[LLVMdev] x86 unwind support[MESSAGE NOT SCANNED]

[Duncan Sands]

Hi Mark,

> So who is responsible for (as stated under the invoke description in the 
> language reference) "ensure that proper cleanup is performed in the case 
> of either a longjmp or a thrown exception"?

the unwinder (however it works) needs to stop at each invoke and run
the code in the unwind block of the invoke.  I think it is important
that the default method of code generation for the unwind and invoke
instructions should interact correctly with code compiled with gcc.
This means that the default needs to make use of dwarf unwinding.  It
does not prevent having multiple code generation implementations, eg
done using some kind of setjmp/longjmp implementation of unwind/invoke.
Code created using other implementations will only work correctly if the
entire executable, or at least the bits doing exception handling, are
all built with the same compiler/codegen options, but that's ok if it's
not the default.

> Is it entirely the front-end or is dwarf unwinding doing some extra work 
> (other than a few unecessary register restores), like restoring signals,
> and calling pthread cleanup routines?

The front-end needs to ensure that there is an appropriate invoke that
runs the pthread cleanup routines in the unwind block.

> In other words does the dwarf unwinder do nothing other than unwind,
> and was all that stuff about pthread_cleanup_pop() actions just a 
> red-herring?

I think it was a red-herring, but I don't know anything about
pthread_cleanup_pop.

Ciao,

Duncan.