1 Changes: 2 * Change the casting code to be const correct. Now, doing this is invalid: 3 const Value *V = ...; 4 Instruction *I = dyn_cast<Instruction>(V); 5 instead, the second line should be: 6 const Instruction *I = dyn_cast<Instruction>(V); 7 8 * Change the casting code to allow casting a reference value thus: 9 const Value &V = ...; 10 Instruction &I = cast<Instruction>(V); 11 12 dyn_cast does not work with references, because it must return a null pointer 13 on failure. 14 15 * Fundamentally change how instructions and other values are represented. 16 Before, every llvm container was an instance of the ValueHolder template, 17 instantiated for each container type. This ValueHolder was effectively a 18 wrapper around a vector of pointers to the sub-objects. 19 20 Now, instead of having a vector to pointers of objects, the objects are 21 maintained in a doubly linked list of values (ie each Instruction now has 22 Next & Previous fields). The containers are now instances of ilist (intrusive 23 linked list class), which use the next and previous fields to chain them 24 together. The advantage of this implementation is that iterators can be 25 formed directly from pointers to the LLVM value, and invalidation is much 26 easier to handle. 27 28 * As part of the above change, dereferencing an iterator (for example: 29 BasicBlock::iterator) now produces a reference to the underlying type (same 30 example: Instruction&) instead of a pointer to the underlying object. This 31 makes it much easier to write nested loops that iterator over things, changing 32 this: 33 34 for (Function::iterator BI = Func->begin(); BI != Func->end(); ++BI) 35 for (BasicBlock::iterator II = (*BI)->begin(); II != (*BI)->end(); ++II) 36 (*II)->dump(); 37 38 into: 39 40 for (Function::iterator BI = Func->begin(); BI != Func->end(); ++BI) 41 for (BasicBlock::iterator II = BI->begin(); II != BI->end(); ++II) 42 II->dump(); 43 44 which is much more natural and what users expect. 45 46 * Simplification of #include's: Before, it was necessary for a .cpp file to 47 include every .h file that it used. Now things are batched a little bit more 48 to make it easier to use. Specifically, the include graph now includes these 49 edges: 50 Module.h -> Function.h, GlobalVariable.h 51 Function.h -> BasicBlock.h, Argument.h 52 BasicBlock.h -> Instruction.h 53 54 Which means that #including Function.h is usually sufficient for getting the 55 lower level #includes. 56 57 * Printing out a Value* has now changed: Printing a Value* will soon print out 58 the address of the value instead of the contents of the Value. To print out 59 the contents, you must convert it to a reference with (for example) 60 'cout << *I' instead of 'cout << I;'. This conversion is not yet complete, 61 but will be eventually. In the mean time, both forms print out the contents. 62 63 * References are used much more throughout the code base. In general, if a 64 pointer is known to never be null, it is passed in as a reference instead of a 65 pointer. For example, the instruction visitor class uses references instead 66 of pointers, and that Pass subclasses now all receive references to Values 67 instead of pointers, because they may never be null. 68 69 * The Function class now has helper functions for accessing the Arguments list. 70 Instead of having to go through getArgumentList for simple things like 71 iterator over the arguments, now the a*() methods can be used to access them. 72 73
