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      9   content="A glossary of terms used with the LLVM project.">
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     12 <h1>The LLVM Lexicon</h1>
     13 <p class="doc_warning">NOTE: This document is a work in progress!</p>
     14 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
     15 <h2>Table Of Contents</h2>
     16 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
     17 <div>
     18   <table>
     19     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#A">A</a> -</b></th></tr>
     20     <tr>
     21       <td><a href="#ADCE">ADCE</a></td>
     22     </tr>
     23     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#B">B</a> -</b></th></tr>
     24     <tr>
     25       <td><a href="#BURS">BURS</a></td>
     26     </tr>
     27     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#C">C</a> -</b></th></tr>
     28     <tr>
     29       <td><a href="#CSE">CSE</a></td>
     30     </tr>
     31     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#D">D</a> -</b></th></tr>
     32     <tr>
     33       <td><a href="#DAG">DAG</a></td>
     34       <td><a href="#Derived_Pointer">Derived Pointer</a></td>
     35       <td><a href="#DSA">DSA</a></td>
     36       <td><a href="#DSE">DSE</a></td>
     37     </tr>
     38     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#G">G</a> -</b></th></tr>
     39     <tr>
     40       <td><a href="#GC">GC</a></td>
     41     </tr>
     42     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#I">I</a> -</b></th></tr>
     43     <tr>
     44       <td><a href="#IPA">IPA</a></td>
     45       <td><a href="#IPO">IPO</a></td>
     46       <td><a href="#ISel">ISel</a></td>
     47     </tr>
     48     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#L">L</a> -</b></th></tr>
     49     <tr>
     50       <td><a href="#LCSSA">LCSSA</a></td>
     51       <td><a href="#LICM">LICM</a></td>
     52       <td><a href="#Load-VN">Load-VN</a></td>
     53       <td><a href="#LTO">LTO</a></td>
     54     </tr>
     55     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#M">M</a> -</b></th></tr>
     56     <tr>
     57       <td><a href="#MC">MC</a></td>
     58     </tr>
     59     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#O">O</a> -</b></th></tr>
     60     <tr>
     61       <td><a href="#Object_Pointer">Object Pointer</a></td>
     62     </tr>
     63     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#P">P</a> -</b></th></tr>
     64     <tr>
     65       <td><a href="#PRE">PRE</a></td>
     66     </tr>
     67     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#R">R</a> -</b></th></tr>
     68     <tr>
     69       <td><a href="#RAUW">RAUW</a></td>
     70       <td><a href="#Reassociation">Reassociation</a></td>
     71       <td><a href="#Root">Root</a></td>
     72     </tr>
     73     <tr><th colspan="8"><b>- <a href="#S">S</a> -</b></th></tr>
     74     <tr>
     75       <td><a href="#Safe_Point">Safe Point</a></td>
     76       <td><a href="#SCC">SCC</a></td>
     77       <td><a href="#SCCP">SCCP</a></td>
     78       <td><a href="#SDISel">SDISel</a></td>
     79       <td><a href="#SRoA">SRoA</a></td>
     80       <td><a href="#Stack_Map">Stack Map</a></td>
     81     </tr>
     82   </table>
     83 </div>
     84 
     85 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
     86 <h2>Definitions</h2>
     87 <!-- *********************************************************************** -->
     88 <div>
     89 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
     90 <h3><a name="A">- A -</a></h3>
     91 <div>
     92   <dl>
     93     <dt><a name="ADCE"><b>ADCE</b></a></dt>
     94     <dd>Aggressive Dead Code Elimination</dd>
     95   </dl>
     96 </div>
     97 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
     98 <h3><a name="B">- B -</a></h3>
     99 <div>
    100   <dl>
    101     <dt><a name="BURS"><b>BURS</b></a></dt>
    102     <dd>Bottom Up Rewriting System&mdash;A method of instruction selection for
    103         code generation.  An example is the <a 
    104 href="http://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/BURG">BURG</a> tool.</dd>
    105   </dl>
    106 </div>
    107 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    108 <h3><a name="C">- C -</a></h3>
    109 <div>
    110   <dl>
    111     <dt><a name="CSE"><b>CSE</b></a></dt>
    112     <dd>Common Subexpression Elimination. An optimization that removes common
    113     subexpression compuation. For example <tt>(a+b)*(a+b)</tt> has two
    114     subexpressions that are the same: <tt>(a+b)</tt>. This optimization would
    115     perform the addition only once and then perform the multiply (but only if
    116     it's compulationally correct/safe).
