[llvm-dev] [RFC] Function pointer alignment

[Mikhail Maltsev via llvm-dev]

Hello, all. Recently we noticed a problem with function pointer alignment in LLVM: the 
value tracking analysis (specifically the 'computeKnownBits' function) uses function 
alignment to infer that the least significant bits of function pointers are known to be 
zero. Unfortunately, this is not correct for ARM targets: the least significant bit of a 
function pointer stores the ARM/Thumb state information (i.e., the LSB is set for Thumb 
functions and cleared for ARM functions). The problem can be illustrated by the following 
test case:

; RUN: opt -instcombine -S < %s | FileCheck %s

target datalayout = "e-m:e-p:32:32-i64:64-v128:64:128-a:0:32-n32-S64"

; CHECK-LABEL: @foo_ptr
; CHECK: and
define i32 @foo_ptr() {
entry:
   ret i32 and (i32 ptrtoint (void ()* @foo to i32), i32 -4)
}

define internal void @foo() align 16 {
entry:
   ret void
}

LLVM eliminates the 'and' instruction because it incorrectly infers that the two least 
significant bits of the 'ptrtoint' result are zero.
I think that this can be fixed by adding a new field to the llvm::DataLayout structure. 
What do you think about such approach?

-- 
Regards,
   Mikhail Maltsev