Skip to content
ReleaseNotes.html 29.6 KiB
Newer Older
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
                      "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
  <title>LLVM 1.1 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>

<div class="doc_title">
  LLVM 1.1 Release Notes
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
  <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
  <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
  <li><a href="#install-instructions">Installation Instructions</a></li>
  <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
  <ul>
<!--    <li><a href="#portabilityprobs">Portability Problems</a> -->
    <li><a href="#core">Known problems with the LLVM Core</a>
    <li><a href="#c-fe">Known problems with the C Front-end</a>
    <li><a href="#c++-fe">Known problems with the C++ Front-end</a>
    <li><a href="#x86-be">Known problems with the X86 Back-end</a>
    <li><a href="#sparc-be">Known problems with the Sparc Back-end</a>
    <li><a href="#c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  </ul></li>
  <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <p><b>Written by <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris Lattner</a></b><p>
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_text">

<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
infrastructure, release 1.1.  Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
known problems, and bug fixes from the previous release.  The most up-to-date
version of this document can be found on the <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/1.1/">LLVM 1.1 web site</a>.  If you are
not reading this on the LLVM web pages, you should probably go there, because
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
this document may be updated after the release.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>For more information about LLVM, including information about potentially more
current releases, please check out the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">main
web site</a>.  If you have questions or comments, the <a
href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVM developer's mailing
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
list</a> is a good place to send them.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>Note that if you are reading this file from CVS, that this document applies
to the <i>next</i> release, not the previous one.  To see the release notes for
the previous release, see the <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_text">

<p>This is the second public release of the LLVM compiler infrastructure.  This
release implements the following new features:</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<li><a
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2003-November/000528.html">A new
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
LLVM profiler, similar to gprof</a> is available</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<li>LLVM and the C/C++ front-end now compile on Mac OSX!  Mac OSX users can
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
now explore the LLVM optimizer with the C backend (note that LLVM requires GCC
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
3.3 on Mac OSX).</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<li>LLVM has been <a
href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2003-November/000554.html">moved
into an 'llvm' C++ namespace</a>, for easier integration with third-party
code. Note that due to a bug in GDB 5.x, to debug namespacified LLVM code,
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
you will need to upgrade to GDB 6.</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
</ol>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>In this release, the following missing features were implemented:</p>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

<ol>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR88">The interpreter does not support
invoke or unwind</a></li>

<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR99">Interpreter does not support the
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<tt>vaarg</tt> instruction</a></li>
Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR117">llvm-nm cannot read archive
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
files</a></li>
Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ol>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>In this release, the following Quality of Implementation issues were
fixed:</p>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR29">C++ front-end is not generating
linkonce linkage type when it can</a></li>

<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR84">C front-end doesn't emit
getelementptr for address of array element</a></li>

Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR96">Bad path to the C/C++ frontend causes
build problems</a></li>

<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR114">LLVM header files should be -Wold-style-cast clean</a></li>

Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>The LLVM bytecode reader has been <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR127">sped up a lot</a> (up to 4x in some
cases).</li>

Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>Methods and functions in anonymous namespaces <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR85">now get internal linkage</a>.</li>

