[LLVMdev] Adding masked vector load and store intrinsics

[dag at cray.com]

Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov> writes:

>> > Nevermind ;) -- I changed my mind, the safety issue is with
>> > non-aligned loads that might cross page boundaries. Is that right?
>> 
>> That's just one safety issue.  There are others.
>
> Can you be more specific? You mentioned overindexing in your other
> e-mail, exactly what do you mean by that?

Accessing past the end of an array.  Some vector optimizations do that
and assume the masking will prevent traps.  Aggressive vectorizers can
do all kinds of "unsafe" transformations that are safe in the presence
of masks.

Any time there is control flow in the loop protecting a dereference of a
NULL pointer, a mask is needed and it needs to be applied at the time of
the load, not at the time of the write to the loaded-to register.
That's why select doesn't work.  This same issues extends to any trap
situation like a divide-by-zero or use of a NaN.  It's not only the
write to the register that needs protection, it's the operation itself.

                              -David