[LLVMdev] Kill-flag in two-address instruction tied operands

[Jakob Stoklund Olesen]

Hi,

Two-address instructions are represented as normal three-address  
instructions with a Desc bit that indicates the first two operands are  
tied together. The question is, should the second operand have a  
<kill> flag?

a: %R0<def> = MUL %R0, %R1<kill>
b: %R0<def> = MUL %R0<kill>, %R1<kill>

I think the current policy is a: There should be no kill-flag. The  
machine code verifier has code to handle the missing <kill> flag, and  
the regscavenger asserts if the <kill> flag is set.

Recently somebody (possibly myself) has been setting <kill> flags on  
my tied use operands, causing regscavenger to assert.

I just want to verify the policy regarding two-address <kill> flags:

Case a: <kill> is not allowed. I should add a check to the verifier  
for this. Find out who is setting the flags.
Case b: <kill> is mandatory. Remove special-case code from verifier,  
fix regscavenger.
Case c: <kill> is don't care. Fix regscavenger.

My vote goes to b: Then you don't need special-case code for two- 
address instructions. (Except for places that need special treatment  
of two-address instrs for other reasons).

/jakob