llvm-6502/docs/ReleaseNotes.html
2008-02-12 06:29:45 +00:00

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<title>LLVM 2.3 Release Notes</title>
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<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.3 Release Notes</div>
<ol>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
<li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
<li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
<li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
<li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">
<p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.org">LLVM Team</a><p>
</div>
<h1><font color="red">THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS FOR LLVM 2.3 (currently in
progress on SVN HEAD)</font></h1>
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<div class="doc_section">
<a name="intro">Introduction</a>
</div>
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<div class="doc_text">
<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
infrastructure, release 2.3. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
major improvements from the previous release and any known problems. All LLVM
releases may be downloaded from the <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM
releases web site</a>.</p>
<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest
release, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.org/">main LLVM
web site</a>. If you have questions or comments, the <a
href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
<p>Note that if you are reading this file from a Subversion checkout or the
main LLVM web page, this document applies to the <i>next</i> release, not the
current one. To see the release notes for a specific releases, please see the
<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>
</div>
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<div class="doc_section">
<a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
</div>
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<div class="doc_text">
<p>This is the fourteenth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure.
It includes many features and refinements from LLVM 2.2.</p>
</div>
<!-- Unfinished features in 2.3:
Index Set Splitting not enabled by default
Machine LICM
Machine Sinking
LegalizeDAGTypes
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="deprecation">Removed features in LLVM 2.3</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM 2.2 was the last LLVM release to support llvm-gcc 4.0 and llvm-upgrade.
llvm-gcc 4.0 has been replaced with llvm-gcc 4.2. llvm-upgrade was useful for
upgrading llvm 1.9 files to llvm 2.x syntax, but you can always use a previous
llvm release to do this.</p>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="frontends">llvm-gcc 4.2 and clang</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM 2.3 fully supports llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang project</a> is an effort to build
a set of new 'llvm native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
and code generator. Currently, its C and Objective-C support is maturing
nicely, and it has advanced source-to-source analysis and transformation
capabilities. If you are interested in building source-level tools for C and
Objective-C (and eventually C++), you should take a look. However, note that
clang is not an official part of the LLVM 2.3 release. If you are interested in
this project, please see its <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">web site</a>.</p>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM 2.3 includes several major new capabilities:</p>
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>New features include:
</p>
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>We put a significant amount of work into the code generator infrastructure,
which allows us to implement more aggressive algorithms and make it run
faster:</p>
<ul>
<li>MemOperand in the code generator.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, the
LLVM 2.3 optimizers support a few major enhancements:</p>
<ul>
<li>Index set splitting on by default.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="targetspecific">Target Specific Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>New target-specific features include:
</p>
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>New features include:
</p>
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_section">
<a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
</div>
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<div class="doc_text">
<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>
<ul>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD
(and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.3 and above in 32-bit and
64-bit modes.</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 using MinGW libraries (native).</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.</li>
<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
<li>Itanium-based machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
</ul>
<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/">GNU autoconf</a> to adapt itself
to the machine and operating system on which it is built. However, minor
porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms. We welcome your
portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>
</div>
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<div class="doc_section">
<a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
</div>
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<div class="doc_text">
<p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
component. As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
sections. If you run into a problem, please check the <a
href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
there isn't already one.</p>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
be broken or unreliable, or are in early development. These components should
not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
useful to some people. In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
components, please contact us on the <a
href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev list</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>The MSIL, IA64, Alpha, SPU, and MIPS backends are experimental.</li>
<li>The LLC "<tt>-filetype=asm</tt>" (the default) is the only supported
value for this option.</li>
<li>The llvmc tool is not supported.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>The X86 backend does not yet support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR879">inline
assembly that uses the X86 floating point stack</a>.</li>
<li>The X86 backend occasionally has <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1649">alignment
problems</a> on operating systems that don't require 16-byte stack alignment
(including most non-darwin OS's like linux).</li>
<li>The X86 backend generates inefficient floating point code when configured to
generate code for systems that don't have SSE2.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>The Linux PPC32/ABI support needs testing for the interpreter and static
compilation, and lacks support for debug information.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="arm-be">Known problems with the ARM back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>Thumb mode works only on ARMv6 or higher processors. On sub-ARMv6
processors, thumb programs can crash or produce wrong
results (<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1388">PR1388</a>).</li>
<li>Compilation for ARM Linux OABI (old ABI) is supported, but not fully tested.
