llvm/docs/ReleaseNotes.html

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<h1>LLVM 3.2 Release Notes</h1>

<div>
<img style="float:right" src="http://llvm.org/img/DragonSmall.png"
     width="136" height="136" alt="LLVM Dragon Logo">
</div>

<ol>
  <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
  <li><a href="#subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a></li>
  <li><a href="#externalproj">External Projects Using LLVM 3.2</a></li>
  <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New in LLVM?</a></li>
  <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
  <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a></li>
  <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 style="color:red">These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 3.2
release.<br>
You may prefer the
<a href="http://llvm.org/releases/3.1/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">LLVM 3.1
Release Notes</a>.</h1>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
  <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div>

<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler
   Infrastructure, release 3.2.  Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
   major improvements from the previous release, improvements in various
   subprojects of LLVM, and some of the current users of the code.  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://lists.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 release, please see the
   <a href="http://llvm.org/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>

</div>


<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
  <a name="subproj">Sub-project Status Update</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div>

<p>The LLVM 3.2 distribution currently consists of code from the core LLVM
   repository, which roughly includes the LLVM optimizers, code generators and
   supporting tools, and the Clang repository. In addition to this code, the
   LLVM Project includes other sub-projects that are in development. Here we
   include updates on these subprojects.</p>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="clang">Clang: C/C++/Objective-C Frontend Toolkit</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang</a> is an LLVM front end for the C,
   C++, and Objective-C languages. Clang aims to provide a better user
   experience through expressive diagnostics, a high level of conformance to
   language standards, fast compilation, and low memory use. Like LLVM, Clang
   provides a modular, library-based architecture that makes it suitable for
   creating or integrating with other development tools. Clang is considered a
   production-quality compiler for C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ on x86
   (32- and 64-bit), and for Darwin/ARM targets.</p>

<p>In the LLVM 3.2 time-frame, the Clang team has made many improvements.
   Highlights include:</p>
<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

<p>For more details about the changes to Clang since the 3.1 release, see the
   <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ReleaseNotes.html">Clang release
   notes.</a></p>

<p>If Clang rejects your code but another compiler accepts it, please take a
   look at the <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/compatibility.html">language
   compatibility</a> guide to make sure this is not intentional or a known
   issue.</p>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="dragonegg">DragonEgg: GCC front-ends, LLVM back-end</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/">DragonEgg</a> is a
   <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/plugins">gcc plugin</a> that replaces GCC's
   optimizers and code generators with LLVM's. It works with gcc-4.5 and gcc-4.6
   (and partially with gcc-4.7), can target the x86-32/x86-64 and ARM processor
   families, and has been successfully used on the Darwin, FreeBSD, KFreeBSD,
   Linux and OpenBSD platforms.  It fully supports Ada, C, C++ and Fortran.  It
   has partial support for Go, Java, Obj-C and Obj-C++.</p>

<p>The 3.2 release has the following notable changes:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="compiler-rt">compiler-rt: Compiler Runtime Library</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>The new LLVM <a href="http://compiler-rt.llvm.org/">compiler-rt project</a>
   is a simple library that provides an implementation of the low-level
   target-specific hooks required by code generation and other runtime
   components.  For example, when compiling for a 32-bit target, converting a
   double to a 64-bit unsigned integer is compiled into a runtime call to the
   <code>__fixunsdfdi</code> function. The compiler-rt library provides highly
   optimized implementations of this and other low-level routines (some are 3x
   faster than the equivalent libgcc routines).</p>

<p>The 3.2 release has the following notable changes:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="lldb">LLDB: Low Level Debugger</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://lldb.llvm.org">LLDB</a> is a ground-up implementation of a
   command line debugger, as well as a debugger API that can be used from other
   applications.  LLDB makes use of the Clang parser to provide high-fidelity
   expression parsing (particularly for C++) and uses the LLVM JIT for target
   support.</p>

<p>The 3.2 release has the following notable changes:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="libc++">libc++: C++ Standard Library</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>Like compiler_rt, libc++ is now <a href="DeveloperPolicy.html#license">dual
   licensed</a> under the MIT and UIUC license, allowing it to be used more
   permissively.</p>

<p>Within the LLVM 3.2 time-frame there were the following highlights:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="vmkit">VMKit</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>The <a href="http://vmkit.llvm.org/">VMKit project</a> is an implementation
  of a Java Virtual Machine (Java VM or JVM) that uses LLVM for static and
  just-in-time compilation.</p>

<p>The 3.2 release has the following notable changes:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>


<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="Polly">Polly: Polyhedral Optimizer</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://polly.llvm.org/">Polly</a> is an <em>experimental</em>
  optimizer for data locality and parallelism. It currently provides high-level
  loop optimizations and automatic parallelisation (using the OpenMP run time).
  Work in the area of automatic SIMD and accelerator code generation was
  started.</p>

<p>Within the LLVM 3.2 time-frame there were the following highlights:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
  <a name="externalproj">External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 3.2</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div>

