[PATCH] D19299: lower __builtin_expect() directly to prof metadata instead of LLVM intrinsic

[Sanjay Patel via cfe-commits]

spatel created this revision.
spatel added reviewers: hfinkel, davidxl, bkramer.
spatel added a subscriber: cfe-commits.
Herald added subscribers: mcrosier, aemerson.

__builtin_expect() is a GCC-derived builtin that's used as a hint for branch prediction:
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Other-Builtins.html

The Clang/LLVM implementation of this feature introduced an LLVM intrinsic to convey the hint to the optimizer:
https://marc.info/?l=llvm-commits&m=130997676129580&w=4

There are problems with this (and several were noted in the above thread, but it didn't change the outcome):
1. We created an intrinsic to improve perf, but the intrinsic can harm optimization by interfering with other passes.

2. To solve that, create a pass to always transform the intrinsic into metadata at a very early stage. But now every program is paying a compile-time tax for a feature that is rarely used.

3. The IR lowering uses profile weight metadata as the means for conveying the hint. But the hint is meant to be a programmer override for profile data. That is, "I don't care what the profile says; I want my code to use this source-level hint." So it should use a different kind of metadata, not profile weight. We added the inverse programmer hint as metadata - __builtin_unpredictable():
http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#unpredictable-metadata
http://reviews.llvm.org/D12341
so I think we can enhance that to solve this problem.

This patch is an intermediate step. It doesn't try to solve #3 above, but it handles #1 and clears the way to deprecate the llvm.expect intrinsic and delete the LowerExpectIntrinsic pass (problem #2).

This is part of solving:
https://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=27344
But to complete that, we need to make changes in SimplifyCFG and possibly other places, so that we're propagating and using the expect/unpredictable metadata as intended. Ref: D18133, D18220, rL264527, rL266442


http://reviews.llvm.org/D19299

Files:
  lib/CodeGen/CGBuiltin.cpp
  lib/CodeGen/CGStmt.cpp
  lib/CodeGen/CodeGenFunction.cpp
  test/CodeGen/builtin-expect.c

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