[llvm-commits] CVS: llvm/docs/LangRef.html
Chris Lattner
lattner at cs.uiuc.edu
Sun May 23 16:08:09 PDT 2004
Changes in directory llvm/docs:
LangRef.html updated: 1.60 -> 1.61
---
Log message:
Describe the new garbage collector intrinsics
---
Diffs of the changes: (+177 -14)
Index: llvm/docs/LangRef.html
diff -u llvm/docs/LangRef.html:1.60 llvm/docs/LangRef.html:1.61
--- llvm/docs/LangRef.html:1.60 Mon Apr 12 11:33:19 2004
+++ llvm/docs/LangRef.html Sun May 23 16:06:01 2004
@@ -5,7 +5,9 @@
<title>LLVM Assembly Language Reference Manual</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
</head>
+
<body>
+
<div class="doc_title"> LLVM Language Reference Manual </div>
<ol>
<li><a href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li>
@@ -97,6 +99,13 @@
<li><a href="#i_va_copy">'<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
+ <li><a href="#int_gc">Accurate Garbage Collection Intrinsics</a>
+ <ol>
+ <li><a href="#i_gcroot">'<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#i_gcread">'<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#i_gcwrite">'<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
+ </ol>
+ </li>
<li><a href="#int_codegen">Code Generator Intrinsics</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#i_returnaddress">'<tt>llvm.returnaddress</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
@@ -117,18 +126,20 @@
<li><a href="#i_memset">'<tt>llvm.memset</tt>' Intrinsic</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
- <li><a href="#int_debugger">Debugger intrinsics</a>
+ <li><a href="#int_debugger">Debugger intrinsics</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
-<div class="doc_text">
-<p><b>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre at nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>
-and <a href="mailto:vadve at cs.uiuc.edu">Vikram Adve</a></b></p>
-<p> </p>
+
+<div class="doc_author">
+ <p>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre at nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a>
+ and <a href="mailto:vadve at cs.uiuc.edu">Vikram Adve</a></p>
</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section"> <a name="abstract">Abstract </a></div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+
<div class="doc_text">
<p>This document is a reference manual for the LLVM assembly language.
LLVM is an SSA based representation that provides type safety,
@@ -137,10 +148,13 @@
representation used throughout all phases of the LLVM compilation
strategy.</p>
</div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section"> <a name="introduction">Introduction</a> </div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+
<div class="doc_text">
+
<p>The LLVM code representation is designed to be used in three
different forms: as an in-memory compiler IR, as an on-disk bytecode
representation (suitable for fast loading by a Just-In-Time compiler),
@@ -150,6 +164,7 @@
to debug and visualize the transformations. The three different forms
of LLVM are all equivalent. This document describes the human readable
representation and notation.</p>
+
<p>The LLVM representation aims to be a light-weight and low-level
while being expressive, typed, and extensible at the same time. It
aims to be a "universal IR" of sorts, by being at a low enough level
@@ -160,15 +175,23 @@
can be proven that a C automatic variable is never accessed outside of
the current function... allowing it to be promoted to a simple SSA
value instead of a memory location.</p>
+
</div>
+
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection"> <a name="wellformed">Well-Formedness</a> </div>
+
<div class="doc_text">
+
<p>It is important to note that this document describes 'well formed'
LLVM assembly language. There is a difference between what the parser
accepts and what is considered 'well formed'. For example, the
following instruction is syntactically okay, but not well formed:</p>
-<pre> %x = <a href="#i_add">add</a> int 1, %x<br></pre>
+
+<pre>
+ %x = <a href="#i_add">add</a> int 1, %x
+</pre>
+
<p>...because the definition of <tt>%x</tt> does not dominate all of
its uses. The LLVM infrastructure provides a verification pass that may
be used to verify that an LLVM module is well formed. This pass is
@@ -176,13 +199,18 @@
the optimizer before it outputs bytecode. The violations pointed out
by the verifier pass indicate bugs in transformation passes or input to
the parser.</p>
+
<!-- Describe the typesetting conventions here. --> </div>
+
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section"> <a name="identifiers">Identifiers</a> </div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
+
<div class="doc_text">
+
<p>LLVM uses three different forms of identifiers, for different
purposes:</p>
+
<ol>
<li>Numeric constants are represented as you would expect: 12, -3
123.421, etc. Floating point constants have an optional hexadecimal
@@ -1803,18 +1831,22 @@
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
+
<p>Variable argument support is defined in LLVM with the <a
href="#i_vanext"><tt>vanext</tt></a> instruction and these three
intrinsic functions. These functions are related to the similarly
named macros defined in the <tt><stdarg.h></tt> header file.</p>
+
<p>All of these functions operate on arguments that use a
target-specific value type "<tt>va_list</tt>". The LLVM assembly
language reference manual does not define what this type is, so all
transformations should be prepared to handle intrinsics with any type
used.</p>
+
