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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 2.2 Release Notes</title>
</head>
<body>

<div class="doc_title">LLVM 2.2 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>

<h1><font color="red">THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS FOR THE LLVM 2.2 
RELEASE</font</h1>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<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 2.2.  Here we describe the status of LLVM, including
major improvements from the previous release and any known problems.  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://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 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 releases, please 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 thirteenth public release of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure. 
It includes many features and refinements from LLVM 2.1.</p>

</div>

<!-- Unfinished features in 2.2:
  Index Set Splitting not enabled by default
  Machine LICM
  Machine Sinking
  LegalizeDAGTypes
 -->

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="deprecation">Deprecated features in LLVM 2.2</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>This is the last LLVM release to support llvm-gcc 4.0, llvm-upgrade, and
llvmc in its current form.  llvm-gcc 4.0 has been replaced with llvm-gcc 4.2.
llvm-upgrade is useful for upgrading llvm 1.9 files to llvm 2.x syntax, but you
can always use an old release to do this.  llvmc is currently mostly useless in
llvm 2.2, and will be redesigned or removed in llvm 2.3.</p>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="frontends">llvm-gcc 4.0, llvm-gcc 4.2, and clang</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>LLVM 2.2 fully supports both the llvm-gcc 4.0 and llvm-gcc 4.2 front-ends (in
LLVM 2.1, llvm-gcc 4.2 was beta).  Since LLVM 2.1, the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end
has made leaps and bounds and is now at least as good as 4.0 in virtually every
area, and is better in several areas (for example, exception handling
correctness, support for Ada and FORTRAN).  We strongly recommend that you
migrate from llvm-gcc 4.0 to llvm-gcc 4.2 in this release cycle because
<b>LLVM 2.2 is the last release that will support llvm-gcc 4.0</b>:  LLVM 2.3
will only support the llvm-gcc 4.2 front-end.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">clang project</a> is an effort to build
a set of new 'llvm native' front-end technologies for the LLVM optimizer
and code generator.  Currently, its C and Objective-C support is maturing 
nicely, and it has advanced source-to-source analysis and transformation
capabilities.  If you are interested in building source-level tools for C and
Objective-C (and eventually C++), you should take a look.  However, note that
clang is not an official part of the LLVM 2.2 release.  If you are interested in
this project, please see its <a href="http://clang.llvm.org/">web site</a>.</p>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="majorfeatures">Major New Features</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>LLVM 2.2 includes several major new capabilities:</p>

<ul>
<li>Scott Michel contributed an SPU backend, which generates code for the
vector coprocessors on the Cell processor.  (Status?)</li>

<li>llvm-gcc 4.2 has significantly improved support for the GCC Ada (GNAT) and
FORTRAN (gfortran) frontends.  Duncan has the llvm-gcc 4.2 GNAT front-end
supporting almost all of the ACATS testsuite (except 2 tests?).  The llvm-gcc
4.2 gfortran front-end supports a broad range of FORTRAN code, but does <a 
href="http://llvm.org/PR1971">not support EQUIVALENCE yet</a>.</li>

<li>Dale contributed full support for long double on x86/x86-64 (where it is 80
bits) and on Darwin PPC/PPC64 (where it is 128 bits).  In previous LLVM
releases, llvm-gcc silently mapped long double to double.</li>

<li>Gordon rewrote most of the <a href="GarbageCollection.html">Accurate Garbage
Collection</a> code in the code generator, making the generated code more
efficient and adding support for the Ocaml garbage collector metadata
format.</li>

<li>LLVM now includes a new set of detailed <a 
href="tutorial/index.html">tutorials</a>, which explain how to implement a
language with LLVM and shows how to use several important APIs.</li>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="codegen">Code Generator Improvements</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>We 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>Owen refactored the existing LLVM dominator and loop information code to
allow it work on the machine code representation.  He contributed support for
dominator and loop information on machine code and merged the code for forward
and backward dominator computation.</li>

