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diff --git a/docs/tutorial/LangImpl9.rst b/docs/tutorial/LangImpl9.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3398768 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/tutorial/LangImpl9.rst @@ -0,0 +1,262 @@ +====================================================== +Kaleidoscope: Conclusion and other useful LLVM tidbits +====================================================== + +.. contents:: + :local: + +Tutorial Conclusion +=================== + +Welcome to the final chapter of the "`Implementing a language with +LLVM <index.html>`_" tutorial. In the course of this tutorial, we have +grown our little Kaleidoscope language from being a useless toy, to +being a semi-interesting (but probably still useless) toy. :) + +It is interesting to see how far we've come, and how little code it has +taken. We built the entire lexer, parser, AST, code generator, an +interactive run-loop (with a JIT!), and emitted debug information in +standalone executables - all in under 1000 lines of (non-comment/non-blank) +code. + +Our little language supports a couple of interesting features: it +supports user defined binary and unary operators, it uses JIT +compilation for immediate evaluation, and it supports a few control flow +constructs with SSA construction. + +Part of the idea of this tutorial was to show you how easy and fun it +can be to define, build, and play with languages. Building a compiler +need not be a scary or mystical process! Now that you've seen some of +the basics, I strongly encourage you to take the code and hack on it. +For example, try adding: + +- **global variables** - While global variables have questional value + in modern software engineering, they are often useful when putting + together quick little hacks like the Kaleidoscope compiler itself. + Fortunately, our current setup makes it very easy to add global + variables: just have value lookup check to see if an unresolved + variable is in the global variable symbol table before rejecting it. + To create a new global variable, make an instance of the LLVM + ``GlobalVariable`` class. +- **typed variables** - Kaleidoscope currently only supports variables + of type double. This gives the language a very nice elegance, because + only supporting one type means that you never have to specify types. + Different languages have different ways of handling this. The easiest + way is to require the user to specify types for every variable + definition, and record the type of the variable in the symbol table + along with its Value\*. +- **arrays, structs, vectors, etc** - Once you add types, you can start + extending the type system in all sorts of interesting ways. Simple + arrays are very easy and are quite useful for many different + applications. Adding them is mostly an exercise in learning how the + LLVM `getelementptr <../LangRef.html#i_getelementptr>`_ instruction + works: it is so nifty/unconventional, it `has its own + FAQ <../GetElementPtr.html>`_! If you add support for recursive types + (e.g. linked lists), make sure to read the `section in the LLVM + Programmer's Manual <../ProgrammersManual.html#TypeResolve>`_ that + describes how to construct them. +- **standard runtime** - Our current language allows the user to access + arbitrary external functions, and we use it for things like "printd" + and "putchard". As you extend the language to add higher-level + constructs, often these constructs make the most sense if they are + lowered to calls into a language-supplied runtime. For example, if + you add hash tables to the language, it would probably make sense to + add the routines to a runtime, instead of inlining them all the way. +- **memory management** - Currently we can only access the stack in + Kaleidoscope. It would also be useful to be able to allocate heap + memory, either with calls to the standard libc malloc/free interface + or with a garbage collector. If you would like to use garbage + collection, note that LLVM fully supports `Accurate Garbage + Collection <../GarbageCollection.html>`_ including algorithms that + move objects and need to scan/update the stack. +- **exception handling support** - LLVM supports generation of `zero + cost exceptions <../ExceptionHandling.html>`_ which interoperate with + code compiled in other languages. You could also generate code by + implicitly making every function return an error value and checking + it. You could also make explicit use of setjmp/longjmp. There are + many different ways to go here. +- **object orientation, generics, database access, complex numbers, + geometric programming, ...** - Really, there is no end of crazy + features that you can add to the language. +- **unusual domains** - We've been talking about applying LLVM to a + domain that many people are interested in: building a compiler for a + specific language. However, there are many other domains that can use + compiler technology that are not typically considered. For example, + LLVM has been used to implement OpenGL graphics acceleration, + translate C++ code to ActionScript, and many other cute and clever + things. Maybe you will be the first to JIT compile a regular + expression interpreter into native code with LLVM? + +Have fun - try doing something crazy and unusual. Building a language +like everyone else always has, is much less fun than trying something a +little crazy or off the wall and seeing how it turns out. If you get +stuck or want to talk about it, feel free to email the `llvmdev mailing +list <http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev>`_: it has lots +of people who are interested in languages and are often willing to help +out. + +Before we end this tutorial, I want to talk about some "tips and tricks" +for generating LLVM IR. These are some of the more subtle things that +may not be obvious, but are very useful if you want to take advantage of +LLVM's capabilities. + +Properties of the LLVM IR +========================= + +We have a couple common questions about code in the LLVM IR form - lets +just get these out of the way right now, shall we? + +Target Independence +------------------- + +Kaleidoscope is an example of a "portable language": any program written +in Kaleidoscope will work the same way on any target that it runs on. +Many other languages have this property, e.g. lisp, java, haskell, +javascript, python, etc (note that while these languages are portable, +not all their libraries are). + +One nice aspect of LLVM is that it is often capable of preserving target +independence in the IR: you can take the LLVM IR for a +Kaleidoscope-compiled program and run it on any target that LLVM +supports, even emitting C code and compiling that on targets that LLVM +doesn't support natively. You can trivially tell that the Kaleidoscope +compiler generates