<p>An exciting aspect of LLVM is that it is used as an enabling technology for
   a lot of other language and tools projects. This section lists some of the
   projects that have already been updated to work with LLVM 3.2.</p>

<h3>Crack</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://code.google.com/p/crack-language/">Crack</a> aims to provide
   the ease of development of a scripting language with the performance of a
   compiled language. The language derives concepts from C++, Java and Python,
   incorporating object-oriented programming, operator overloading and strong
   typing.</p>

</div>

<h3>FAUST</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://faust.grame.fr/">FAUST</a> is a compiled language for
   real-time audio signal processing. The name FAUST stands for Functional
   AUdio STream. Its programming model combines two approaches: functional
   programming and block diagram composition. In addition with the C, C++, Java,
   JavaScript output formats, the Faust compiler can generate LLVM bitcode, and
   works with LLVM 2.7-3.1.</p>

</div>

<h3>Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC)</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://www.haskell.org/ghc/">GHC</a> is an open source compiler and
   programming suite for Haskell, a lazy functional programming language. It
   includes an optimizing static compiler generating good code for a variety of
   platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick
   development.</p>

<p>GHC 7.0 and onwards include an LLVM code generator, supporting LLVM 2.8 and
   later.</p>

</div>

<h3>Julia</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia">Julia</a> is a high-level,
   high-performance dynamic language for technical computing. It provides a
   sophisticated compiler, distributed parallel execution, numerical accuracy,
   and an extensive mathematical function library. The compiler uses type
   inference to generate fast code without any type declarations, and uses
   LLVM's optimization passes and JIT compiler. The
   <a href="http://julialang.org/"> Julia Language</a> is designed
   around multiple dispatch, giving programs a large degree of flexibility. It
   is ready for use on many kinds of problems.</p>

</div>

<h3>LLVM D Compiler</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc">LLVM D Compiler</a> (LDC) is
   a compiler for the D programming Language. It is based on the DMD frontend
   and uses LLVM as backend.</p>

</div>

<h3>Open Shading Language</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="https://github.com/imageworks/OpenShadingLanguage/">Open Shading
   Language (OSL)</a> is a small but rich language for programmable shading in
   advanced global illumination renderers and other applications, ideal for
   describing materials, lights, displacement, and pattern generation. It uses
   LLVM to JIT complex shader networks to x86 code at runtime.</p>

<p>OSL was developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks for use in its in-house
   renderer used for feature film animation and visual effects, and is
   distributed as open source software with the "New BSD" license.</p>

</div>

<h3>Portable OpenCL (pocl)</h3>

<div>

<p>In addition to producing an easily portable open source OpenCL
   implementation, another major goal of <a href="http://pocl.sourceforge.net/">
   pocl</a> is improving performance portability of OpenCL programs with
   compiler optimizations, reducing the need for target-dependent manual
   optimizations. An important part of pocl is a set of LLVM passes used to
   statically parallelize multiple work-items with the kernel compiler, even in
   the presence of work-group barriers. This enables static parallelization of
   the fine-grained static concurrency in the work groups in multiple ways
   (SIMD, VLIW, superscalar,...).</p>

</div>

<h3>Pure</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://pure-lang.googlecode.com/">Pure</a> is an
   algebraic/functional programming language based on term rewriting. Programs
   are collections of equations which are used to evaluate expressions in a
   symbolic fashion. The interpreter uses LLVM as a backend to JIT-compile Pure
   programs to fast native code. Pure offers dynamic typing, eager and lazy
   evaluation, lexical closures, a hygienic macro system (also based on term
   rewriting), built-in list and matrix support (including list and matrix
   comprehensions) and an easy-to-use interface to C and other programming
   languages (including the ability to load LLVM bitcode modules, and inline C,
   C++, Fortran and Faust code in Pure programs if the corresponding
   LLVM-enabled compilers are installed).</p>

<p>Pure version 0.54 has been tested and is known to work with LLVM 3.1 (and
   continues to work with older LLVM releases >= 2.5).</p>

</div>

<h3>TTA-based Co-design Environment (TCE)</h3>

<div>

<p><a href="http://tce.cs.tut.fi/">TCE</a> is a toolset for designing
   application-specific processors (ASP) based on the Transport triggered
   architecture (TTA). The toolset provides a complete co-design flow from C/C++
   programs down to synthesizable VHDL/Verilog and parallel program binaries.
   Processor customization points include the register files, function units,
   supported operations, and the interconnection network.</p>

<p>TCE uses Clang and LLVM for C/C++ language support, target independent
   optimizations and also for parts of code generation. It generates new
   LLVM-based code generators "on the fly" for the designed TTA processors and
   loads them in to the compiler backend as runtime libraries to avoid
   per-target recompilation of larger parts of the compiler chain.</p>

</div>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
  <a name="whatsnew">What's New in LLVM 3.2?</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div>

<p>This release includes a huge number of bug fixes, performance tweaks and
   minor improvements. Some of the major improvements and new features are
   listed in this section.</p>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
</h3>

<div>

  <!-- Features that need text if they're finished for 3.2:
   ARM EHABI
   combiner-aa?
   strong phi elim
   loop dependence analysis
   CorrelatedValuePropagation
   lib/Transforms/IPO/MergeFunctions.cpp => consider for 3.2.
   Integrated assembler on by default for arm/thumb?

