[llvm-dev] Is it possible to execute Objective-C code via LLVM JIT?

Wed Feb 14 17:33:36 PST 2018

Hi David, Stanislav,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Short version: There hasn't been any progress on this just yet, as I have
been busy with an overhaul of the underlying ORC APIs.

1) Hack up something in RuntimeDyldMachO to handle the data structures
> currently generated by clang.  This is fragile, because the interface
> between the compiler and the runtime is not documented, and is unique to
> each runtime.  This code will be different on i386 and ARM, for example.
>

2) Create a new CGObjCRuntime subclass that creates a module init function
> that constructs all of the classes using the public APIs, by adding
> something like -fobjc-runtime=jit to the clang flags.  This is not
> particularly difficult and means that the same code can be used with any
> Objective-C runtime.

(1) is the preferred long-term solution as we want to minimize differences
between generated code in the JIT'd and non-JIT'd cases. (2) seems like a
reasonable interim solution if it is easier to implement.

Steven -- what is the status of the ObjC parsing code these days?

-- Lang.

On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 3:08 AM, David Chisnall via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

>
> > On 13 Feb 2018, at 17:42, Stanislav Pankevich <s.pankevich at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:18 PM, David Chisnall
> > <David.Chisnall at cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> >> On 12 Feb 2018, at 22:31, Stanislav Pankevich via llvm-dev <
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Specifically I explored the latest objc4-723
> >>> from Apple Open Source and it looks like all of the APIs that allow
> >>> the registration of Objective-C classes, selectors, etc. are all very
> >>> private.
> >>
> >> The Objective-C runtime provides public APIs for doing all of this.
> They’re even documented.  They are also more or less standard and so work
> with all runtime implementations, not just the Apple one.  I was using them
> for JIT’d code on macOS and FreeBSD 10 years ago.
> >
> > Which methods are you referring to? For example of class registration,
> > do you mean objc_allocateClassPair/objc_registerClassPair or something
> > else?
>
> Yes, those set of APIs.  They provide an interface for building classes,
> protocols, and so on.
>
> >>> One year ago you said you could help anyone interested in working on
> >>> this. Let me check here again as a volunteer (if this work can ever be
> >>> accomplished by someone outside Apple).
> >>
> >> As I said in the earlier thread, the best way of doing this is to add a
> new subclass of CGObjCRuntime that generates the code using the public APIs.
> >
> > Let me get this right. What clang::CodeGen:: CGObjCRuntime has to do
> > with this? My understanding of Lang's hint was that one has to extend
> > llvm's classes like RuntimeDyldMachO to parse Mach-O, find classes,
> > selectors, categories etc and register them all manually. Are you
> > saying that something has to be be added to CodeGen/*?
>
> You have two options:
>
> 1) Hack up something in RuntimeDyldMachO to handle the data structures
> currently generated by clang.  This is fragile, because the interface
> between the compiler and the runtime is not documented, and is unique to
> each runtime.  This code will be different on i386 and ARM, for example.
>
> 2) Create a new CGObjCRuntime subclass that creates a module init function
> that constructs all of the classes using the public APIs, by adding
> something like -fobjc-runtime=jit to the clang flags.  This is not
> particularly difficult and means that the same code can be used with any
> Objective-C runtime.
>
> >> If you’re running in the same process as the JIT, you could register
> the selectors in the host environment and just inject the values as symbols
> (this is what I did).  I’d be happy to help out someone who wants to do
> this.
> >
> > It would be nice to get this working without embedding any of
> > Objective-C to the host process this is
>
> It’s an optimisation, not a compulsory part of the process.
>
> > why I am particularly
> > interested in knowing how to do the work that objc4 does in the
> > methods such as: objc4/_objc_init, objc4/map_images_nolock and
> > objc4/_read_images.
> >
> > My understanding of the goal is to make the lli example from this
> > thread working:
> > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10375324/all-
> selectors-unrecognised-when-invoking-objective-c-methods-
> using-the-llvm-exec.
> >
> > I would be happy to get a hint on which functions of Objective-C
> > Runtime's public API should I use to get that simple example working
> > in a quick and dirty way.
>
> You seem to have decided that you want to use unmodified IR from a
> specific version of Apple's Objective-C implementation.  I can’t help you
> there.
>
> David
>
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