    117   </dl>
    118 </div>
    119 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    120 <h3><a name="D">- D -</a></h3>
    121 <div>
    122   <dl>
    123     <dt><a name="DAG"><b>DAG</b></a></dt>
    124     <dd>Directed Acyclic Graph</dd>
    125     <dt><a name="Derived_Pointer"><b>Derived Pointer</b></a></dt>
    126     <dd>A pointer to the interior of an object, such that a garbage collector
    127     is unable to use the pointer for reachability analysis. While a derived
    128     pointer is live, the corresponding object pointer must be kept in a root,
    129     otherwise the collector might free the referenced object. With copying
    130     collectors, derived pointers pose an additional hazard that they may be
    131     invalidated at any <a href="Safe_Point">safe point</a>. This term is used in
    132     opposition to <a href="#Object_Pointer">object pointer</a>.</dd>
    133     <dt><a name="DSA"><b>DSA</b></a></dt>
    134     <dd>Data Structure Analysis</dd>
    135     <dt><a name="DSE"><b>DSE</b></a></dt>
    136     <dd>Dead Store Elimination</dd>
    137   </dl>
    138 </div>
    139 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    140 <h3><a name="G">- G -</a></h3>
    141 <div>
    142   <dl>
    143     <dt><a name="GC"><b>GC</b></a></dt>
    144     <dd>Garbage Collection. The practice of using reachability analysis instead
    145     of explicit memory management to reclaim unused memory.</dd>
    146   </dl>
    147 </div>
    148 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    149 <h3><a name="H">- H -</a></h3>
    150 <div>
    151   <dl>
    152     <dt><a name="Heap"><b>Heap</b></a></dt>
    153     <dd>In garbage collection, the region of memory which is managed using
    154     reachability analysis.</dd>
    155   </dl>
    156 </div>
    157 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    158 <h3><a name="I">- I -</a></h3>
    159 <div>
    160   <dl>
    161     <dt><a name="IPA"><b>IPA</b></a></dt>
    162     <dd>Inter-Procedural Analysis. Refers to any variety of code analysis that
    163     occurs between procedures, functions or compilation units (modules).</dd>
    164     <dt><a name="IPO"><b>IPO</b></a></dt>
    165     <dd>Inter-Procedural Optimization. Refers to any variety of code
    166     optimization that occurs between procedures, functions or compilation units
    167     (modules).</dd>
    168     <dt><a name="ISel"><b>ISel</b></a></dt>
    169     <dd>Instruction Selection.</dd>
    170   </dl>
    171 </div>
    172 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    173 <h3><a name="L">- L -</a></h3>
    174 <div>
    175   <dl>
    176     <dt><a name="LCSSA"><b>LCSSA</b></a></dt>
    177     <dd>Loop-Closed Static Single Assignment Form</dd>
    178     <dt><a name="LICM"><b>LICM</b></a></dt>
    179     <dd>Loop Invariant Code Motion</dd>
    180     <dt><a name="Load-VN"><b>Load-VN</b></a></dt>
    181     <dd>Load Value Numbering</dd>
    182     <dt><a name="LTO"><b>LTO</b></a></dt>
    183     <dd>Link-Time Optimization</dd>
    184   </dl>
    185 </div>
    186 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    187 <h3><a name="M">- M -</a></h3>
    188 <div>
    189   <dl>
    190     <dt><a name="MC"><b>MC</b></a></dt>
    191     <dd>Machine Code</dd>
    192   </dl>
    193 </div>
    194 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    195 <h3><a name="O">- O -</a></h3>
    196 <div>
    197   <dl>
    198     <dt><a name="Object_Pointer"><b>Object Pointer</b></a></dt>
