[llvm-dev] setjmp/longjmp and volatile stores, but non-volatile loads

[Jonas Maebe via llvm-dev]

Reid Kleckner wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 10:13 AM, Jonas Maebe via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
> 
>     model. In order to ensure that changes performed in a try/setjmp==0
>     block survive the longjmp, the changes must be done via volatile
>     operations.
> 
> If you want to observe those volatile store updates, you're really going
> to need to volatilize the load operations. In your example, LLVM does
> not model the CFG edge from the longjmp to the setjmp. This leads LLVM
> to conclude that the only reaching definition of 'loops' at the point of
> the load in the else block is 'loops = 0'.

Ok, thanks for confirming this approach is not going to work.

> Volatilizing all operations on local variables is going to kill your
> performance, obviously. You should really emit invoke instructions in
> your frontend. You can either use your own EH personality, or the
> existing SjLj EH personality, which will optimize on a correct CFG and
> then volatilize all values live across exceptional edges. Then the LLVM
> CFG will be correct, and you'll get pretty good code.

The main reason for using setjmp/longjmp is to maintain compatibility
between code compiled with the LLVM backend and with our existing code
generators . Switching to the SjLj personality would defeat that I think
(it seems to use LLVM-defined internal data structures for storing the
context information, such as the "five word buffer in which the calling
context is saved"). In that case it would be better to immediately
switch to ehframe-based exception handling so as to at least reap some
benefits in the process.

It is not clear to me from reading
http://llvm.org/docs/ExceptionHandling.html whether it is possible to
use our own setjmp/longjmp infrastructure without modifying LLVM. I'm
only interested in getting the LLVM CFG correct. I don't need any
runtime support, data structures (ehframe) or context information from
LLVM. All of our exception state is stored in TLS structures that can be
obtained by calling routines in our own runtime.

So, can I use invoke and landingpad without using any of the other
exception handling intrinsics? (in combination with a dummy personality
function) Or will LLVM in all cases insist on using ehframe information,
a (C++-)ABI-compliant personality function, and possibly linking in
parts of its own runtime that depend on this information being correct?

Thanks,


Jonas