<li>Dan added support for emitting debug information with .file and .loc
directives on that support it, instead of emitting large tables in the .s
file.</li>

<li>Evan extended the DAG scheduler to model physical register dependencies
explicitly and have the BURR scheduler pick a correct schedule based on the
dependencies.  This reduces our use of the 'flag' operand hack.</li>

<li>Evan added initial support for register coalescing of subregister
references.</li>

<li>Rafael Espindola implemented initial support for a new 'byval' attribute,
which allows more efficient by-value argument passing in the LLVM IR.  Evan 
finished support for it and enabled it in the X86 (32- and 64-bit) and C
backends.</li>

<li>The LLVM TargetInstrInfo class can now answer queries about the mod/ref and
side-effect behavior of MachineInstr's.  This information is inferred
automatically by TableGen from .td files for all instructions with
patterns.</li>

<li>Evan implemented simple live interval splitting on basic block boundaries.
This allows the register allocator to be more successful at keeping values in
registers in some parts of a value's live range, even if they need to be spilled
in some other block.</li>

<li>The new MachineRegisterInfo.h class provides support for efficiently
iterating over all defs/uses of a register, and this information is
automatically kept up-to-date.  This support is similar to the  use_iterator in
the LLVM IR level.</li>

<li>The MachineInstr, MachineOperand and TargetInstrDesc classes are simpler,
more consistent, and better documented.</li>
</ul>

</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="optimizer">Optimizer Improvements</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">

<p>In addition to a huge array of bug fixes and minor performance tweaks, LLVM
2.2 supports a few major enhancements:</p>

<ul>

<li>Daniel Berlin and Curtis Dunham rewrote Andersen's alias analysis to be
several orders of magnitude faster, implemented Offline Variable Substitution
and Lazy Cycle Detection.  Note that Andersen's is not enabled in llvm-gcc by
default.</li>

<li>Dan Gohman contributed several enhancements to Loop Strength Reduction (LSR)
to make it more aggressive with SSE intrinsics.</li> 

<li>Evan added support for simple exit value substitution to LSR.</li>

<li>Evan enhanced LSR to support induction variable reuse when the induction
variables have different widths.</li>

</ul>

</div>


<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="targetspecific">Target Specific Improvements</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
<p>New features include:
</p>

<ul>
<li>Evan X86 now models EFLAGS in instructions.</li>
<li>Evan: If conversion on by default for ARM.</li>
<li>Bruno: MIPS PIC support.</li>
<li>Arnold Schwaighofer: X86 tail call support.</li>
<li>Dale darwin/x86-64 and darwin/ppc eh</li>
<li>Evan: darwin/x86 debug info, improvements at -O0?</li>
</ul>
  
</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="coreimprovements">LLVM Core Improvements</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
<p>New features include:
</p>

<ul>
<li>Devang added LLVMFoldingBuilder.</li>
<li>Dan added support for vector sin, cos, and pow intrinsics.</li>
<li>Ted added a framework for generic object serialization to bitcode files,
    only used by clang right now for ASTs but could be used for other
    stuff.</li>
<li>Duncan fixed TargetData to distinguish between the size/alignment of a type 
    in a register, in memory according to the platform ABI, and in memory when
    we have a choice.</li>
<li>Duncan moved parameter attributes off of function type and onto functions
    and calls, which makes it much easier to add attributes to a function in a
    transformation.</li>
<li>Christopher Lamb: Multiple address spaces.</li>
<li>Gordon: C and Ocaml Bindings</li>

<li>Anton added readnone/readonly attributes for modeling function side effects
and Duncan hooked up GCC's pure/const attributes to use them and enhanced alias
analysis to use them.</li>

</ul>
  
</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_subsection">
<a name="otherimprovements">Other Improvements</a>
</div>

<div class="doc_text">
<p>New features include:
</p>

<