    199     <dd>A pointer to an object such that the garbage collector is able to trace
    200     references contained within the object. This term is used in opposition to
    201     <a href="#Derived_Pointer">derived pointer</a>.</dd>
    202   </dl>
    203 </div>
    204 
    205 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    206 <h3><a name="P">- P -</a></h3>
    207 <div>
    208   <dl>
    209     <dt><a name="PRE"><b>PRE</b></a></dt>
    210     <dd>Partial Redundancy Elimination</dd>
    211   </dl>
    212 </div>
    213 
    214 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    215 <h3><a name="R">- R -</a></h3>
    216 <div>
    217   <dl>
    218   	<dt><a name="RAUW"><b>RAUW</b></a></dt> <dd>An abbreviation for Replace
    219   	All Uses With. The functions User::replaceUsesOfWith(), 
    220   	Value::replaceAllUsesWith(), and Constant::replaceUsesOfWithOnConstant()
    221   	implement the replacement of one Value with another by iterating over its
    222   	def/use chain and fixing up all of the pointers to point to the new value.
    223   	See also <a href="ProgrammersManual.html#iterate_chains">def/use chains</a>.
    224   	</dd>
    225     <dt><a name="Reassociation"><b>Reassociation</b></a></dt> <dd>Rearranging
    226     associative expressions to promote better redundancy elimination and other
    227     optimization.  For example, changing (A+B-A) into (B+A-A), permitting it to
    228     be optimized into (B+0) then (B).</dd>
    229     <dt><a name="Root"><b>Root</b></a></dt> <dd>In garbage collection, a
    230     pointer variable lying outside of the <a href="#Heap">heap</a> from which
    231     the collector begins its reachability analysis. In the context of code
    232     generation, "root" almost always refers to a "stack root" -- a local or
    233     temporary variable within an executing function.</dd>
    234   </dl>
    235 </div>
    236 
    237 <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
    238 <h3><a name="S">- S -</a></h3>
    239 <div>
    240   <dl>
    241     <dt><a name="Safe_Point"><b>Safe Point</b></a></dt>
    242     <dd>In garbage collection, it is necessary to identify <a href="#Root">stack
    243     roots</a> so that reachability analysis may proceed. It may be infeasible to
    244     provide this information for every instruction, so instead the information
    245     may is calculated only at designated safe points. With a copying collector,
    246     <a href="#Derived_Pointers">derived pointers</a> must not be retained across
    247     safe points and <a href="#Object_Pointers">object pointers</a> must be
    248     reloaded from stack roots.</dd>
    249     <dt><a name="SDISel"><b>SDISel</b></a></dt>
    250     <dd>Selection DAG Instruction Selection.</dd>
    251     <dt><a name="SCC"><b>SCC</b></a></dt>
    252     <dd>Strongly Connected Component</dd>
    253     <dt><a name="SCCP"><b>SCCP</b></a></dt>
    254     <dd>Sparse Conditional Constant Propagation</dd>
    255     <dt><a name="SRoA"><b>SRoA</b></a></dt>
    256     <dd>Scalar Replacement of Aggregates</dd>
    257     <dt><a name="SSA"><b>SSA</b></a></dt>
    258     <dd>Static Single Assignment</dd>
    259     <dt><a name="Stack_Map"><b>Stack Map</b></a></dt>
    260     <dd>In garbage collection, metadata emitted by the code generator which
    261     identifies <a href="#Root">roots</a> within the stack frame of an executing
    262     function.</dd>
    263   </dl>
    264 </div>
    265 
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