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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
                      "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
  <title>LLVM 1.4 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>

<div class="doc_title">LLVM 1.4 Release Notes</div>
 
<ol>
  <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
  <li><a href="#whatsnew">What's New?</a></li>
  <li><a href="GettingStarted.html">Installation Instructions</a></li>
  <li><a href="#portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a></li>
  <li><a href="#knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#experimental">Experimental features included in this
                                release</a>
    <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="#sparcv9-be">Known problems with the SparcV9 Back-end</a>
    <li><a href="#ppc-be">Known problems with the PowerPC Back-end</a>
    <li><a href="#c-be">Known problems with the C back-end</a>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a href="#additionalinfo">Additional Information</a></li>
</ol>

<div class="doc_author">
  <p>Written by the <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">LLVM team</a><p>
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="intro">Introduction</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div class="doc_text">

<p>This document contains the release notes for the LLVM compiler
infrastructure, release 1.4.  Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
known problems and bug fixes from the previous release.  The most up-to-date
version of this document can be found on the <a
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/1.4/">LLVM 1.4 web site</a>.  If you are
not reading this on the LLVM web pages, you should probably go there because
this document may be updated after the release.</p>

<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
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
href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/releases/">releases page</a>.</p>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="whatsnew">What's New?</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div class="doc_text">

<p>This is the fifth public release of the LLVM compiler infrastructure.</p>

<p> At this time, LLVM is known to correctly compile and run all C &amp; C++
SPEC CPU95 &amp; 2000 benchmarks, the Olden benchmarks, and the Ptrdist 
benchmarks, and <b>many</b> other C and C++ programs.</p>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
<a name="newfeatures">This release implements the following new features:</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
<ol>
  <li>LLVM now includes a JIT for the PowerPC target.</li>
  <li>LLVM now optimizes global variables significantly more than it did 
  before.
  </li>
  <li>LLVM now includes the new '<tt>undef</tt>' value and 
  <a href="LangRef.html#i_unreachable"><tt>unreachable</tt></a> instruction,
  which give the optimizer more information about the behavior of the
  program.
  </li>
  <li>llvmgcc and llvmg++ now emit source line number information when '-g' is
  passed in.  This information can be used with llvm-db or other tools and 
  passes.
  </li>
  <li>The test/Programs hierarchy <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR257">has
    been moved out of the main LLVM tree</a> into a separate CVS repository and
    tarball. This shrinks the distribution size of LLVM itself significantly.
  </li>
  <li>Bytecode compression with bzip2 has been implemented. All bytecode files
  generated by LLVM will now be compressed by default. Compression can be 
  disabled with the <tt>-disable-compression</tt> option to the tools that can 
  generate bytecode files.
  </li>
  <li>A generic <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR353">compiler driver</a> and
  an associated <a href="CommandGuide/html/llvm-ld.html">generic linker</a> have
  been implemented. The compiler driver is generic because it can be configured
  to pre-process, translate, optimize, assemble, and link code from any source
  language. This aids compiler writers because all that is needed is a
  source-to-bytecode or source-to-assembly translator and a configuration file.
  The linker is generic because it allows dynamically loadable optimization
  modules to be executed for link-time optimization. Language specific 
  link-time optimization modules can be created and executed automatically.
  </li>
  <li>The <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR263">dependent libraries</a> 
  feature has been implemented. This allows front end compilers to indicate in
  the bytecode which libraries the bytecode needs to be linked with. Both the
  C/C++ front end and Stacker support generating the required libraries. The 
  Linker now supports using this information to ensure required libaries are
  linked into the module. This minimizes the need to use the <tt>-l</tt> option
  when using <a href="CommandGuide/html/llvmc.html"><tt>llvmc</tt></a>
  </li>
  <li>The LLVM makefiles have been improved to build LLVM faster (2x) and 
  includes new targets (like dist-check, uninstall). One important change is
  associated with <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR456">PR456</a>. The 
  libraries and tools will now be built into <tt>$builddir/Debug/{bin,lib}</tt>
  instead of <tt>$builddir/tools/Debug</tt> and <tt>$builddir/lib/Debug</tt>.
  Similarly for <tt>Release</tt> and <tt>Profile</tt> builds.
  </li>
  <li>The LLVM source code is much more compatible with Microsoft Visual C++,
  including the JIT and runtime-code generation, though the entire system 
  may not work with it.
  </li>
  <li>The target-to-JIT interfaces <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR283">are 
    now much simpler</a> and more powerful.
  </li>
  <li>zlib and libpng are <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR417">no longer
      included in the main LLVM tarball</a>.</li>
  <li>The LLVM code generator now generates asm writers for the target from
      an abstract target description, instead of requiring them to be hand 
      written.</li>
  <li>LLVM regression and feature tests can now be run with DejaGNU.</li>
  <li>llvmgcc and llvmg++ now emit source-level line number information, making
      it possible to map from LLVM code back to source.  This is currently used
      by llvm-db.</li>
  <li>Floating point intensive programs on X86 systems run much faster
      with the LLC code generator and JIT than in 1.3.</li>
</ol>

</div>


<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
In this release, the following missing features were implemented:
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ol>
  <li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR419">JIT interface should support
    arbitrary calls</a>
  </li>
  <li>The <tt>llvm-ar</tt> tool was previously incomplete and didn't properly
  support other ar(1) implementations. This has been corrected. <tt>llvm-ar</tt>
  now fully supports all archive editing functions, table of contents listing,
  extraction, and printing. It can also read BSD4.4/MacOSX and SVR4 style 
  archives. See <a href="CommandGuide/html/llvm-ar.html">llvm-ar</a> for 
  details.
  </li>
</ol>

</div>

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

<div class="doc_text">

<ol>
  <li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR426">[llvmg++] Tons of warnings 
    are spewed when linking to libstdc++</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR352">include/{Support,Config} -> 
    include/llvm/{Support,Config}</a>
  </li>
  <li>The names of the libraries generated by compiling LLVM source have been 
  changed to ensure they do not conflict with other packages upon installation.
  Each LLVM library is now prefixed with LLVM and uses mixed clase. For example,
  the library <tt>libasmparser.a</tt> in 1.3 has become
  <tt>libLLVMAsmParser.a</tt> in release 1.4.
  </li>
  <li><a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/PR459">[llvmg++] C++ frontend is expanding 
    lots of unused inline functions</a></li>
</ol>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
In this release, the following build problems were fixed:
</div>