[llvm-dev] Floating point semantic modes

Szabolcs Nagy via llvm-dev llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Tue Jan 28 05:08:47 PST 2020


* Kaylor, Andrew via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> [2020-01-27 23:24:10 +0000]:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm trying to put together a set of rules for how the various floating point semantic modes should be handled in clang. A lot of this information will be relevant to other front ends, but the details are necessarily bound to a front end implementation so I'm framing the discussion here in terms of clang. Other front ends can choose to follow clang or not. The existence of this set of semantics is an LLVM property that applies to all front ends, but the front ends will have to do something to initialize them.
> 
> I will eventually do something to convert this into an RST document and find a home for it in the clang documentation, but I'd like to start by getting input on whether everyone agrees with my judgment on how these things should work and whether I've missed anything.
> 
> Here's what I've got.
> 

i'm not an llvm/clang dev, i hope this mail wont bounce.

> ======================
> FP semantic modes
> ======================
> except_behavior { ignore, strict, may_trap }
> fenv_access { on, off }
> rounding_mode { dynamic, tonearest, downward, upward, towardzero }
> contract { on, off, fast }
> denormal_fp_math { IEEE, PreserveSign, PositiveZero }
> denormal_fp32_math { IEEE, PreserveSign, PositiveZero }
> support_math_errno { on, off }

note that math errno handling can be

1) errno is set,
2) errno may be set and
3) errno is guaranteed to be untouched

iso c math_errhandling can select between 1 and 2,
(user can or cannot rely on errno) but for optimizing
math calls as side-effect-free pure functions, 3 is
needed.

-f(no-)math-errno selects between 1 and 3.
with 3, moving math calls across errno checks or
calls that set errno can break semantics depending
on how libm is implemented (e.g. glibc will set
errno independently of how you compiled your code).

> no_honor_nans { on, off }

ideally there would be a way to support snan too.
(e.g. isnan(x) cannot be turned into x!=x then)

> no_honor_infinities { on, off }
> no_signed_zeros { on, off }
> allow_reciprocal { on, off }
> allow_approximate_fns { on, off }
> allow_reassociation { on, off }

excess precision handling is missing from this list
which matters for x87 and m68k fpu support and may
matter for _Float16 implementations that fall back
to _Float32 arithmetic.

the granularity of these knobs is also interesting
(expression, code block, function or translation unit),
iso c pragmas work on code block level.

> ======================
> FP models
> ======================
> -----------------------
> precise (default)
> -----------------------
> except_behavior { ignore }
> fenv_access { off }
> rounding_mode { tonearest }
> contract { on }
> denormal_fp_math { IEEE }
> denormal_fp32_math { IEEE }
> support_math_errno { on }
> no_honor_nans { off }
> no_honor_infinities { off }
> no_signed_zeros { off }
> allow_reciprocal { off }
> allow_approximate_fns { off }
> allow_reassociation { off }
> 
> ------------------
> strict
> ------------------
> except_behavior { strict }
> fenv_access { on }
> rounding_mode { dynamic }
> contract { off }
> denormal_fp_math { IEEE }
> denormal_fp32_math { IEEE }
> support_math_errno { on }
> no_honor_nans { off }
> no_honor_infinities { off }
> no_signed_zeros { off }
> allow_reciprocal { off }
> allow_approximate_fns { off }
> allow_reassociation { off }
> 
> ------------------
> fast
> ------------------
> except_behavior { ignore }
> fenv_access { off }
> rounding_mode { tonearest }
> contract { fast }
> denormal_fp_math { PreserveSign }
> denormal_fp32_math { PreserveSign }
> support_math_errno { off }
> no_honor_nans { on }
> no_honor_infinities { on }
> no_signed_zeros { on }
> allow_reciprocal { on }
> allow_approximate_fns { on }
> allow_reassociation { on }
> 
> ======================
> Command-line options
> ======================
> -ffp-model={precise|strict|fast}
>   Sets all semantic modes as described above.
> 
> -ffast-math
>   Equivalent to -ffp-model=fast. (I'm not sure that's currently true.)
> 
> -f[no-]math-errno
> -ffp-contract={on|off|fast}
> -f[no-]honor-infinities
> -f[no-]honor-nans
> -f[no-]associative-math
> -f[no-]reciprocal-math
> -f[no-]signed-zeros
> -f[no-]trapping-math
> -f[no-]rounding-math
> -fdenormal-fp-math={ieee, preservesign, positivezero}
> -fdenormal-fp-math-fp32={ieee, preservesign, positivezero}
> -ffp-exception-behavior={ignore,maytrap,strict}
>   Each of these has a 1-to-1 correspondance to an FP semantic mode.
>   (I think several of these should set "except_behavior" to "ignore".)

-ftrapping-math vs -ffp-exception-behaviour=maytrap
is unclear.

