<div dir="ltr">True, I care more about how fast the code runs than how long it takes to compile it. So if the symbolic approach enables better code generation, that is a very significant advantage from my perspective.<div><br></div><div>Is there any example code or documentation you can point to for details about how to implement the symbolic approach? Is it similar to any of the versions of Kaleidoscope or any other extant tutorial?</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 5:07 AM, Philip Reames <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:listmail@philipreames.com" target="_blank">listmail@philipreames.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div>Other advantages of keeping things
symbolic:<br>
1) You can use function attributes to provide optimization or
semantic information.<br>
2) Linking modules works as expected when one of them contains the
definition.<br>
3) You can get better code generation (i.e. pc relative addressing
for local symbols, etc..)<br>
<br>
If the inttoptr scheme makes you happy, go for it. I'm not
telling you its wrong, merely that there's another approach you
should consider which has it's own advantages. <br><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<br>
Philip<br>
</font></span><br>
p.s. Your point about compiling faster is off base. Not because
you're wrong, but because if you're trying to optimize for compile
speed at that granularity, you really don't want to be using LLVM
(or just about any framework.) LLVM does not make a good first
tier JIT. It's makes a great high tier JIT, but if you really
really care about compile time, it is not the appropriate answer.
<br><div><div class="h5">
<br>
On 03/28/2016 08:57 PM, Russell Wallace wrote:<br>
</div></div></div><div><div class="h5">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Ah! Okay then, so you are saying something
substantive that I think I disagree with, but that could be
because there are relevant issues I don't understand.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My reasoning is, I've already got a pointer to the function
I want the generated code to call, so I just supply that
pointer, it looks ugly on a microscopic scale because there
are a couple of lines of casts to shepherd it through the type
system, but on an even slightly larger scale it's as simple
and elegant as it gets: I supply a 64-bit machine word that
gets compiled into the object code, there are no extra layers
of machinery to go wrong, no nonlocal effects to understand,
no having to wonder about whether anything depends on symbol
information that might vary between debug and release builds
or between the vendor compiler and clang or between Windows
and Linux; if it works once, it will work the same way every
time. As a bonus, it will compile slightly faster.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Keeping things symbolic - you're saying the advantage is
the intermediate code is easier to debug because a dump will
say 'call print' instead of 'call function at 123456'? I can
see that being a real advantage but as of right now it doesn't
jump out at me as necessarily outweighing the advantages of
the direct pointer method.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 4:37 AM, Philip
Reames <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:listmail@philipreames.com" target="_blank">listmail@philipreames.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="auto">
<div>I think our use cases are actually quite similar.
Part of generating the in memory executable code is
resolving all the symbolic symbols and relocations. The
details of this are mostly hidden from you by the MCJIT
interface, but it's this step I was referring to as
"link time". </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The way to think of MCJIT: generate object file,
incrementally link, run dynamic loader, but do it all in
memory without round tripping through disk or explicit
files. </div>
<span><font color="#888888">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Philip<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</font></span>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
On Mar 28, 2016, at 7:25 PM, Russell Wallace <<a href="mailto:russell.wallace@gmail.com" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:russell.wallace@gmail.com" target="_blank">russell.wallace@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">Right, but when you say link time,
the JIT compiler I'm writing works the way
openJDK or v8 do, it reads a script, JIT
compiles it into memory and runs the code in
memory without ever writing anything to disk (an
option for ahead of time compilation may come
later, but that will be a while down the road),
so we might be doing different things?</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at
2:59 AM, Philip Reames <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:listmail@philipreames.com" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:listmail@philipreames.com" target="_blank">listmail@philipreames.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> The
option we use is to have a custom memory
manager, override the
getPointerToNamedFunction function, and
provide the pointer to the external
function at link time. The inttoptr
scheme works fairly well, but it does make
for some pretty ugly and sometimes hard to
analyze IR. I recommend leaving
everything symbolic until link time if you
can.<br>
<br>
Philip
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
<div>On 03/28/2016 06:33 PM, Russell
Wallace via llvm-dev wrote:<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">That seems to work,
thanks! The specific code I ended
up with to call int64_t
print(int64_t) looks like:
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div> auto f =
builder.CreateIntToPtr(</div>
<div>
ConstantInt::get(builder.getInt64Ty(),
uintptr_t(print)),</div>
<div>
PointerType::getUnqual(FunctionType::get(</div>
<div>
builder.getInt64Ty(),
{builder.getInt64Ty()},
false)));</div>
<div> return
builder.CreateCall(f, args);</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon,
Mar 28, 2016 at 1:40 PM,
Caldarale, Charles R <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Chuck.Caldarale@unisys.com" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:Chuck.Caldarale@unisys.com" target="_blank">Chuck.Caldarale@unisys.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">>
From: llvm-dev [mailto:<a href="mailto:llvm-dev-bounces@lists.llvm.org" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:llvm-dev-bounces@lists.llvm.org" target="_blank">llvm-dev-bounces@lists.llvm.org</a>]<br>
> On Behalf Of Russell
Wallace via llvm-dev<br>
> Subject: [llvm-dev] JIT
compiler and calls to existing
functions<br>
<div>
<div><br>
> In the context of a
JIT compiler, what's the
recommended way to
generate a call to an<br>
> existing function,
that is, not one that you
are generating on-the-fly
with LLVM, but<br>
> one that's already
linked into your program?
For example the cosine
function (from the<br>
> standard math
library); the Kaleidoscope
tutorial recommends
looking it up by name with<br>
> dlsym("cos"), but it
seems to me that it should
be possible to use a more
efficient and<br>
> portable solution
that takes advantage of
the fact that you already
have an actual pointer<br>
> to cos, even if you
haven't linked with
debugging symbols.<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
Perhaps not the most elegant,
but we simply use the
IRBuilder.CreateIntToPtr()
method to construct the Callee
argument for
IRBuilder.CreateCall(). The
first argument for
CreateIntToPtr() comes from
ConstantInt::get(I64,
uintptr_t(ptr)), while the
second is a function type
pointer defined by using
PointerType::get() on the
result of FunctionType::get()
with the appropriate function
signature.<br>
<br>
- Chuck<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<pre>_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
<a href="mailto:llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org" target="_blank">llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org</a>
<a href="http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev" target="_blank">http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>