[llvm-dev] [RFC] Introducing the opaque pointer type

[Nicolai Hähnle via llvm-dev]

Hi Arthur,

On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 2:39 AM Arthur Eubanks via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> For background on opaque pointer types, see [1] and many other
> patches/threads searchable with "opaque pointers".
>
> While there's been lots of work around making opaque pointers work, we
> don't actually have a type like that in LLVM yet.
> https://reviews.llvm.org/D101704 introduces the opaque pointer type
> within LLVM so we can start playing around with the opaque pointer type and
> see what goes wrong. Much of the patch above is based on TNorthover's
> branch from a couple years ago [2].
>
> The opaque pointer type is essentially just a PointerType with a null
> pointee type. Calling getElementType() on an opaque pointer asserts.
>
> Since the bitcode representation for non-opaque pointers contains the
> pointee type, we need a new bitcode type code for opaque pointers, which
> only contains the address space.
>
> For the textual IR representation, the current proposal is to represent an
> opaque pointer type with "ptr" with an optional "addrspace(N)". This seems
> consistent with existing uses of "addrspace(N)" and "ptr" seems right.
> There are a couple alternatives. TNorthover's version uses "pN" where "N"
> is the address space, so most pointers would be "p0", and a pointer in
> address space #5 would be "p5". I initially attempted something like
> "ptr(N)", but the spelling is slightly ambiguous with function types. We
> could also simply use a void pointer, which LLVM currently does not allow
> [3].
>

Thank you for doing this, and the approach seems largely good to me, except
for one important point: We've been moving steadily towards making
addrspace 0 be non-special for a long time now, so I *strongly* prefer a
spelling that always has an address space. I don't care too much about the
exact spelling, pN and ptr(N) both seem fine to me assuming technical
issues can be sorted out. pN has the benefit of already being used in
codegen contexts, so count that as a *mild* preference for that spelling.

Cheers,
Nicolai


> Feel free to bikeshed.
>
> [1]: https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-February/081822.html
> [2]: https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2019-December/137684.html
> [3]: https://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#pointer-type
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