<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)">
<style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.msonormal0, li.msonormal0, div.msonormal0
{mso-style-name:msonormal;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">| Any ideas why it wouldn't be more general to handle cases where the variable isn't named?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Couldn’t there be a DIE (flagged as artificial) to describe the return-value temp? You’d need such a DIE if you wanted the debugger to be able to look at the return value from source() anyway, in the context of main() and in the absence
of inlining. And given that DIE, implicit_pointer within sink() can refer to it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div style="border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 4.0pt">
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> David Blaikie <dblaikie@gmail.com> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, November 14, 2019 5:32 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson@sony.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Adrian Prantl <aprantl@apple.com>; AlokKumar.Sharma@amd.com; Jonas Devlieghere <jdevlieghere@apple.com>; llvm-dev <llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: DW_OP_implicit_pointer design/implementation in general<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 1:53 PM Robinson, Paul <<a href="mailto:paul.robinson@sony.com">paul.robinson@sony.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in">
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">My reading of the DWARF issue is that it was fairly specifically designed to handle the case of a function taking parameters by pointer/reference, which is then inlined, and the
caller is passing local objects rather than other pointers/references. So:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">void inline_me(foo *ptr) {<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> does something with ptr->x or *ptr;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">}<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">void caller() {<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> foo actual_obj;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> inline_me(&actual_obj);<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">}<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">After inlining, maintaining a pointer to actual_obj might be sub-optimal, but after a “step in” to inline_me, the user wants to look at an expression spelled *ptr even though the
actual_obj might not have a memory address (because fields are SROA’d into registers, or whatever). This is where DW_OP_implicit_pointer saves the day; *ptr and ptr->x are still evaluatable expressions, which expressions are secretly indirecting through the
DIE for actual_obj.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">I think it is not widely applicable outside of that kind of scenario.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Any ideas why it wouldn't be more general to handle cases where the variable isn't named? Such as:<br>
<br>
foo source();<br>
void f(foo);<br>
inline void sink(foo* p) {<br>
f(*p);<br>
}<br>
int main() {<br>
sink(&source());<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">}<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in">
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">--paulr<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div style="border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 4.0pt">
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b>From:</b> David Blaikie <<a href="mailto:dblaikie@gmail.com" target="_blank">dblaikie@gmail.com</a>>
<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, November 14, 2019 4:34 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Adrian Prantl <<a href="mailto:aprantl@apple.com" target="_blank">aprantl@apple.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:AlokKumar.Sharma@amd.com" target="_blank">AlokKumar.Sharma@amd.com</a>; Robinson, Paul <<a href="mailto:paul.robinson@sony.com" target="_blank">paul.robinson@sony.com</a>>; Jonas Devlieghere <<a href="mailto:jdevlieghere@apple.com" target="_blank">jdevlieghere@apple.com</a>>;
llvm-dev <<a href="mailto:llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org" target="_blank">llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: DW_OP_implicit_pointer design/implementation in general<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 1:27 PM Adrian Prantl <<a href="mailto:aprantl@apple.com" target="_blank">aprantl@apple.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><br>
<br>
> On Nov 14, 2019, at 1:21 PM, David Blaikie <<a href="mailto:dblaikie@gmail.com" target="_blank">dblaikie@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> Hey folks,<br>
> <br>
> Would you all mind having a bit of a design discussion around the feature both at the DWARF level and the LLVM implementation? It seems like what's currently being proposed/reviewed (based on the DWARF feature as spec'd) is a pretty big change & I'm not sure
I understand the motivation, exactly.<br>
> <br>
> The core point of my confusion: Why does describing the thing a pointer points to require describing a named variable that it points to? What if it doesn't point to a named variable?
<br>
<br>
Without having looked at the motivational text when the feature was proposed to DWARF, my assumption was that this is similar to how bounds for variable-length arrays are implemented, where a (potentially) artificial variable is created by the compiler in order
to have something to refer to.<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><br>
I /sort/ of see that case as a bit different, because the array type needs to refer back into the function potentially (to use frame-relative, etc). I could think of other ways to do that in hindsight (like putting the array type definition inside the function
to begin with & having the count describe the location directly, for instance).<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">In retrospect I find the entire specification of DW_OP_implicit_pointer to be strangely specific/limited (why one hard-coded offset instead of an arbitrary expression?), but that
ship has sailed for DWARF 5 and I'm to blame for not voicing that concern earlier.<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">Sure, but we don't have to implement it if we don't find it to be super useful/worthwhile, right? (if something else would be particularly more general/useful we could instead implement
that as an extension, though of course there's cost to that in terms of consumer support, etc)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>
<br>
-- adrian<br>
<br>
> <br>
> Seems like there should be a way to describe that situation - and that doing so would be a more general solution than one limited to only describing pointers that point to named variables. And would be a simpler implementation in LLVM - without having to
deconstruct variables during optimizations, etc, to track one variable's value being concretely related to another variable's value.<br>
> <br>
> - David<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>