target-independent code because it never queries for +any target-specific information when generating code. + +The fact that LLVM provides a compact, target-independent, +representation for code gets a lot of people excited. Unfortunately, +these people are usually thinking about C or a language from the C +family when they are asking questions about language portability. I say +"unfortunately", because there is really no way to make (fully general) +C code portable, other than shipping the source code around (and of +course, C source code is not actually portable in general either - ever +port a really old application from 32- to 64-bits?). + +The problem with C (again, in its full generality) is that it is heavily +laden with target specific assumptions. As one simple example, the +preprocessor often destructively removes target-independence from the +code when it processes the input text: + +.. code-block:: c + + #ifdef __i386__ + int X = 1; + #else + int X = 42; + #endif + +While it is possible to engineer more and more complex solutions to +problems like this, it cannot be solved in full generality in a way that +is better than shipping the actual source code. + +That said, there are interesting subsets of C that can be made portable. +If you are willing to fix primitive types to a fixed size (say int = +32-bits, and long = 64-bits), don't care about ABI compatibility with +existing binaries, and are willing to give up some other minor features, +you can have portable code. This can make sense for specialized domains +such as an in-kernel language. + +Safety Guarantees +----------------- + +Many of the languages above are also "safe" languages: it is impossible +for a program written in Java to corrupt its address space and crash the +process (assuming the JVM has no bugs). Safety is an interesting +property that requires a combination of language design, runtime +support, and often operating system support. + +It is certainly possible to implement a safe language in LLVM, but LLVM +IR does not itself guarantee safety. The LLVM IR allows unsafe pointer +casts, use after free bugs, buffer over-runs, and a variety of other +problems. Safety needs to be implemented as a layer on top of LLVM and, +conveniently, several groups have investigated this. Ask on the `llvmdev +mailing list <http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev>`_ if +you are interested in more details. + +Language-Specific Optimizations +------------------------------- + +One thing about LLVM that turns off many people is that it does not +solve all the world's problems in one system (sorry 'world hunger', +someone else will have to solve you some other day). One specific +complaint is that people perceive LLVM as being incapable of performing +high-level language-specific optimization: LLVM "loses too much +information". + +Unfortunately, this is really not the place to give you a full and +unified version of "Chris Lattner's theory of compiler design". Instead, +I'll make a few observations: + +First, you're right that LLVM does lose information. For example, as of +this writing, there is no way to distinguish in the LLVM IR whether an +SSA-value came from a C "int" or a C "long" on an ILP32 machine (other +than debug info). Both get compiled down to an 'i32' value and the +information about what it came from is lost. The more general issue +here, is that the LLVM type system uses "structural equivalence" instead +of "name equivalence". Another place this surprises people is if you +have two types in a high-level language that have the same structure +(e.g. two different structs that have a single int field): these types +will compile down into a single LLVM type and it will be impossible to +tell what it came from. + +Second, while LLVM does lose information, LLVM is not a fixed target: we +continue to enhance and improve it in many different ways. In addition +to adding new features (LLVM did not always support exceptions or debug +info), we also extend the IR to capture important information for +optimization (e.g. whether an argument is sign or zero extended, +information about pointers aliasing, etc). Many of the enhancements are +user-driven: people want LLVM to include some specific feature, so they +go ahead and extend it. + +Third, it is *possible and easy* to add language-specific optimizations, +and you have a number of choices in how to do it. As one trivial +example, it is easy to add language-specific optimization passes that +"know" things about code compiled for a language. In the case of the C +family, there is an optimization pass that "knows" about the standard C +library functions. If you call "exit(0)" in main(), it knows that it is +safe to optimize that into "return 0;" because C specifies what the +'exit' function does. + +In addition to simple library knowledge, it is possible to embed a +variety of other language-specific information into the LLVM IR. If you +have a specific need and run into a wall, please bring the topic up on +the llvmdev list. At the very worst, you can always treat LLVM as if it +were a "dumb code generator" and implement the high-level optimizations +you desire in your front-end, on the language-specific AST. + +Tips and Tricks +=============== + +There is a variety of useful tips and tricks that you come to know after +working on/with LLVM that aren't obvious at first glance. Instead of +letting everyone rediscover them, this section talks about some of these +issues. + +Implementing portable offsetof/sizeof +------------------------------------- + +One interesting thing that comes up, if you are trying to keep the code +generated by your compiler "target independent", is that you often need +to know the size of some LLVM type or the offset of some field in an +llvm structure. For example, you might need to pass the size of a type +into a function that allocates memory. + +Unfortunately, this can vary widely across targets: for example the +width of a pointer is trivially target-specific. However, there is a +`clever way to use the getelementptr +instruction <http://nondot.org/sabre/LLVMNotes/SizeOf-OffsetOf-VariableSizedStructs.txt>`_ +that allows you to compute this in a portable way. + +Garbage Collected Stack Frames +------------------------------ + +Some languages want to explicitly manage their stack frames, often so +that they are garbage collected or to allow easy implementation of +closures. There are often better ways to implement these features than +explicit stack frames, but `LLVM does support +them, <http://nondot.org/sabre/LLVMNotes/ExplicitlyManagedStackFrames.txt>`_ +if you want. It requires your front-end to convert the code into +`Continuation Passing +Style <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation-passing_style>`_ and +the use of tail calls (which LLVM also supports). + |