[llvm-dev] setting program counter on power8

[Buse Yilmaz via llvm-dev]

Hello,
I've been working on powerpc and I'm having some trouble since there's no
PC register. What I would like to do is to be able to set PC to an
arbitrary address that I want. I know that the only way to do this is to
branch.

I've written the following code to be able to jump to the beginning of foo.
I need to be able to use both immediate values and a register for
introducing the address. I compiled on power8 with
clang -O3 power_pc_write.c -o power_pc_write

The code is working.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>

void* foo(){

 void* addr =  __builtin_return_address(0);

  printf("in foo addr: %p\n", addr);

  return addr;
}

int main(){

  void* addr = foo();
  void* foo_addr = foo;
  printf("foo addr: %p\n", foo_addr);

  // This is for setting PC_IMM
  asm volatile("bl %0" : : "i" (foo) );
  asm volatile("bcl 20,31,%0" : : "i" (foo) );

  // This is for setting PC_REG
  asm volatile("mflr 4; mtlr %0 ; bclrl 20,31"  : : "r" (foo_addr): "r4" );

  return 0;
}

My concerns are as follows:
I'm not sure if there's a specific way of setting PC to an arbitrary
address other than branching. Am I doing this the right way?
I realized that bl instruction jumps to foo+8. But bcl does not. I couldn't
figure out why.
The ISA specification says that for gettin the the next instruction we can
use this:
  bcl 20,31,$+4
  So I tried bcl first. But this is a conditional branch instruction. It's
not really clear to me why I need to use a conditional branch here.
  Also I assumed that $ give me some sort of address. But I wasn't able to
use "$" in another way. Could you provide me hints on this?

I appreciate if you can help me clear these in my mind.

*P.S. I'm using llvm 3.7. The ISA specification I'm currently workign with
is PowerISA Version 3.0 B.*

Thanks!
-- 
Buse
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