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ol>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>In this release, the following bugs in the previous release were fixed:</p>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR57">[inliner] Inlining invoke with PHI in unwind target is broken</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR58">[linker] linkonce globals should link successfully to external globals</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR59">C++ frontend can crash when compiling virtual base classes</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR62">C backend fails on constant cast expr to ptr-to-anonymous struct</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR63">#ident is not recognized by C frontend</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR64">[constmerge] Constant merging pass merges constants with external linkage</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR65">C front-end miscompiles the builtin_expect intrinsic!</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR66">[scalarrepl] Scalar Replacement of aggregates is decimating structures it shouldn't be</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR67">1.0 precompiled libstdc++ does not include wchar_t support</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR68">llvmgcc asserts when compiling functions renamed with asm's</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR69">C frontend crashes on some programs with lots of types.</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR70">[instcombine] Resolving invoke inserts cast after terminator</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR71">llvm-as crashes when labels are used in phi nodes</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR72">[build problem] Callgraph.cpp not pulled in from libipa.a</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR77">Variables in scope of output setjmp
calls should be volatile</a>.  Note that this does not effect correctness on
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
many platforms, such as X86.</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR79">llvm-gcc crashes compiling global union initializer</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR80">C front-end crash on empty structure</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR81">CFrontend crashes when compiling C99 compound expressions</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR83">[X86] Emission of global bool initializers broken</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR87">llvm-gcc infinite loops on "case MAXINT:"</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR89">[C++] Catch blocks make unparsable labels</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR90">[C++] Initializing array with constructable objects fail</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR91">[gccld] The -r (relinking) option does not work correctly</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR92">[bcreader] Cannot read shift constant expressions from bytecode file</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR93">[lowersetjmp] Lowersetjmp pass breaks dominance properties!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR94">llvm-gcc tries to add bools</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR95">SymbolTable::getUniqueName is very inefficient</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR98">[buildscripts] Building into objdir with .o in it fails</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR101">[setjmp/longjmp] Linking C programs which use setjmp/longjmp sometimes fail with references to the C++ runtime library!</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR104">[c++] C++ Frontend lays out superclasses like anonymous bitfields!</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR107">AsmParser Misses Symbol Redefinition Error</a></li>
Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR108">gccld -Lfoo -lfoo fails to find ./foo/libfoo.a</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR110">[bcreader] Incorrect cast causes misread forward constant references</a></li>
Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR112">Casting a string constant to void crashes llvm-gcc</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR116">[adce] ADCE considers blocks without postdominators to be unreachable</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR54">C front-end miscompiles unsigned enums whose LLVM types are signed</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR123">[X86] div and rem constant exprs invalidate iterators!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR125">[llvmg++] Enum types are incorrectly shrunk to smaller than 'int' size</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR128">[llvmg++] Cannot use pointer to member to initialize global</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR130">[vmcore] Symbol table doesn't rename colliding variables during type resolution</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR131">[llvm-gcc] ?: operator as lvalue not implemented</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR133">[C/C++] Bogus warning about taking the address of 'register' variable</a></li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR97">bugpoint must not pass -R&lt;directory&gt; to Mach-O linker</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR113">crash assigning into an array in a struct which contains a bitfield</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR6">Oversized integer bitfields cause crash</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR140">gccld produces a runner script that includes command-line options to load the necessary shared objects</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR141">[llvm-gcc] Bitfields & large array don't mix well</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR132">[llvm-gcc] Complex division is not supported</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR143">[llvm-gcc] Illegal union field reference</a></li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>At this time, LLVM is known to work properly with SPEC CPU 2000 (X86 only),
the Olden benchmarks, and the Ptrdist benchmarks among many other programs.
Note however that the Sparc and X86 backends do not currently support exception
throwing or long jumping (including 253.perlbmk in SPEC).  For these programs,
you must use the C backend.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_text">

<p>LLVM has been extensively tested on Intel and AMD machines running Red
Hat Linux, and Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.  Additionally, 
LLVM works on Mac OS/X 10.3 and above, but only with the C back-end (no native
backend for the PowerPC is available yet).
The core LLVM infrastructure uses "autoconf" for portability, so hopefully we
work on more platforms than that.  However, it is likely that we
missed something, and that minor porting is required to get LLVM to work on 
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
new platforms.  We welcome portability patches and error messages.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<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
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
sections.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
</ul><h4><a name="portability"><hr size=0>Portability Problems</h4><ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="core">Known problems with the LLVM Core</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<ul>

<li>In the JIT, <tt>dlsym</tt> on a symbol compiled by the JIT will not
work.</li>

<li>The JIT does not use mutexes to protect its internal data structures.  As
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
such, execution of a threaded program could cause these data structures to be
corrupted.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<li>It is not possible to <tt>dlopen</tt> an LLVM bytecode file in the JIT.</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>Linking in static archive files (.a files) is very slow (there is no symbol
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
table in the archive).</li>

<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR82">LLVM cannot handle structures with
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
more than 256 elements</a>.</li>

</ul>

</div>

<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the C front-end</a>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
  Bugs
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<ul>
<li>C99 Variable sized arrays do not release stack memory when they go out of 
    scope.  Thus, the following program may run out of stack space:
<pre>
    for (i = 0; i != 1000000; ++i) {
      int X[n];
      foo(X);
    }
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</pre></li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
  Notes
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>

