[LLVMdev] -fbounds-checking vs {SAFECode,ASan}

[Kostya Serebryany]

+John Criswell

On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Kostya Serebryany <kcc at google.com> wrote:

> Hi Nuno,
>
> I noticed your commits related to -fbounds-checking and have some
> questions.
> The functionality of this new phase seems to (partially?) overlap with
> AddressSanitizer and SAFECode,
> so I am curious how would you compare the two existing tools with the new
> one.
>
> Earlier you wrote:
> >> So the main idea of this new flag is not for debugging, but rather for
> production.
> >> This means that we won't be able to perform as many checks as
> >> AddressSanitizer,
>
> From the code (lib/Transforms/Scalar/BoundsChecking.cpp) I can conclude
> that you add checks only if you can
> deduct the array boundaries, either from constants or from malloc()
> parameter.
> How many run-time checks does -fbounds-checking create? Do you have such
> statistics?
> Do you also have performance numbers?
>
> Are there any bugs that -fbounds-checking can find but {SAFECode,ASan}
> can not?
>
> >> but the performance is supposed to be acceptable for
> >> binaries that are shipped for production.
>
> Btw, AddressSanitizer's performance *is* acceptable for production in
> many circumstances.
>
> Why do you route all run-time checks to a single trap BB?
> I understand this as a code-side optimization, but it makes analyzing the
> failure almost entirely impossible.
> Even if you use different traps, what is the expected user experience once
> he/she receives the trap?
>
> Finally, do you have any document describing the tool?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --kcc
>
>
>
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