[LLVMdev] A Question about LLVM structures - alignment of data members

[Ouriel, Boaz]

Hi All,

Today, LLVM IR doesn't include a description for alignment for specific data members inside structures.
The implies that LLVM IR Generators need to do the padding themselves in order to achieve the requested alignment.
Since the information is not represented explicitly by the LLVM IR, optimization passes might unintentionally break the required alignment and lead to unexpected results when executing the generated program.

Here is an example "C" code (and OpenCL as well)
struct st1_t {
    int  i;
    float __attribute__((align(64))) f;
};
struct st1_t ist1;

Generated IR by CLANG:
%struct.st1_t = type { i32, [60 x i8], float, [60 x i8] }
@ist1 = common global %struct.st1_t zeroinitializer, align 64

What is the reason for disallowing alignment of data members inside structs in LLVM IR? What were the design considerations?

Thanks,
Boaz
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