<li>Inline assembly is not yet supported.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<li>"long double" is transformed by the front-end into "double".  There is no
support for floating point data types of any size other than 32 and 64
bits.</li>
    
<li>The following Unix system functionality has not been tested and may not
work:
  <ol>
  <li><tt>sigsetjmp</tt>, <tt>siglongjmp</tt> - These are not turned into the
      appropriate <tt>invoke</tt>/<tt>unwind</tt> instructions.  Note that
      <tt>setjmp</tt> and <tt>longjmp</tt> <em>are</em> compiled correctly.
  <li><tt>getcontext</tt>, <tt>setcontext</tt>, <tt>makecontext</tt>
      - These functions have not been tested.
  </ol></li>

<li>Although many GCC extensions are supported, some are not.  In particular,
    the following extensions are known to <b>not be</b> supported:
  <ol>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Local-Labels.html#Local%20Labels">Local Labels</a>: Labels local to a block.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Labels-as-Values.html#Labels%20as%20Values">Labels as Values</a>: Getting pointers to labels, and computed gotos.</li>
  <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.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constructing-Calls.html#Constructing%20Calls">Constructing Calls</a>: Dispatching a call to another function.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Extended-Asm.html#Extended%20Asm">Extended Asm</a>: Assembler instructions with C expressions as operands.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constraints.html#Constraints">Constraints</a>: Constraints for asm operands</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Asm-Labels.html#Asm%20Labels">Asm Labels</a>: Specifying the assembler name to use for a C symbol.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Explicit-Reg-Vars.html#Explicit%20Reg%20Vars">Explicit Reg Vars</a>: Defining variables residing in specified registers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Return-Address.html#Return%20Address">Return Address</a>: Getting the return or frame address of a function.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Vector-Extensions.html#Vector%20Extensions">Vector Extensions</a>: Using vector instructions through built-in functions.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Target-Builtins.html#Target%20Builtins">Target Builtins</a>:   Built-in functions specific to particular targets.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Thread-Local.html#Thread-Local">Thread-Local</a>: Per-thread variables.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pragmas.html#Pragmas">Pragmas</a>: Pragmas accepted by GCC.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed

  <p>The following GCC extensions are <b>partially</b> supported.  An ignored
  attribute means that the LLVM compiler ignores the presence of the attribute,
  but the code should still work.  An unsupported attribute is one which is
  ignored by the LLVM compiler, which will cause a different interpretation of
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  the program.</p>

  <ol>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Length.html#Variable%20Length">Variable Length</a>:
      Arrays whose length is computed at run time.<br>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
      Supported, but allocated stack space is not freed until the function returns (noted above).</li>

  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html#Function%20Attributes">Function Attributes</a>:
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed

      Declaring that functions have no side effects, or that they can never
      return.<br>

      <b>Supported:</b> <tt>format</tt>, <tt>format_arg</tt>, <tt>non_null</tt>,
      <tt>constructor</tt>, <tt>destructor</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>,
      <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>warn_unused_result</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>

      <b>Ignored:</b> <tt>noreturn</tt>, <tt>noinline</tt>,
      <tt>always_inline</tt>, <tt>pure</tt>, <tt>const</tt>, <tt>nothrow</tt>,
      <tt>malloc</tt>, <tt>no_instrument_function</tt>, <tt>cdecl</tt><br>

      <b>Unsupported:</b> <tt>used</tt>, <tt>section</tt>, <tt>alias</tt>,
      <tt>visibility</tt>, <tt>regparm</tt>, <tt>stdcall</tt>,
      <tt>fastcall</tt>, all other target specific attributes</li>
   
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variable-Attributes.html#Variable%20Attributes">Variable Attributes</a>:
      Specifying attributes of variables.<br>
      <b>Supported:</b> <tt>cleanup</tt>, <tt>common</tt>, <tt>nocommon</tt>,
                        <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>transparent_union</tt>,
                        <tt>unused</tt>, <tt>weak</tt><br>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed

