[PATCH] CFL Alias Analysis

[Hal Finkel]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Burgess IV" <george.burgess.iv at gmail.com>
> To: "george burgess iv" <george.burgess.iv at gmail.com>, chandlerc at gmail.com, dberlin at dberlin.org, hfinkel at anl.gov,
> nlewycky at google.com
> Cc: liujiangning1 at gmail.com, llvm-commits at cs.uiuc.edu, sanjoy at playingwithpointers.com
> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2014 12:32:19 PM
> Subject: [PATCH] CFL Alias Analysis
> 
> Hi chandlerc, dberlin, hfinkel, nlewycky,
> 
> The algorithms for CFLAA + data structures all in one! (Read:
> Internship over, so I no longer have access to my gbiv@ email, which
> I used to make the old revisions).
> 
> Old reviews:
>   - http://reviews.llvm.org/D4551 (CFLAA Algorithm)
>   - http://reviews.llvm.org/D4550 (Data structures)
> 
> This patch contains the algorithm for the CFL Alias Analysis
> described here:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nGFKMmr-HbdEiag9G1GeWurgOV0CweSUjLXFr3LAwqg/edit
> . Currently, we don't have any extremely fancy features, sans some
> interprocedural analysis (i.e. no field sensitivity, etc.), and we
> do best sitting behind BasicAA + TBAA.
> 
> ---
> 
> Diff notes:
> > Merged WeightedBidirectionalGraph into CFLAliasAnalysis.cpp
> > Addressed all other feedback, except hfinkel at 415. I don't want to
> > stop scanning inside of IPA if we hit noalias/byval because of the
> > following:
> 
> ```
> int foo(long a, int* b) { *(int**)a = b; }
> ```
> 
> If the consensus is that such code shouldn't be an issue, then I'll
> happily speed IPA up a bit.

I don't understand your comment. Nevertheless, I agree with you for noalias for the following reason: noalias guarantees that pointer values based on the argument do not alias pointer values that are not based on it. Imagine a function that takes two noalias pointers, both with the same value, but the function only accesses odd elements using the first pointer and even elements using the second. This abides by the restriction even though the pointer arguments themselves alias.

However, you can skip the check for byval arguments. For byval, the code generator actually guarantees a unique pointer (because it makes the copy and generates a new pointer at the call site). And so that pointer value cannot flow though any other argument (in any well-defined way). This can be fixed in a follow-up commit.

I'm assuming you don't have commit access; I'll commit this for you later today.

Thanks again,
Hal

> 
> Sorry for the hurried message -- I have a flight soon. :)
> George
> 
> http://reviews.llvm.org/D5106
> 
> Files:
>   include/llvm/Analysis/Passes.h
>   include/llvm/InitializePasses.h
>   include/llvm/LinkAllPasses.h
>   lib/Analysis/CFLAliasAnalysis.cpp
>   lib/Analysis/CMakeLists.txt
>   lib/Analysis/StratifiedSets.h
> 

-- 
Hal Finkel
Assistant Computational Scientist
Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne National Laboratory