[LLVMdev] Bitcasts between pointers with different address spaces

[Mon Ping Wang]

Hi,

I don't think we should make bit casts between pointers with different address spaces illegal.  Address spaces are not required to be disjoint.  In the N1169 spec, it says 
   A non-null pointer into an address space A can be cast to a pointer into another address space B, but such a cast is undefined if the source pointer does not point to a location in B. 

If the address spaces overlap, one should be able to bticast between them. 

-- Mon Ping


On Sep 7, 2012, at 10:47 AM, Villmow, Micah wrote:

> Should LLVM make bitcasts between pointers with different address spaces illegal?
>  
> This will require a small clarification in the documentation and an assertion check added to the verifier, but I think this would be a good approach.
>  
> The reason being is that in different address spaces, pointers are not always the same size.
>  
> This could be limited to make it legal only if the size of the pointer in source and destination address spaces are equivalent, but that seems like more of a work-around than a proper solution.
>  
> Ideas?
> Micah
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