[llvm-dev] Textual IR value names

[via llvm-dev]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Greene [mailto:dag at cray.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2019 3:07 PM
> To: Robinson, Paul
> Cc: craig.topper at gmail.com; llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Textual IR value names
> 
> via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> writes:
> 
> > Also, the textual IR is really a developer/debugging tool, not
> > something an end-user would be expected to look at, so the textual
> > names would be largely pointless in a release build.
> 
> Our customers using our (non-LLVM-based) Fortran compiler have the
> ability to dump internal IR(-ish) and examine it.  Some find it useful
> to understand how the compiler transforms their code.  So it's not quite
> right to say such dumps are pointless.  It depends on the user.

It's not an intended use-case, and the format has no stability guarantee.
If you want to provide a textual-IR feature to your users, nobody will
stop you.  I'm just explaining why it is the way it is.
--paulr

> 
>                           -David