[llvm-dev] DWARFv5 DW_FORM_implicit_const support in LLVM

[David Blaikie via llvm-dev]

Nah, doesn't look like LLVM generates implicit_const for any compilation
output (the output support is only used in unit tests at the moment/in the
patch you mentioned - probably shouldn't've bothered with that (the dumping
support is separate & seems fine to have in-tree))

LLVM uses FORM_flag_present for cases where adding the attribute at all is
only done when the 'true' value is needed (eg: we don't put
"DW_AT_declaration false" on non-declaration, the attribute isn't used on
non-declarations at all). Arguably, LLVM could avoid using flag_present
when a DIE might otherwise share an abbreviation eg: DW_AT_artificial is
done as flag_present, but that means an artificial and non-artificial
DW_TAG_subprogram use entirely different abbreviations.

I think it'd be hard to justify using implicit_const in most cases -
because the value changes between different uses & that would then need
different abbreviations which would end up more expensive (more bytes) than
if the alternative inline-value forms had been used.

But I guess if someone comes up with a heuristic about when to use
implicit_const & data to support it being an improvement in DWARF size, I'm
not completely opposed to the idea.



On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 11:54 PM Jini Susan George via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Hello folks,
>
>
> I was interested in the support we have for the attribute form
> DW_FORM_implicit_const (DWARFv5 feature) in clang/LLVM. And I had some
> doubts wrt this. I noticed that support for this was put in here in 2017:
>
>
>
>
> https://rev.ng/gitlab/revng-bar-2019/llvm/commit/d9df13befcbc702e239b650dd1f55778d72b8571
>
>
>
> From what I could make out, the support for generating
> DW_FORM_implicit_const is there, but I could not make out the DWARF
> attributes for which this form is being generated currently. Are there any
> attributes for which this form is generated currently ?
>
>
>
> Gcc typically generates this form for a bunch of attributes like:
> DW_AT_decl_file, DW_AT_decl_column, DW_AT_accessibility, DW_AT_defaulted,
> DW_AT_byte_size, etc
>
>
>
> Any pointers are deeply appreciated.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jini.
>
>
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