[llvm-dev] LLVM Weekly - #86, Aug 24th 2015

[Alex Bradbury via llvm-dev]

LLVM Weekly - #86, Aug 24th 2015
================================

If you prefer, you can read a HTML version of this email at
<http://llvmweekly.org/issue/86>.

Welcome to the eighty-sixth issue of LLVM Weekly, a weekly newsletter
(published every Monday) covering developments in LLVM, Clang, and related
projects. LLVM Weekly is brought to you by [Alex
Bradbury](http://asbradbury.org). Subscribe to future issues at
<http://llvmweekly.org> and pass it on to anyone else you think may be
interested. Please send any tips or feedback to <asb at asbradbury.org>, or
@llvmweekly or @asbradbury on Twitter.


## News and articles from around the web

The LLVM Foundation [has been granted 501(c)(3) non-profit
status](http://blog.llvm.org/2015/08/llvm-foundation-granted-501c3-nonprofit.html).
This means contributions are tax-deductible for US tax payers.

LLVM 3.7-rc3 [has been
tagged](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089468.html).
This is the final release candidate and 3.7.0 final is expected very shortly.

The paper [Fast and Precise Symbolic Analysis of Concurrency Bugs in Device
Drivers](http://soarlab.org/2015/08/ase2015-ddr/) makes use of Clang and LLVM
as part of its verification flow.

Good news everyone! The deadline for submissions for the 2015 LLVM Developers'
meeting has been
[extended](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089376.html)
to August the 25th.


## On the mailing lists

* Edward Jones and Simon Cook at Embecosm have been developing an [LLVM
backend for AAP](https://github.com/embecosm/aap-llvm), a 16-bit architecture
which aims to be representative of common deeply embedded microprocessors.
They're [looking for
feedback](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089304.html) on
upstreaming it. The architecture reference can be found
[here](http://www.embecosm.com/appnotes/ean13/ean13.html).

* Alex Lorenz has shared an [update on the status of Machine IR
serialization](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089527.html).
There's also the beginnings of a [reference
manual](http://llvm.org/docs/MIRLangRef.html) for it, which covers the syntax
and how to use it in tests.

* 'deadal nix' has posted an RFC on supporting [load and store for large
aggregates](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089430.html).
The author gives more detail
[here](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089460.html).

* Lang Hames proposes [two changes to the llvm.memcpy and llvm.memmove
intrinsics](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089384.html).
It seems that based on feedback, the plans is to [add alignment information
via
metadata](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089461.html).

* Evgenii Stepanav has an [RFC on a minor fix to codegen for AlwaysInline
functions](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089466.html).
Right now, if an alwaysinline function is only called from dead code it may
not be inlined.

* Rong Xu has shared some [interesting
numbers](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089425.html) on
his investigations regarding front-end vs middle-end instrumentation of
binaries.

* Renato Golin [raises concerns about the introduction of 'hacks' in to
LLVM](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089309.html). In
this particular instance, it's a patch for TheadSanitizer on AArch64 Android.
He elaborated on his concerns
[here](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089377.html) and
[here](http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-August/089381.html).


## LLVM commits

* TransformUtils gained the module splitter, which splits a module into
linkable partitions and is intended to be used for parallel LTO code
generation. [r245662](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245662).

* MergeFunctions is now closer to being deterministic.
[r245762](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245762).

* ScalarEvolution has been ported to the new pass manager.
[r245193](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245193).

* The 'kaleidoscope' tutorials on creating a language backend using LLVM are
now partially updated to use C++11 features and idioms.
[r245322](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245322).

* The peephole optimiser learned to look through PHIs to find additional
register sources. [r245479](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245479).


## Clang commits

* The ObjCGenericsChecker will catch type errors related to lightweight
generics in Objective-C. [r245646](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245646).


## Other project commits

* compiler-rt has gained implementations of some of the missing ARM EABI
runtime functions. [r245648](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245648).

* libcxx gained a whole bunch of Sphinx-based documentation.
[r245788](http://reviews.llvm.org/rL245788).