[LLVMdev] A question about pointer aliasing rules in LLVM

[Krzysztof Parzyszek]

On 10/26/2012 10:35 AM, Dan Gohman wrote:
>
> It may be impossible to guarantee if the input language is C (depending
> on how you interpret it).
>
> However, the point of LLVM's TBAA system is to let front-ends make
> statements about aliasing that are difficult or impossible to prove from
> the IR alone. Front-ends for more restrictive source languages may
> actually be able to make guarantees about how linked list pointers are
> used. LLVM's TBAA tags are a way for them to describe at least some of
> those guarantees to optimizers.
>
> Unless you're objecting to the fact that while LLVM says that metadata
> *may* be stripped at any time, there are no rules for when it *must* be
> stripped, and that arbitrary valid transformations can theoretically
> cause valid TBAA and other metadata to become invalid. This is true.
> This is an area where LLVM's preference for practicality over absolute
> correctness may be observed.

I was writing with the C/C++ language in mind (since that was the 
language from the original post).

I didn't think of the last point you're making, but it actually does 
seem like a concern.  If metadata is there to provide extra information 
allowing the compiler to perform otherwise unsafe optimizations, the 
possibility that it may become outdates poses a real risk.


-Krzysztof


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