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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 1.7cvs Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>

<div class="doc_title">LLVM 1.7 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>
  <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>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<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 1.7.  Here we describe the status of LLVM, including any
known problems and major improvements from the previous release.  The most
up-to-date version of this document can be found on the <a
href="http://llvm.org/releases/">LLVM releases 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 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://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 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 the current or previous releases, see the <a
href="http://llvm.org/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 seventh public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure. This
release incorporates a large number of enhancements and additions (primarily in
the code generator), which combine to improve the quality of the code generated
by LLVM by up to 30% in some cases.  This release is also the first release to
have first-class support for Mac OS X: all of the major bugs have been shaken
out and it is now as well supported as Linux on X86.</p>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="newfeatures">New Features in LLVM 1.7cvs</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>New C front-end.</li>
<li>New SPARC backend.</li>
<li>Inline assembly support.</li>
</ul>
</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="changes">Significant changes in LLVM 1.7cvs</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
<ul>
<li>Removed the llvm.readport/llvm.writeport/llvm.readio/llvm.writeio
    intrinsics.</li>
<li>Separated the other intrinsics based on type.</li>
</ul>
</div>


<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="portability">Portability and Supported Platforms</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div class="doc_text">

<p>LLVM is known to work on the following platforms:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Intel and AMD machines running Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core and FreeBSD 
      (and probably other unix-like systems).</li>
<li>Sun UltraSPARC workstations running Solaris 8.</li>
<li>Intel and AMD machines running on Win32 with the Cygwin libraries (limited
    support is available for native builds with Visual C++).</li>
<li>PowerPC and X86-based Mac OS X systems, running 10.2 and above.</li>
<li>Alpha-based machines running Debian GNU/Linux.</li>
<li>Itanium-based machines running Linux and HP-UX.</li>
</ul>

<p>The core LLVM infrastructure uses
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/">GNU autoconf</a> to adapt itself
to the machine and operating system on which it is built.  However, minor
porting may be required to get LLVM to work on new platforms.  We welcome your
portability patches and reports of successful builds or error messages.</p>

</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<div class="doc_section">
  <a name="knownproblems">Known Problems</a>
</div>
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<div class="doc_text">

<p>This section contains all known problems with the LLVM system, listed by
component.  As new problems are discovered, they will be added to these
sections.  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.</p>

</div>

<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="experimental">Experimental features included with this release</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>The following components of this LLVM release are either untested, known to
be broken or unreliable, or are in early development.  These components should
not be relied on, and bugs should not be filed against them, but they may be
useful to some people.  In particular, if you would like to work on one of these
components, please contact us on the llvmdev list.</p>

<ul>
<li>The following passes are incomplete or buggy, and may be removed in future
    releases: <tt>-cee</tt></li>
<li>The <tt>llvm-db</tt> tool is in a very early stage of development, but can
    be used to step through programs and inspect the stack.</li>
<li>The IA64 code generator is experimental.</li>
<li>The Alpha JIT is experimental.</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="build">Known problems with the Build System</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>
  <li>The <a href="http://llvm.org/PR656">configure script sometimes fails on Solaris/Sparc</a>. A work around is documented in <a href="http://llvm.org/PR656">PR656.</a></li>
</ul>
</div>


<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="core">Known problems with the LLVM Core</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>
  <li>In the JIT, <tt>dlsym()</tt> on a symbol compiled by the JIT will not
  work.</li>
</ul>
</div>

<!-- ======================================================================= -->
<div class="doc_subsection">
  <a name="c-fe">Known problems with the C front-end</a>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">Bugs</div>

<div class="doc_text">

These bugs are known for the old front-end.  The new GCC-4-based C front-end
suffers from none of these.

<ul>
<li>C99 Variable sized arrays do not release stack memory when they go out of 
    scope.  Thus, the following program may run out of stack space:
<pre>
    for (i = 0; i != 1000000; ++i) {
      int X[n];
      foo(X);
    }
</pre></li>

<li>Initialization of global union variables can only be done <a
href="http://llvm.org/PR162">with the largest union member</a>.</li>

</ul>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsubsection">
  Notes
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<ul>

<li>"long double" is transformed by the front-end into "double".  There is no
support for floating point data types of any size other than 32 and 64
bits.</li>
    
<li>The following Unix system functionality has not been tested and may not
work:
  <ol>
  <li><tt>sigsetjmp</tt>, <tt>siglongjmp</tt> - These are not turned into the
      appropriate <tt>invoke</tt>/<tt>unwind</tt> instructions.  Note that
      <tt>setjmp</tt> and <tt>longjmp</tt> <em>are</em> compiled correctly.
  <li><tt>getcontext</tt>, <tt>setcontext</tt>, <tt>makecontext</tt>
      - These functions have not been tested.
  </ol></li>

<li>Although many GCC extensions are supported, some are not.  In particular,
    the following extensions are known to <b>not be</b> supported:
  <ol>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Local-Labels.html#Local%20Labels">Local Labels</a>: Labels local to a block.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html#Nested%20Functions">Nested Functions</a>: As in Algol and Pascal, lexical scoping of functions.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constructing-Calls.html#Constructing%20Calls">Constructing Calls</a>: Dispatching a call to another function.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Extended-Asm.html#Extended%20Asm">Extended Asm</a>: Assembler instructions with C expressions as operands.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Constraints.html#Constraints">Constraints</a>: Constraints for asm operands.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Asm-Labels.html#Asm%20Labels">Asm Labels</a>: Specifying the assembler name to use for a C symbol.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Explicit-Reg-Vars.html#Explicit%20Reg%20Vars">Explicit Reg Vars</a>: Defining variables residing in specified registers.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Vector-Extensions.html#Vector%20Extensions">Vector Extensions</a>: Using vector instructions through built-in functions.</li>
  <li><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Target-Builtins.html#Target%20Builtins">Target Builtins</a>:   Built-in functions specific to particular targets.</li>
  <li><a href