[LLVMdev] endian independence

[Scott Graham]

I would find this functionality useful if it made it back into trunk.

scott

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 2:27 AM, Jay Foad <jay.foad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to use LLVM to compile and optimise code when I don't know
> whether the target CPU is big- or little-endian. This would allow me
> to create a single optimised LLVM bitcode binary of an application,
> and then run it through a JIT compiler on systems of differening
> endianness.
>
> I realise that in general the LLVM IR depends on various
> characteristics of the target; I'd just like to be able to remove this
> dependency for the specific case of unknown target endianness.
>
> Here's a sketch of how it would work:
>
> 1. Extend TargetData::isBigEndian() and LLVM bitcode's "target data
> layout string" so that endianness is represented as either big, little
> or unknown. (I see there's already support for something like this in
> Module::getEndianness().)
>
> 2. For optimisations (like parts of SRA) that depend on knowing the
> target endianness, restrict or disable them as necessary if the target
> endianness is unknown. I think this will only affect a small handful
> of optimisations.
>
> 3. In llvm-gcc, if the LLVM backend reports unknown endianness, make
> sure that the conversion from GCC trees to LLVM IR doesn't depend on
> endianness. This seems to be fairly straightforward, *except* for
> access to bitfields, which is a bit convoluted.
>
> 4. In llvm-gcc, if the LLVM backend reports unknown endianness, make
> sure that GCC's optimisations on trees don't depend on endianness.
>
> 5. Have the linker refuse to link a big-endian module with a
> little-endian one, but allow linking a module of unknown endianness
> with a module of any endianness at all. (I think this might work
> already.)
>
> I'm already working on this myself. Would you be interested in having
> this work contributed back to LLVM?
>
> Thanks,
> Jay.
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