      <b>Unsupported:</b> <tt>aligned</tt>, <tt>mode</tt>, <tt>packed</tt>,
                        <tt>section</tt>, <tt>shared</tt>, <tt>tls_model</tt>,
                        <tt>vector_size</tt>, <tt>dllimport</tt>, 
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
                        <tt>dllexport</tt>, all target specific attributes.</li>

  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Type-Attributes.html#Type%20Attributes">Type Attributes</a>: 	Specifying attributes of types. 
      <b>Supported:</b> <tt>transparent_union</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>,
                        <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>may_alias</tt>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed

      <b>Unsupported:</b> <tt>aligned</tt>, <tt>packed</tt>, 
                        all target specific attributes.</li>

  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Other-Builtins.html#Other%20Builtins">Other Builtins</a>:
      Other built-in functions.<br>
      We support all builtins which have a C language equivalent (e.g., 
         <tt>__builtin_cos</tt>),  <tt>__builtin_alloca</tt>, 
         <tt>__builtin_types_compatible_p</tt>, <tt>__builtin_choose_expr</tt>,
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
         <tt>__builtin_constant_p</tt>, and <tt>__builtin_expect</tt> (ignored).</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  </ol>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <p>The following extensions <b>are</b> known to be supported:</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <ol>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement-Exprs.html#Statement%20Exprs">Statement Exprs</a>:   Putting statements and declarations inside expressions.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Typeof.html#Typeof">Typeof</a>: <code>typeof</code>: referring to the type of an expression.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Lvalues.html#Lvalues">Lvalues</a>: Using <code>?:</code>, "<code>,</code>" and casts in lvalues.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Conditionals.html#Conditionals">Conditionals</a>: Omitting the middle operand of a <code>?:</code> expression.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Long-Long.html#Long%20Long">Long Long</a>: Double-word integers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Complex.html#Complex">Complex</a>:   Data types for complex numbers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Hex-Floats.html#Hex%20Floats">Hex Floats</a>:Hexadecimal floating-point constants.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html#Zero%20Length">Zero Length</a>: Zero-length arrays.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Empty-Structures.html#Empty%20Structures">Empty Structures</a>: Structures with no members.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Variadic-Macros.html#Variadic%20Macros">Variadic Macros</a>: Macros with a variable number of arguments.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Escaped-Newlines.html#Escaped%20Newlines">Escaped Newlines</a>:  Slightly looser rules for escaped newlines.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Subscripting.html#Subscripting">Subscripting</a>: Any array can be subscripted, even if not an lvalue.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pointer-Arith.html#Pointer%20Arith">Pointer Arith</a>:Arithmetic on <code>void</code>-pointers and function pointers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Initializers.html#Initializers">Initializers</a>: Non-constant initializers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Compound-Literals.html#Compound%20Literals">Compound Literals</a>: Compound literals give structures, unions or arrays as values.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Designated-Inits.html#Designated%20Inits">Designated Inits</a>: Labeling elements of initializers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Cast-to-Union.html#Cast%20to%20Union">Cast to Union</a>:Casting to union type from any member of the union.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Case-Ranges.html#Case%20Ranges">Case Ranges</a>: `case 1 ... 9' and such.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Mixed-Declarations.html#Mixed%20Declarations">Mixed Declarations</a>: Mixing declarations and code.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Prototypes.html#Function%20Prototypes">Function Prototypes</a>: Prototype declarations and old-style definitions.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C---Comments.html#C++%20Comments">C++ Comments</a>: C++ comments are recognized.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Dollar-Signs.html#Dollar%20Signs">Dollar Signs</a>: Dollar sign is allowed in identifiers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Character-Escapes.html#Character%20Escapes">Character Escapes</a>: <code>\e</code> stands for the character &lt;ESC&gt;.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Alignment.html#Alignment">Alignment</a>: Inquiring about the alignment of a type or variable.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Inline.html#Inline">Inline</a>: Defining inline functions (as fast as macros).</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Alternate-Keywords.html#Alternate%20Keywords">Alternate Keywords</a>:<code>__const__</code>, <code>__asm__</code>, etc., for header files.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Incomplete-Enums.html#Incomplete%20Enums">Incomplete Enums</a>:  <code>enum foo;</code>, with details to follow.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Names.html#Function%20Names">Function Names</a>: Printable strings which are the name of the current function.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Unnamed-Fields.html#Unnamed%20Fields">Unnamed Fields</a>: Unnamed struct/union fields within structs/unions.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Attribute-Syntax.html#Attribute%20Syntax">Attribute Syntax</a>: Formal syntax for attributes.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed

