[all-commits] [llvm/llvm-project] 907586: [BasicAA] Refactor linear expression decomposition

[Nikita Popov via All-commits]

  Branch: refs/heads/main
  Home:   https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project
  Commit: 9075864b7375b4eb8f2c0663caa575c0c667de7c
      https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/9075864b7375b4eb8f2c0663caa575c0c667de7c
  Author: Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv at gmail.com>
  Date:   2021-03-27 (Sat, 27 Mar 2021)

  Changed paths:
    M llvm/include/llvm/Analysis/BasicAliasAnalysis.h
    M llvm/lib/Analysis/BasicAliasAnalysis.cpp
    M llvm/test/Analysis/BasicAA/zext.ll

  Log Message:
  -----------
  [BasicAA] Refactor linear expression decomposition

The current linear expression decomposition handles zext/sext by
decomposing the casted operand, and then checking NUW/NSW flags
to determine whether the extension can be distributed. This has
some disadvantages:

First, it is not possible to perform a partial decomposition. If
we have zext((x + C1) +<nuw> C2) then we will fail to decompose
the expression entirely, even though it would be safe and
profitable to decompose it to zext(x + C1) +<nuw> zext(C2)

Second, we may end up performing unnecessary decompositions,
which will later be discarded because they lack nowrap flags
necessary for extensions.

Third, correctness of the code is not entirely obvious: At a high
level, we encounter zext(x -<nuw> C) in the form of a zext on the
linear expression x + (-C) with nuw flag set. Notably, this case
must be treated as zext(x) + -zext(C) rather than zext(x) + zext(-C).
The code handles this correctly by speculatively zexting constants
to the final bitwidth, and performing additional fixup if the
actual extension turns out to be an sext. This was not immediately
obvious to me.

This patch inverts the approach: An ExtendedValue represents a
zext(sext(V)), and linear expression decomposition will try to
decompose V further, either by absorbing another sext/zext into the
ExtendedValue, or by distributing zext(sext(x op C)) over a binary
operator with appropriate nsw/nuw flags. At each step we can
determine whether distribution is legal and abort with a partial
decomposition if not. We also know which extensions we need to
apply to constants, and don't need to speculate or fixup.