[LLVMdev] Data layout hard coded for X86 target

[Óscar Fuentes]

Chris Lattner <clattner at apple.com> writes:

> On Jul 5, 2010, at 3:31 AM, Óscar Fuentes wrote:
>
>> Chris Lattner <clattner at apple.com> writes:
>> 
>>> On Jul 4, 2010, at 6:43 PM, Óscar Fuentes wrote:
>>> 
>>>> In X86Subtarget.h there is a method `getDataLayout' which selects the
>>>> data layout depending on the platform, ignoring whatever the user setted
>>>> with Module::setDataLayout.
>>>> 
>>>> What's the rationale for this?
>>> 
>>> Data layout is a property of the target, not the program being
>>> compiled.  If you don't like structure packing etc, use packed
>>> structure types.
>> 
>> Then, Module::setDataLayout should be removed or make it fail on those
>> circunstances, shouldn't it? 
>
> I'm not opposed to having it fail when something semantic (like the
> alignment of double) is wrong.  The hints like the 'native integer
> types' should not cause it to fail.

Then I guess that the information provided by the user through
Module::setDataLayout is used in some places instead of the hard-coded
info provided by X86SubTarget::getDataLayout. This can cause some
trouble as Anton points out on the discussion of bug #7544.

OTOH, I know that if language implementation exchanges data with C/C++,
it must follow certain platform-dependant data layout, but if the
language does not share structs with C/C++ then it is free to align the
data members as it pleases, as long as it does not violate the
constraints imposed by the hardware. It is surprising to see that LLVM
imposes the C/C++ platform's data layout on its users.

I would expect this on X86Subtarget::getDataLayout:

if target layout already setted by user
  return it
else
  return the platform's C standard