[LLVMdev] ocaml survey

[Jianzhou Zhao]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Erick Tryzelaar
<idadesub at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> I'm in the process of finishing up the ocaml llvm bindings, and I had
> some last minute questions before we code freeze:
>
> 1. What version of ocaml is everyone using, and how old of an ocaml
> version do you need to support?

I am using the latest OCaml 3.11.2. But I also have other versions of
OCaml installed.
So any version of OCaml most people like is fine with me.

>
> 2. Would it be alright if I renamed some functions? Module providers
> are being removed for 2.7. I can keep the old functions around, but
> I'd prefer to keep the API clean.
>
> 3. Are there any llvm functionality that you need exposed to ocaml?
> Right now I plan to expose:
>
> add Union to TypeKind.t
> external union_type: llcontext -> lltype array  -> lltype
> external union_element_types : lltype -> lltype array
>
> external build_indirect_br : llvalue -> int -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external add_destination: llvalue -> llbasicblock -> unit
>
> external build_nsw_add : llvalue -> llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nuw_add : llvalue -> llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nsw_sub : llvalue -> llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nuw_sub : llvalue -> llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nsw_mul : llvalue -> llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nuw_mul : llvalue -> llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nsw_neg : llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_nuw_neg : llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
> external build_fneg : llvalue -> string -> llbuilder -> llvalue
>
> And I'm working on exposing metadata as well, but I'm not sure of the api yet.

I was planning to design some optimizations with OCaml bindings directly.
The current OCaml bindings seem only to provide a driver to LLVM, with which
OCaml can call existing optimizations in LLVM from OCaml. For example,
we can call 'constant propagation' from OCaml. But if I want to re-implement
this constant propagation in OCaml, I may need more lower-level LLVM
interfaces, which are defined in LLVM, but have not been ported to OCaml yet.

I am still new to LLVM. Can those optimizations in lib/Analysis and
lib/Transforms be
implemented in OCaml with existing exposed APIs? If not, does LLVM team plan to
expose them too? If you have such a plan, I can wait and use your
OCaml bindings. :-)
If this is not the plan in this release, I may try to expose them. Is there
any known technical problem if we expose more functions in lib/Analysis
or lib/Transforms?  Thanks

>
> 4. Right now, there's a function "element_types" that return a
> structure's subtypes. Anyone mind if I rename it to
> "struct_element_types" so that the union and struct function are
> similar?
>
>
> Thanks all!
>
> -e
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