[LLVMdev] PROPOSAL: IR representation of detailed struct assignment information (new version)

[Dan Gohman]

Hello,

Persuant to feedback,

http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2012-August/052927.html

here is a new proposal for detailed struct assignment information.

Here's the example showing the basic problem:

struct bar {
 char x;
 float y;
 double z;
};
void copy_bar(struct bar *a, struct bar *b) {
 *a = *b;
}

The solution I now propose here is to have front-ends describe the copy
using metadata. For example:

 call void @llvm.memcpy.p0i8.p0i8.i64(i8* %0, i8* %1, i64 16, i32 8, i1 false), !tbaa.struct !4
 […]
 !0 = metadata !{metadata !"Simple C/C++ TBAA"}
 !1 = metadata !{metadata !"omnipotent char", metadata !0}
 !2 = metadata !{metadata !"float", metadata !1}
 !3 = metadata !{metadata !"double", metadata !1}
 !4 = metadata !{metadata !5, i64 3, metadata !6, metadata !7}
 !5 = metadata !{i64 1, metadata !1}
 !6 = metadata !{i64 4, metadata !2}
 !7 = metadata !{i64 8, metadata !3}

Metadata nodes !0 through !3 are regular TBAA nodes as are already in use.

Metadata node !4 here is a top-level description of the memcpy. It holds a
list of virtual members. An integer represents a padding field of that
size. A metadata tuple represents an actual data field. The tuple's members
are an integer size and a TBAA tag for the field.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Dan