[LLVMdev] Question about local variables

Ryan Taylor ryta1203 at gmail.com
Mon Oct 24 10:31:29 PDT 2011


Nick,

  Is there a clean way to tell the difference between dst and src operands
in operations without assignment "=" (ie, store)?


On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Ryan Taylor <ryta1203 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nick,
>
>   I forgot to thank you, thanks!
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Nick Lewycky <nicholas at mxc.ca> wrote:
>
>> Ryan Taylor wrote:
>>
>>> Nick,
>>>
>>>   Ah, forgot the -o, thanks, silly mistake.
>>>
>>>   So how would you extract "add" from the instruction "%A"?
>>>
>>
>> I->getOpcodeName().
>>
>>
>>    Yes, this is sort of what I am trying to do. The instnamer works fine
>>> for the local variables and I already had the constants sorted out.
>>>
>>
>> Great!
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 1:21 PM, Nick Lewycky <nicholas at mxc.ca
>>> <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>> wrote:
>>>
>>>    Ryan Taylor wrote:
>>>
>>>        Nick,
>>>
>>>           Also, I forgot to mention I had no luck with instnamer, it
>>>        still left
>>>        the local variables as "%slotNum", it didn't name them, unless I
>>>        used
>>>        -instnamer wrong:
>>>
>>>        opt -instnamer <file.bc> file2.bc
>>>
>>>
>>>    Almost, use -o to specify output: opt -instnamer file.bc -o file2.bc
>>>
>>>
>>>        Those are the ones I am refering to. The description for
>>>        instnamer says that it names unnamed instructions (not
>>>        operands), or am I confused on the terminology here?
>>>
>>>
>>>    Ah, I see. The operand of an instruction is some other Value, but
>>>    it's not a subclass of Value like Instruction is. Allow me to
>>> elaborate.
>>>
>>>    Here's some example IR:
>>>
>>>      declare i32 @test(i32 %arg) {
>>>        %A = add i32 %arg, 1
>>>        %B = mul i32 %A, 2
>>>        ret i32 %B
>>>      }
>>>
>>>    The llvm::Value hierarchy contains Instruction, Argument and
>>>    Constant (among others). The operands of %A are "i32 %arg" and "i32
>>>    1" where %arg is an Argument and 1 is a Constant.
>>>
>>>    So, saying that "but it doesn't name operands" is moot, because it
>>>    goes through and names all the arguments and instructions, which
>>>    means that it's going to name all the operands -- except for
>>> constants.
>>>
>>>    Firstly, constants (like "i32 1") aren't allowed to have names.
>>>    Secondly, some Constants (GlobalValues which includes functions and
>>>    global variables) are allowed to have names, but the instnamer won't
>>>    touch them.
>>>
>>>
>>>        For example, if I print out I->getName I get "add" not "x" or
>>>        "y", but when I do Value *V = I->getOperands(loop) and then do
>>>        V->getName, then it prints out the name of the operand. Am I
>>>        going about this backwards? It sounds like it from the
>>>        terminology you are using (calling an operand an instruction).
>>>
>>>
>>>    If you have the Instruction* for "%A", then getName() will return
>>>    "A", not "add". It may be the case that you have "%add = add i32
>>>    %arg, 1" in which case it would return "add". :)
>>>
>>>    If you call %A->getOperand(0) then you'll get the Value* whose
>>>    getName() returns "arg", and also you can cast pointer to Argument*.
>>>
>>>
>>>        I don't mean to be contentious (as I really appreciate your time
>>>        and help) but apparently someone does use it, me. When going
>>>        from source to source it's needed to keep track of the
>>>        variables. Or am I missing something here too?
>>>
>>>
>>>    Sure, no problem! I'm happy to explain how LLVM works.
>>>
>>>    I'm not sure what you mean when you say you're going
>>>    source-to-source through LLVM. Are you taking a language (say C++)
>>>    compiling it to LLVM IR, then trying to produce another language
>>>    back out (say Javascript)? I would give up on trying to map the
>>>    output variable names back to the input ones. Think of LLVM IR like
>>>    you would x86 assembly, that information is long gone.
>>>
>>>    If you mean that you're doing LLVM IR -> LLVM IR, then instead of
>>>    names use the Value pointers directly. Like names, they refer to the
>>>    values.
>>>
>>>    Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>        ?
>>>
>>>
>>>        On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Nick Lewycky <nicholas at mxc.ca
>>>        <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>
>>>        <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>            Ryan Taylor wrote:
>>>
>>>                Nick,
>>>
>>>                    Unfortunately this doesn't answer my question I
>>>        don't think. It
>>>                seems that -instnamer, as you mention, names the
>>>        instructions
>>>                but still
>>>                does not name the local variables.
>>>
>>>
>>>            What other local variables are you referring to? When
>>> AsmWriter
>>>            prints "%y = add i32 %x, 1", the name of that add
>>>        instruction is "y"
>>>            and "x" is the name of another instruction or argument. If
>>>        it has no
>>>            name, the AsmWriter emits a number ("%0"), by counting from
>>>        the top.
>>>            The only other locals could be function arguments, and
>>> instnamer
>>>            names those too.
>>>
>>>
>>>                    So there really is no way to do this shy of creating
>>> (or
>>>                basically
>>>                copying) the API from AsmWriter (seems very dedundant to
>>>        me)?
>>>                This seems
>>>                like a large failing?
>>>
>>>
>>>            Correct, you'd have to copy that logic.
>>>
>>>            It's not a large failing because nobody uses names of
>>>        non-globals
>>>            for anything. When we want to refer to a value, we use the
>>>        Value*.
>>>
>>>            Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>                On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 7:03 PM, Nick Lewycky
>>>        <nicholas at mxc.ca <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>
>>>        <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>>
>>>        <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>
>>>        <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca <mailto:nicholas at mxc.ca>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>                    Ryan Taylor wrote:
>>>
>>>                        It looks like the AsmWriter is generating the
>>> local
>>>                variables
>>>                        (SlotNum)s
>>>                        on the fly in that file (AsmWriter.cpp), so is
>>>        there any
>>>                way at
>>>                        all to
>>>                        get this information from the operation itself,
>>> via
>>>                Instruction,
>>>                        Value
>>>                        or Type?
>>>
>>>
>>>                    Nope! As you noticed, they're created on the fly...
>>>
>>>                    ...when the Value or Type is anonymous. If you want
>>>        them to be
>>>                    persistent, values can have names via. the setName()
>>>        call. "opt
>>>                    -instnamer" will name all your instructions, for
>>>        example.
>>>
>>>                    Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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