how that is
> actually done.
> >
> > Here's some useful terminology for this discussion:
> >
> > IRGen: Clang's generation of LLVM IR from Clang ASTs
>
> > CodeGen: LLVM's generation of machine code/assembly from LLVM IR
> OK, clang unfortunately calls IR generation also code generation, which
> makes it a bit confusing for the newcomer.
>

Yep, one day we'll rename it.


>
> > Clang: The Clang frontend, down to the point that it generates and
> passes LLVM IR to the LLVM libraries.
> > LLVM: Everything else. (the middle and backend)
> >
> > Clang does not do inlining.
> > LLVM does inlining.
> > Clang produces code that can be/is encouraged to be/is required to be
> inlined by LLVM.
> >
> > For example, if the user writes source code with the always_inline (or
> is it "alwaysinline", I forget) attribute, then Clang produces LLVM IR with
> the matching attribute and LLVM obeys the request (where possibly) and
> inlines all calls to that function during LLVM's optimization passes.
>
> My mental model of what was happening was:
>
> <file.c> > cc1 > <file.ir> and then llc < file.ir > file.o
>
> and I expected all optimizations to be done after cc1 is complete. This is
> not the case. The inlining is done in the cc1 stage, during
> EmitBackendOutput. So that what you would call the "middle" and the code
> that does the inlining is linked in from the llvm project.


That's sometimes called the "middle end" or "target independent
optimizations" or "IR optimizers/optimizations", etc.


> The ir that I got from -cc1 -emit-llvm was therefore not created by "pure"
> clang as I expected but a mix of clang and llvm.
>

Right. If you want literally the IR that Clang produced (& was going to
give to LLVM) you need to pass -mllvm -disable-llvm-optzns. Without that,
even at -O0, you'll get some LLVM optimizations running, including the
AlwaysInliner (the version of teh inliner responsible for inlining
always_inline functions - since that has to be done even at -O0).


>
> I hope I can get substitute my debugging clang by doing cc1 -emit-llvm -O0
> and then llc these with optimization on, as it would be a lot easier to
> debug, why my code does not get inlined.
>
> Thanks for the helpful reply!
>
> Ciao
>    Nat!
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Wir haben das Beste gewollt, aber es kam wie immer.
>                                     - W.Tschernomyrdin
>
>
>
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