<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>

<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="c++-fe">Known problems with the C++ front-end</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>For this release, the C++ front-end is considered to be fully functional but
of <b>beta</b> quality.  It has been tested and works for a number of simple
programs that collectively exercise most of the language.  Nevertheless, it has
not been in use as long as the C front-end.  Please report any bugs or
problems.</p>

</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
  Bugs
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_text">
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<ul>
<li>The C++ front-end inherits all problems afflicting the <a href="#c-fe">C
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
    front-end</a></li>
</ul>

</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
  Notes
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_text">

<ul>
<li>The C++ front-end is based on a pre-release of the GCC 3.4 C++ parser.  This
parser is significantly more standards compliant (and picky) than prior GCC
versions.  For more information, see the C++ section of the <a
href="http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.4/changes.html">GCC 3.4 release notes</a>.<p>

<li>Destructors for local objects are not always run when a <tt>longjmp</tt> is
    performed. In particular, destructors for objects in the <tt>longjmp</tt>ing
    function and in the <tt>setjmp</tt> receiver function may not be run.
    Objects in intervening stack frames will be destroyed however (which is
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
    better than most compilers).</li>
<li>The LLVM C++ front-end follows the <a
    href="http://www.codesourcery.com/cxx-abi">Itanium C++ ABI</a>.
    This document, which is not Itanium specific, specifies a standard for name
    mangling, class layout, v-table layout, RTTI formats, and other C++
    representation issues.  Because we use this API, code generated by the LLVM
    compilers should be binary compatible with machine code generated by other
    Itanium ABI C++ compilers (such as G++, the Intel and HP compilers, etc).
    <i>However</i>, the exception handling mechanism used by LLVM is very
    different from the model used in the Itanium ABI, so <b>exceptions will not
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
    interact correctly</b>. </li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR11">Code for executing destructors when
    unwinding is not shared</a> (this is a quality of implementation problem,
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
    which does not effect functionality).</li>

</ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>The X86 code generator <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR16">does not currently
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
support the <tt>unwind</tt> instruction</a>, so code that throws a C++ exception
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
or calls the C <tt>longjmp</tt> function will abort.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="sparc-be">Known problems with the Sparc back-end</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>The Sparc code generator <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR15">does not currently
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
support the <tt>unwind</tt> instruction</a>, so code that throws a C++ exception
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
or calls the C <tt>longjmp</tt> function will abort.</li>

</ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>

<li>The C back-end produces code that violates the ANSI C Type-Based Alias
Analysis rules.  As such, special options may be necessary to compile the code
(for example, GCC requires the <tt>-fno-strict-aliasing</tt> option).  This
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
problem probably cannot be fixed.</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR33">Initializers for global variables</a>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
cannot include special floating point numbers like Not-A-Number or
Infinity.</li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR56">Zero arg vararg functions are not 
supported</a>.  This should not affect LLVM produced by the C or C++ 
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
frontends.</li>
<li>The code produces by the C back-end has only been tested with the Sun CC,
GCC, and Intel compilers.  It is possible that it will have to be adjusted to
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
support other C compilers.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<div class="doc_text">

<p>A wide variety of additional information is available on the LLVM web page,
including mailing lists publications describing algorithms and components
implemented in LLVM.  The web page also contains versions of the API
documentation which is up-to-date with the CVS version of the source code.  You
can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going into
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
the "<tt>llvm/doc/</tt>" directory in the LLVM tree.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<p>If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact
us via the mailing lists.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<hr>
<div class="doc_footer">
  <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img width="88" height="31"
  src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!"></a>
  <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/"><img width="88" height="31"
  src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss" alt="Valid CSS!"></a><br>
  <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  Last modified: $Date$
</div>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</body>
</html>