<p>This example shows how the <a href="#i_vanext"><tt>vanext</tt></a>
instruction and the variable argument handling intrinsic functions are
used.</p>
+
<pre>
int %test(int %X, ...) {
; Initialize variable argument processing
@@ -1888,21 +1920,152 @@
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
+
<h5>Syntax:</h5>
-<pre> call va_list (va_list)* %llvm.va_copy(va_list <destarglist>)<br></pre>
+
+<pre>
+ call va_list (va_list)* %llvm.va_copy(va_list <destarglist>)
+</pre>
+
<h5>Overview:</h5>
-<p>The '<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' intrinsic copies the current argument
-position from the source argument list to the destination argument list.</p>
+
+<p>The '<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' intrinsic copies the current argument position
+from the source argument list to the destination argument list.</p>
+
<h5>Arguments:</h5>
+
<p>The argument is the <tt>va_list</tt> to copy.</p>
+
<h5>Semantics:</h5>
+
<p>The '<tt>llvm.va_copy</tt>' intrinsic works just like the <tt>va_copy</tt>
-macro available in C. In a target-dependent way, it copies the source <tt>va_list</tt>
-element into the returned list. This intrinsic is necessary because the <tt><a
- href="i_va_start">llvm.va_start</a></tt> intrinsic may be arbitrarily
-complex and require memory allocation, for example.</p>
+macro available in C. In a target-dependent way, it copies the source
+<tt>va_list</tt> element into the returned list. This intrinsic is necessary
+because the <tt><a href="i_va_start">llvm.va_start</a></tt> intrinsic may be
+arbitrarily complex and require memory allocation, for example.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<div class="doc_subsection">
+ <a name="int_gc">Accurate Garbage Collection Intrinsics</a>
</div>
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<p>
+LLVM support for <a href="GarbageCollection.html">Accurate Garbage
+Collection</a> requires the implementation and generation of these intrinsics.
+These intrinsics allow identification of <a href="#i_gcroot">GC roots on the
+stack</a>, as well as garbage collector implementations that require <a
+href="#i_gcread">read</a> and <a href="#i_gcwrite">write</a> barriers.
+Front-ends for type-safe garbage collected languages should generate these
+intrinsics to make use of the LLVM garbage collectors. For more details, see <a
+href="GarbageCollection.html">Accurate Garbage Collection with LLVM</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="i_gcroot">'<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<h5>Syntax:</h5>
+
+<pre>
+ call void (<ty>**, <ty2>*)* %llvm.gcroot(<ty>** %ptrloc, <ty2>* %metadata)
+</pre>
+
+<h5>Overview:</h5>
+
+<p>The '<tt>llvm.gcroot</tt>' intrinsic declares the existance of a GC root to
+the code generator, and allows some metadata to be associated with it.</p>
+
+<h5>Arguments:</h5>
+
+<p>The first argument specifies the address of a stack object that contains the
+root pointer. The second pointer (which must be either a constant or a global
+value address) contains the meta-data to be associated with the root.</p>
+
+<h5>Semantics:</h5>
+
+<p>At runtime, a call to this intrinsics stores a null pointer into the "ptrloc"
+location. At compile-time, the code generator generates information to allow
+the runtime to find the pointer at GC safe points.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="i_gcread">'<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<h5>Syntax:</h5>
+
+<pre>
+ call sbyte* (sbyte**)* %llvm.gcread(sbyte** %Ptr)
+</pre>
+
+<h5>Overview:</h5>
+
+<p>The '<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' intrinsic identifies reads of references from heap
+locations, allowing garbage collector implementations that require read
+barriers.</p>
+
+<h5>Arguments:</h5>
+
+<p>The argument is the address to read from, which should be an address
+allocated from the garbage collector.</p>
+
+<h5>Semantics:</h5>
+
+<p>The '<tt>llvm.gcread</tt>' intrinsic has the same semantics as a load
+instruction, but may be replaced with substantially more complex code by the
+garbage collector runtime, as needed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
+<div class="doc_subsubsection">
+ <a name="i_gcwrite">'<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' Intrinsic</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="doc_text">
+
+<h5>Syntax:</h5>
+
+<pre>
+ call void (sbyte*, sbyte**)* %llvm.gcwrite(sbyte* %P1, sbyte** %P2)
+</pre>
+
+<h5>Overview:</h5>
+
+<p>The '<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' intrinsic identifies writes of references to heap
+locations, allowing garbage collector implementations that require write
+barriers (such as generational or reference counting collectors).</p>
+
+<h5>Arguments:</h5>
+
+<p>The first argument is the reference to store, and the second is the heap
+location to store to.</p>
+
+<h5>Semantics:</h5>
+
+<p>The '<tt>llvm.gcwrite</tt>' intrinsic has the same semantics as a store
+instruction, but may be replaced with substantially more complex code by the
+garbage collector runtime, as needed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="int_codegen">Code Generator Intrinsics</a>
@@ -2390,7 +2553,7 @@
<a href="mailto:sabre at nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a><br>
<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
- Last modified: $Date: 2004/04/12 16:33:19 $
+ Last modified: $Date: 2004/05/23 21:06:01 $
</address>
</body>
</html>
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