(-ftrapping-math is weird in gcc, it does not handle
all fp exception cases, not sure what clang plans to
do with that)

> 
> -f[no-]finite-math-only
>   Controls no_honor_nans and no_honor_infinities.
> 
> -f[no-]unsafe-math-optimizations
>   Turns no_signed_zeros, allow_reciprocal, allow_approximate_fns, and allow_reassociation on or off.
>   Also, sets except_behavior to "on" for -funsafe-math-optimizations.
>   (Currently, -fno-]unsafe-math-optimizations clears except_behavior, but I regard this as a bug.)
> 
> All command line options will override any previous values of all settings they control with options taking effect in a left-to-right manner.
> 
> ======================
> pragmas
> ======================
> STDC FENV_ACCESS {ON|OFF}
>   Patch in progress. I think ON should force the following:
> 
>     except_behavior { strict }
>     fenv_access { on }
>     rounding_mode { dynamic }
>     denormal_fp_math { IEEE }
>     denormal_fp32_math { IEEE }
>     no_signed_zeros { off }
>     allow_reciprocal { off }
>     allow_approximate_fns { off }
>     allow_reassociation { off }
> 
>   And OFF should set fenv_access to off, except_behavior to ignore, and rounding_mode to tonearest. Other modes should be reset to their command line defined settings.
> 
>   I don't think this pragma should have any effect on contract, support_math_errno, no_honor_nans, or no_honor_infinities.
> 
> STDC FP_CONTRACT {ON|OFF|DEFAULT}
>   This pragma controls the contract FP semantic mode. No other FP semantic modes are effected.
> 
> float_control ({precise|except}, {on|off}[, push])
> float_control (pop)
>   Patch in progress. These are tricky.
>   I think they should have the following effects:
> 
> float_control (precise, on[, push])
>   contract { on }
>   denormal_fp_math { IEEE }
>   denormal_fp32_math { IEEE }
>   no_signed_zeros { off }
>   allow_reciprocal { off }
>   allow_approximate_fns { off }
>   allow_reassociation { off }
> 
> float_control (precise, off[, push])
>   contract { fast }
>   denormal_fp_math { preservesign }
>   denormal_fp32_math { preservesign }
>   no_signed_zeros { on }
>   allow_reciprocal { on }
>   allow_approximate_fns { on }
>   allow_reassociation { on }
> 
> Note, this is less than what the -ffp-model=precise control does. Should this override support_math_errno, no_honor_nans, or no_honor_infinities?
> 
> float_control (except, on[, push])
>   except_behavior { strict }
> 
> float_control (except, off[, push])
>   except_behavior { ignore }
> 
> The MSVC documentation says you can only use the float_control pragma to turn exception semantics on when precise semantics are enabled. For us, this would mean:
>   denormal_fp_math { IEEE }
>   denormal_fp32_math { IEEE }
>   no_signed_zeros { off }
>   allow_reciprocal { off }
>   allow_approximate_fns { off }
>   allow_reassociation { off }
> 
> The MSVC documentation also says you can't use the float_control pragma to turn excpetion semantics off when precise semantics are enabled, and you can't use the float_control pragma to turn precise off when fenv_access is on.
> 
> I believe we should follow the MSVC restrictions.
> 
> =========================
> Code-visible identifiers
> =========================
> __FAST_MATH__
> 
> This symbol will only be defined if and only if all of the following are set (before pragmas are applied):
>   except_behavior { ignore }
>   fenv_access { off }
>   rounding_mode { tonearest }
>   contract { fast }
>   denormal_fp_math { PreserveSign }
>   denormal_fp32_math { PreserveSign }
>   support_math_errno { off }
>   no_honor_nans { on }
>   no_honor_infinities { on }
>   no_signed_zeros { on }
>   allow_reciprocal { on }
>   allow_approximate_fns { on }
>   allow_reassociation { on }
> 
> __FINITE_MATH_ONLY__
> 
> This symbol will only be defined if and only if all of the following are set (before pragmas are applied):
>   no_honor_nans { on }
>   no_honor_infinities { on }
> 
> FLT_ROUNDS
> 
> Should be set to -1 (indeterminable) if rounding_mode() is dynamic or 1 (tonearest) if rounding_mode is tonearest. There are values for other rounding modes, but clang offers no way to set those rounding modes.
> 
> FLT_EVAL_METHOD
> 
> Should be set to -1 if any of allow_reciprocal, allow_approximate_fns, or allow_reassociation is set. Should any other flags also make this -1? Otherwise, the setting is target-defined.
> 
> math_errhandling
> 
> The MATH_ERRNO bit will be set or cleared based on the setting of support_math_errno. Should MATH_ERREXCEPT be set or cleared based on except_behavior?


FLT_ROUNDS, FLT_EVAL_METHOD and math_errhandling

are controlled by the c runtime, so a compiler has no business
changing them, the compiler can define its own __FLT_ROUNDS,
etc macros and the libc may or may not use those, but e.g.
in case of FLT_ROUNDS it makes no sense for the compiler to
try to do anything: the mode changes at runtime, the libc macro
will expand to a function call that determines the current
rounding mode. (same problem arises if you can change the
other modes on a per function or code block granularity.)

and i don't think it's a good idea to change FLT_EVAL_METHOD
with non-precise arithmetic modes, because it is used to decide
if excess range and precision is available, but arithmetic
changes don't affect that. (e.g. float_t is still same as float).

> 
> 
> Thanks in advance for any opinions and suggestions.
> 
> -Andy

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