[LLVMdev] Address of labels = 1 with llvm-g++

[Duncan Sands]

Hi,

> I'm trying to put the address of a label in a register by passing in
> &&label to an inline asm call, but noticed this reduced case also has
> problems in llvm-g++:
> 
> int main() {
> label:
>   return (int)&&label;
> }
> 
> The assembly code generated by g++ -S:
> movl  $.L2, %eax ; where L2 is the label just inside main
> 
> Assembly code from llvm-g++ -S:
> movl $1, %eax
> 
> ll code with llvm-g++ -emit-llvm:
> ret i32 1

the gcc documentation ("5.3 Labels as Values") says:
"You may not use this mechanism to jump to code in a different function."
The value you get by taking the address of a label is a pointer that
only has meaning inside the function where that label lives.  It is
represented in a way that only has meaning inside that function - in
your example by the value 1.  I can see that you are expecting it to
be a pointer to the memory location where the instruction following
the label lives.  That is a possible implementation but not the one
used by llvm-gcc.  I know that the llvm-gcc implementation is less
flexible than the one you had in mind.  The reason llvm-gcc does it
this way is that it doesn't require adding special concepts to LLVM's
internal representation in order to handle computed gotos - it can
be implemented using ordinary constructions like switch statements.

As for using labels in asm, I don't know anything about that, sorry.

Best wishes,

Duncan.