[llvm-dev] RFC: Adding bit to register MachineOperands to allow post-RA register renaming

Geoff Berry via llvm-dev llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Fri Oct 27 22:03:49 PDT 2017


I've put up a preliminary version of a patch to implement this here: 
https://reviews.llvm.org/D39400

The biggest remaining issue is that most of the MIR tests that run 
post-RA passes and check the MIR output are still broken.  I haven't 
decided whether it would be better to fix the tests checks now to check 
for the "norename" bits, or to try to fix the passes to mark these 
particular regs as renamable e.g. when they are created using a 
scavenged register.

On 10/26/2017 2:47 PM, Hal Finkel via llvm-dev wrote:
> 
> On 10/26/2017 12:52 PM, Matthias Braun via llvm-dev wrote:
>> I like the idea, this is not the first time we try to perform 
>> recoloring/renaming operations late. I agree with Quentin though that 
>> we should have a way to mark def and use operands! You can probably 
>> play more games and re-use the IsDead bit on use operands.
>>
>>> On Oct 26, 2017, at 5:54 AM, Nemanja Ivanovic via llvm-dev 
>>> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Forgive me if these questions are naive or if I'm misunderstanding 
>>> something. I'm certainly very interested in seeing the 
>>> MachineCopyPropagation patch finally land and stick.
>>>
>>> 1. Wouldn't function live-ins and reserved registers have started 
>>> life as physical registers already? For example, wouldn't a live-in 
>>> be a copy from a physical register to a virtual one allowing the flag 
>>> to be set correctly on the def? A reserved register on the other hand 
>>> just seems like something we shouldn't touch, doesn't it?
>>> 2. I must admit that I don't really know how Aggressive Anti 
>>> Dependence Breaker works, but doesn't it already rename registers? 
>>> How does it know which ones are safe to rename and which aren't?
>> Heuristics which seem to work today but which at least I am not very 
>> comfortable with.
> 
> +1
> 
> It would be nice to replace this with a less fragile approach. We 
> already have number of instructions marked with hasExtraSrcRegAllocReq 
> and/or hasExtraDefRegAllocReq, and this seems like a more-precise, 
> dynamic, version of that.
> 
> I don't recall this being mentioned, but I imagine we'll also, in many 
> cases, want to mark registers returned by the scavenger marked as 
> eligible for renaming.
> 
>   -Hal
> 
>> I think it's mostly this part:
>>
>>    // If MI's defs have a special allocation requirement, don't allow
>>     // any def registers to be changed. Also assume all registers
>>     // defined in a call must not be changed (ABI). Inline assembly may
>>     // reference either system calls or the register directly. Skip it 
>> until we
>>     // can tell user specified registers from compiler-specified.
>>     if (MI.isCall() || MI.hasExtraDefRegAllocReq() || 
>> TII->isPredicated(MI) ||
>>         MI.isInlineAsm()) {
>>       DEBUG(if (State->GetGroup(Reg) != 0) dbgs() << "->g0(alloc-req)");
>>       State->UnionGroups(Reg, 0);
>>     }
>>
>> - Matthias
>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 10:20 PM, Quentin Colombet via llvm-dev 
>>> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Hi Geoff,
>>>
>>>     The principle sounds reasonable but it raises the question of
>>>     proper APIs to query that. E.g., when I am looking at a use, how
>>>     would we know that this is okay to rename? In other words, what
>>>     API do we provide for such use cases.
>>>
>>>     Also, what do we do with registers that don’t have definition?
>>>     For instance, a function live-ins register, a reserved register,
>>>     and so on.
>>>
>>>     Cheers,
>>>     -Quentin
>>>
>>>     > On Oct 25, 2017, at 10:27 AM, Geoff Berry
>>>     <gberry at codeaurora.org <mailto:gberry at codeaurora.org>> wrote:
>>>     >
>>>     > Hi All,
>>>     >
>>>     > Currently, changing register assignments of definitions after
>>>     register allocation is not safe because there is no way to know
>>>     which register definitions were physical registers before RA
>>>     (e.g. to meet ABI or ISA constraints) and thus should not be
>>>     changed.  I'd like to propose adding a bit to MachineOperand (by
>>>     overloading the meaning of the IsKill bit for defs, so no extra
>>>     storage would be required), that tracks whether a given register
>>>     definition was a virtual register before RA.  I'll throw out
>>>     'IsRenameable' for a potential name.
>>>     >
>>>     > Register definitions created with virtual registers would have
>>>     this bit set.  This bit should be verifiable until after RA. 
>>>     Register definitions created after RA (presumably with physical
>>>     registers) would not have this bit set. I believe the only
>>>     potential for this bit to be set incorrectly (and not be caught
>>>     be verification) would be if a post-RA pass was already renaming
>>>     a register definition from a previously virtual register to a
>>>     previously non-virtual register, which would arguably be a bug
>>>     already.
>>>     >
>>>     > We have encountered several potential uses for this bit.  For
>>>     example, the MachineCopyPropagation changes I have been working
>>>     on to forward register COPYs would likely be greatly simplified
>>>     if this bit were available. Other passes, like
>>>     AArch64LoadStoreOptimizer, which run post-RA so as not to
>>>     overly-restrict the register allocator, could be made to catch
>>>     more cases if renaming of load instructions could be done safely.
>>>     >
>>>     > --
>>>     > Geoff Berry
>>>     > Employee of Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc.
>>>     > Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc. as an affiliate of
>>>     Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.  Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is a
>>>     member of the Code Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative
>>>     Project.
>>>
>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>     LLVM Developers mailing list
>>>     llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>>>     http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>>     <http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>>> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
> 
> -- 
> Hal Finkel
> Lead, Compiler Technology and Programming Languages
> Leadership Computing Facility
> Argonne National Laboratory
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
> 

-- 
Geoff Berry
Employee of Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc.
  Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc. as an affiliate of Qualcomm 
Technologies, Inc.  Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is a member of the Code 
Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.


More information about the llvm-dev mailing list