</li>
<li>There is a bug in QEMU-ARM (&lt;= 0.9.0) which causes it to incorrectly execute
programs compiled with LLVM. Please use more recent versions of QEMU.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the SPARC back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>The SPARC backend only supports the 32-bit SPARC ABI (-m32), it does not
support the 64-bit SPARC ABI (-m64).</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="alpha-be">Known problems with the Alpha back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>On 21164s, some rare FP arithmetic sequences which may trap do not have the
appropriate nops inserted to ensure restartability.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="ia64-be">Known problems with the IA64 back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>C++ programs are likely to fail on IA64, as calls to <tt>setjmp</tt> are
made where the argument is not 16-byte aligned, as required on IA64. (Strictly
speaking this is not a bug in the IA64 back-end; it will also be encountered
when building C++ programs using the C back-end.)</li>
<li>The C++ front-end does not use <a href="http://llvm.org/PR406">IA64
ABI compliant layout of v-tables</a>. In particular, it just stores function
pointers instead of function descriptors in the vtable. This bug prevents
mixing C++ code compiled with LLVM with C++ objects compiled by other C++
compilers.</li>
<li>There are a few ABI violations which will lead to problems when mixing LLVM
output with code built with other compilers, particularly for floating-point
programs.</li>
<li>Defining vararg functions is not supported (but calling them is ok).</li>
<li>The Itanium backend has bitrotted somewhat.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR802">The C backend does not support inline
assembly code</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1126">The C backend does not support vectors
yet</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.org/PR1658">The C backend violates the ABI of common
C++ programs</a>, preventing intermixing between C++ compiled by the CBE and
C++ code compiled with LLC or native compilers.</li>
<li>The C backend does not support all exception handling constructs.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="c-fe">Known problems with the C front-end</a>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>llvm-gcc does not currently support <a href="http://llvm.org/PR869">Link-Time
Optimization</a> on most platforms "out-of-the-box". Please inquire on the
llvmdev mailing list if you are interested.</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
Notes
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li><p>llvm-gcc does <b>not</b> support <tt>__builtin_apply</tt> yet.
See <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constructing-Calls.html#Constructing%20Calls">Constructing Calls</a>: Dispatching a call to another function.</p>
</li>
<li><p>llvm-gcc <b>partially</b> supports these GCC extensions:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html#Nested%20Functions">Nested Functions</a>:
As in Algol and Pascal, lexical scoping of functions.
Nested functions are supported, but llvm-gcc does not support
taking the address of a nested function (except on X86 targets)
or non-local gotos.</li>
<li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html#Function%20Attributes">Function Attributes</a>:
Declaring that functions have no side effects or that they can never
return.<br>
<b>Supported:</b> <tt>alias</tt>, <tt>always_inline</tt>, <tt>cdecl</tt>,
<tt>const</tt>, <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>,
<tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>fastcall</tt>, <tt>format</tt>,
<tt>format_arg</tt>, <tt>non_null</tt>, <tt>noinline</tt>,
<tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>nothrow</tt>, <tt>pure</tt>, <tt>regparm</tt>
<tt>section</tt>, <tt>stdcall</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>, <tt>used</tt>,
<tt>visibility</tt>, <tt>warn_unused_result</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
<b>Ignored:</b> <tt>malloc</tt>,
<tt>no_instrument_function</tt></li>
</ol>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If you run into GCC extensions which have not been included in any of these
lists, please let us know (also including whether or not they work).</p>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the C++ front-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<p>The C++ front-end is considered to be fully
tested and works for a number of non-trivial programs, including LLVM
itself, Qt, Mozilla, etc.</p>
<ul>
<li>Exception handling only works well on the X86 and PowerPC targets.
It works well for x86-64 darwin but not x86-64 linux.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="ada-fe">Known problems with the Ada front-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
The llvm-gcc 4.2 Ada compiler works fairly well, however this is not a mature
technology and problems should be expected.
<ul>
<li>The Ada front-end currently only builds on x86-32. This is mainly due
to lack of trampoline support (pointers to nested functions) on other platforms,
however it <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2006">also fails to build on x86-64</a>
which does support trampolines.</li>
<li>The Ada front-end <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2007">fails to bootstrap</a>.
Workaround: configure with --disable-bootstrap.</li>
<li>The c380004 and <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2010">c393010</a> ACATS tests
fail (c380004 also fails with gcc-4.2 mainline).</li>
<li>Many gcc specific Ada tests continue to crash the compiler.</li>
<li>The -E binder option (exception backtraces)
<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1982">does not work</a> and will result in programs
crashing if an exception is raised. Workaround: do not use -E.</li>
<li>Only discrete types <a href="http://llvm.org/PR1981">are allowed to start
or finish at a non-byte offset</a> in a record. Workaround: do not pack records
or use representation clauses that result in a field of a non-discrete type
starting or finishing in the middle of a byte.</li>
<li>The lli interpreter <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2009">considers 'main'
as generated by the Ada binder to be invalid</a>.
Workaround: hand edit the file to use pointers for argv and envp rather than
integers.</li>
<li>The -fstack-check option <a href="http://llvm.org/PR2008">is ignored</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="fortran-fe">Known problems with the Fortran front-end</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>The llvm-gcc 4.2 gfortran front-end supports a broad range of Fortran code, but does
<a href="http://llvm.org/PR1971">not support EQUIVALENCE yet</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div class="doc_section">
<a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
</div>
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<div class="doc_text">
<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the <a
href="http://llvm.org">LLVM web page</a>, in particular in the <a
href="http://llvm.org/docs/">documentation</a> section. The web page also
contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the
Subversion version of the source code.
You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going
into the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
us via the <a href="http://llvm.org/docs/#maillist"> mailing
lists</a>.</p>
</div>
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