Skip to content
ReleaseNotes.html 27.3 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 1.2 Release Notes</title>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</head>
<body>

<div class="doc_title">
  LLVM 1.2 Release Notes
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</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="#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>
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
  <p><b>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">LLVM team</a></b><p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</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 1.2.  Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
known problems and bug fixes from the previous release.  The most up-to-date
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
version of this document can be found on the <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/1.2/">LLVM 1.2 web site</a>.  If you are
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
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>
<p>Note that if you are reading this file from CVS, this document applies
to the <i>next</i> release, not the current one.  To see the release notes for
the current or previous releases, see the <a
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
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">

John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
<p>This is the third public release of the LLVM compiler infrastructure.
<p>At this time, LLVM is known to correctly compile and run all C
&amp; C++ SPEC CPU2000 benchmarks, the Olden benchmarks, and the Ptrdist
benchmarks.  It has also been used to compile <b>many</b> other programs.  LLVM
now also works with a broad variety of C++ programs, though it has still
received less testing than the C front-end.
</p>


<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
This release implements the following new features:
</div>
<li><a href="SourceLevelDebugging.html">A new LLVM source-level debugger has been started.</a></li>
<li></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
</ol>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed


<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
In this release, the following missing features were implemented:
</div>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

<ol>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR16">Exception handling support in the X86
&amp; Sparc native code generators</a></li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ol>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
In this release, the following Quality of Implementation issues were fixed:
</div>

<ol>

<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR135">JIT should lazily initialize global variables</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR192">[X86] X86 Backend never releases memory for machine code structures</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR196">[vmcore] OpaqueType objects memory leak</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR182">[llvmgcc] C front-end does not compile "extern inline" into linkonce</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR73">Bytecode format inconsistent</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR209">[loadvn/inline/scalarrepl] Slow optimizations with extremely large basic blocks</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR224">[asmparser] Really slow parsing of types with complex upreferences</a></li>
</ol>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
LLVM gained several improvements to its build and installation
infrastructure in this release. There is now
a <tt>autoconf/AutoRegen.sh</tt> script that you can run to rebuild the
<tt>configure</tt> script and its associated files
(<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR105">Bug 105</a>) as well as beta support
for "make install" (<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR208">Bug 208</a> and
<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR220">Bug 220</a>) and RPM package generation
(<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR203">Bug 203</a>).
Additionally, in this release, the following build problems were fixed:
Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR210">[build] Makefiles break if C frontend target string has unexpected value</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR214">[build] hard-wired assumption that shared-library extension is ".so"</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><A href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR222">make tools-only doesn't make lib/Support</a></li>
Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
</ol>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
In this release, the following Code Quality issues were fixed:
</div>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed

Brian Gaeke's avatar
Brian Gaeke committed
<ol>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR187">[loopsimplify] Many pointless phi nodes are created</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>The X86 backend didn't generate <tt>fchs</tt> to negate floating point numbers</li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li>The X86 backend didn't expand memcpy() into the <tt>rep movs</tt> instruction</li> 
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ol>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed


<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
In this release, the following bugs in the previous release were fixed:
</div>

<p>Bugs in the LLVM Core:</p>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR179">[licm] LICM promotes volatile memory
locations to registers</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR191">[licm] Memory read after free causes 
infrequent crash</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR194">[indvars] Induction variable 
canonicalization always makes 32-bit indvars</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR193">[constantmerge] Merging globals can
cause use of invalid pointers!</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR212">[bcreader] Bytecode reader misreads 'long -9223372036854775808'!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=174">Tail duplication does not update SSA form correctly.</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR218">VMCore mishandles double -0.0</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR219">[X86] X86 backend code generates -0.0 as +0.0</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR223">[loopsimplify] Loopsimplify incorrectly updates dominator information</a></li>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR225">[pruneeh] -pruneeh pass removes invoke instructions it shouldn't</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR228">[sparc] Boolean constants are emitted as true and false</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR235">Tablegen aborts on errors</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR236">[inliner] Error inlining intrinsic calls into invoke instructions</a></li>
<p>Bugs in the C/C++ front-end:</p>

<ol>
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR186">Need weak linkage on memory
management functions in libc runtime to allow them to be overriden</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR202">[llvm-gcc] asserts when an extern inline function is redefined</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR204">[llvmg++] Dynamically initialized constants cannot be marked 'constant'</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR216">[llvmgcc] floating-point unary minus is incorrect for +0.0</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR221">[llvm-gcc] miscompilation of 'X = Y = Z' with aggregate values</a></li>
Chris Lattner's avatar
Chris Lattner committed
<li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR233">[llvmgcc] Structure copies result in a LOT of code</a></li>
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 FreeBSD.  It has also been tested on Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
Additionally, 
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
LLVM works on Mac OS X 10.3 and above, but only with the C backend or 
interpreter (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
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
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
sections.  If you run into a problem, please check the <a
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/bugs/">LLVM bug database</a> and submit a bug if
there isn't already one.</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>

John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
<li>
The gccld program 
<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=139">
does not link objects/archives in the order specified on the command line.
</a>
</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ul>
</div>

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

<div class="doc_text">
<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>
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
<li>
Initialization of global union variables can only be done
<a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=162">with the largest
union member</a>.
</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</ul>
</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>
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
  <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>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <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>
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constraints.html#Constraints">Constraints</a>: Constraints for asm operands.</li>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <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
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
  ignored by the LLVM compiler and 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

John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
      Declaring that functions have no side effects or that they can never
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
      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.<br>
      <b>Supported:</b> <tt>transparent_union</tt>, <tt>unused</tt>,
                        <tt>deprecated</tt>, <tt>may_alias</tt><br>
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>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Initializers.html#Initializers">Initializers</a>: Non-constant initializers.</li>
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
  <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>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <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>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  <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">

John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
<p>For this release, the C++ front-end is considered to be fully functional but
has not been tested as thoroughly as the C front-end.  It has been tested and 
works for a number of non-trivial programs, but there may be lurking bugs.
Please report any bugs or problems.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed

</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
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
    front-end</a>.</li>
</ul>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</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>.</li>

<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.
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
    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>
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_subsection">
  <a name="x86-be">Known problems with the X86 back-end</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>
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>
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_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>
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,
John Criswell's avatar
John Criswell committed
including mailing lists and 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 <a href="http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">mailing
lists</a>.</p>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</div>

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

Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
<hr>
  <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"><img
  src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss" alt="Valid CSS!"></a>
  <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
  src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!" /></a>

  <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
  Last modified: $Date$
Misha Brukman's avatar
Misha Brukman committed
</body>
</html>