[LLVMdev] Is there any general way to figure out dynamically allocated points?

[John Criswell]

Xiaolong Tang wrote:
> Hey, 
>
> I need to approximate the run-time objects of a program. It is up to
> the compiler's front-end to make the decision on how to translate the
> new-expressions in C++, however. This obfuscates the way to figure out
> dynamically allocated program points in the middle-end (e.g. LLVM). 
>
> So I am wondering if there is any general way to do so? Does the
> front-end provide any hint(s) to the middle-end to facilitate to do so?
>   

There probably isn't an ideal way, but there are ways to do it.

First, all of our transforms that look for dynamically allocation sites 
just "know" what the names of the allocators are.  They recognize 
malloc, realloc, calloc, etc.  They also have to recognize the mangled 
C++ names of the new operator since libstdc++ isn't compiled to LLVM 
bitcode anymore (or, at least I don't think it is anymore).

Second, there's a function attribute that marks a function as an 
allocator (I think it's called "allocator" or something like that, but 
check the LLVM Reference Manual or the GCC manual under __attribute__).  
Your transform can search for and recognize functions with this 
attribute; this works well as long as you don't need to know which 
parameter of the function contains the size, in bytes, of the memory to 
be allocated.

-- John T.

> Particularly, can I distinguish the call arising from the
> new-expression from various calls if I use llvm-g++ as the front-end?
>
> PS: Under llvm-g++, a new expression is translate into this function
> call:
>   call i8* @_Znam(..)
>
> Best, 
> Xiaolong
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