[LLVMdev] Newbie questions

[Archie Cobbs]

Alkis Evlogimenos wrote:
> On 4/25/06, Archie Cobbs <archie at dellroad.org> wrote:
>> Motivation: Java's "first active use" requirement for class initialization.
>> When invoking a static method, it's possible that a class may need to
>> be initialized, However, when invoking an instance method, that's not
>> possible.
>>
>> Perhaps there should be a way in LLVM to specify predicates (or at least
>> properties of global variables and parameters) that are known to be true
>> at the start of each function... ?
> 
> I think this will end up being the same as the null pointer trapping
> instruction optimization. The implementation will very likely involve
> some pointer to the description of the class. To make this fast this
> pointer will be null if the class is not loaded and you trap when you
> try to use it and perform initialization. So in the end the same
> optimization pass that was used for successive field accesses can be
> used for class initialization as well.

If that were the implementation then yes that could work. But using
a null pointer like this probably wouldn't be the case. In Java you have
to load a class before you initialize it, so the pointer to the type
structure will already be non-null.

In JCVM for example, there is a bit in type->flags that determines
whether the class is initialized or not. This bit has to be checked
before every static method invocation or static field access. You could
reserve an entire byte instead of a bit, but I don't know if that would
make it any easier to do this optimization.

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I'm not entirely convinced (or understanding) how the "no annotations"
approach is supposed to work. For example, for optimizing away Java's
"active use" checks as discussed above. How specifically does this
optimzation get done? Saying that the implementation will "likely" use
a null pointer is not an answer because, what if the implementation
doesn't use a null pointer? I.e., my question is the more general one:
how do optimizations that are specific to the front-end language get
done? How does the front-end "secret knowledge" get passed through
somehow so it can be used for optimization purposes?

Apologies for sounding skeptical, I'm just trying to nail down an
answer to a kindof philosophical question.

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Another question: does LLVM know about or handle signal frames? What
if code wants to unwind across a signal frame? This is another thing
that would be required for Java if e.g. you wanted to detect null
pointer access via signals. Note setjmp/longjmp works OK across signal
frames.

Thanks,
-Archie

__________________________________________________________________________
Archie Cobbs      *        CTO, Awarix        *      http://www.awarix.com