   -->

  <!-- Near dead:
   Analysis/RegionInfo.h + Dom Frontiers
   SparseBitVector: used in LiveVar.
   llvm/lib/Archive - replace with lib object?
   -->

<p>LLVM 3.2 includes several major changes and big features:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>


<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM IR and Core Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>LLVM IR has several new features for better support of new targets and that
   expose new optimization opportunities:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Thread local variables may have a specified TLS model. See the
  <a href="LangRef.html#globalvars">Language Reference Manual</a>.</li>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>In addition to many minor performance tweaks and bug fixes, this release
   includes a few major enhancements and additions to the optimizers:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="mc">MC Level Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>The LLVM Machine Code (aka MC) subsystem was created to solve a number of
   problems in the realm of assembly, disassembly, object file format handling,
   and a number of other related areas that CPU instruction-set level tools work
   in. For more information, please see the
   <a href="http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/intro-to-llvm-mc-project.html">Intro
   to the LLVM MC Project Blog Post</a>.</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="codegen">Target Independent Code Generator Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>Stack Coloring - We have implemented a new optimization pass
  to merge stack objects which are used in disjoin areas of the code.
  This optimization reduces the required stack space significantly, in cases
  where it is clear to the optimizer that the stack slot is not shared.
  We use the lifetime markers to tell the codegen that a certain alloca
  is used within a region.</p>

<p>We have 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>...</li>
</ul>

<p> We added new TableGen infrastructure to support bundling for
    Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architectures. TableGen can now
    automatically generate a deterministic finite automaton from a VLIW
    target's schedule description which can be queried to determine
    legal groupings of instructions in a bundle.</p>

<p> We have added a new target independent VLIW packetizer based on the
    DFA infrastructure to group machine instructions into bundles.</p>

</div>

<h4>
<a name="blockplacement">Basic Block Placement</a>
</h4>

<div>

<p>A probability based block placement and code layout algorithm was added to
   LLVM's code generator. This layout pass supports probabilities derived from
   static heuristics as well as source code annotations such as
   <code>__builtin_expect</code>.</p>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="x86">X86-32 and X86-64 Target Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>New features and major changes in the X86 target include:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="ARM">ARM Target Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>New features of the ARM target include:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

<!--_________________________________________________________________________-->

<h4>
<a name="armintegratedassembler">ARM Integrated Assembler</a>
</h4>

<div>

<p>The ARM target now includes a full featured macro assembler, including
   direct-to-object module support for clang. The assembler is currently enabled
   by default for Darwin only pending testing and any additional necessary
   platform specific support for Linux.</p>

<p>Full support is included for Thumb1, Thumb2 and ARM modes, along with
   subtarget and CPU specific extensions for VFP2, VFP3 and NEON.</p>

<p>The assembler is Unified Syntax only (see ARM Architecural Reference Manual
   for details). While there is some, and growing, support for pre-unfied
   (divided) syntax, there are still significant gaps in that support.</p>

</div>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="MIPS">MIPS Target Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>New features and major changes in the MIPS target include:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="OtherTS">Other Target Specific Improvements</a>
</h3>

<div>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="changes">Major Changes and Removed Features</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>If you're already an LLVM user or developer with out-of-tree changes based on
   LLVM 3.2, this section lists some "gotchas" that you may run into upgrading
   from the previous release.</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="api_changes">Internal API Changes</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>In addition, many APIs have changed in this release.  Some of the major
   LLVM API changes are:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="tools_changes">Tools Changes</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>In addition, some tools have changed in this release. Some of the changes
   are:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>


<!--=========================================================================-->
<h3>
<a name="python">Python Bindings</a>
</h3>

<div>

<p>Officially supported Python bindings have been added! Feature support is far
   from complete. The current bindings support interfaces to:</p>

<ul>
  <li>...</li>
</ul>

</div>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
  <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div>

<p>LLVM is generally a production quality compiler, and is used by a broad range
   of applications and shipping in many products.  That said, not every
   subsystem is as mature as the aggregate, particularly the more obscure
   targets.  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 or ask on
   the <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">LLVMdev
   list</a>.</p>

  <p>Known problem areas include:</p>

<ul>
  <li>The CellSPU, MSP430, PTX and XCore backends are experimental.</li>

  <li>The integrated assembler, disassembler, and JIT is not supported by
      several targets. If an integrated assembler is not supported, then a
      system assembler is required.  For more details, see the <a
      href="CodeGenerator.html#targetfeatures">Target Features Matrix</a>.
  </li>
</ul>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<h2>
  <a name="additionalinfo">Additional Information</a>
</h2>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div>

<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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