| ============================================== |
| Kaleidoscope: Adding JIT and Optimizer Support |
| ============================================== |
| |
| .. contents:: |
| :local: |
| |
| Chapter 4 Introduction |
| ====================== |
| |
| Welcome to Chapter 4 of the "`Implementing a language with |
| LLVM <index.html>`_" tutorial. Chapters 1-3 described the implementation |
| of a simple language and added support for generating LLVM IR. This |
| chapter describes two new techniques: adding optimizer support to your |
| language, and adding JIT compiler support. These additions will |
| demonstrate how to get nice, efficient code for the Kaleidoscope |
| language. |
| |
| Trivial Constant Folding |
| ======================== |
| |
| Our demonstration for Chapter 3 is elegant and easy to extend. |
| Unfortunately, it does not produce wonderful code. The IRBuilder, |
| however, does give us obvious optimizations when compiling simple code: |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> def test(x) 1+2+x; |
| Read function definition: |
| define double @test(double %x) { |
| entry: |
| %addtmp = fadd double 3.000000e+00, %x |
| ret double %addtmp |
| } |
| |
| This code is not a literal transcription of the AST built by parsing the |
| input. That would be: |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> def test(x) 1+2+x; |
| Read function definition: |
| define double @test(double %x) { |
| entry: |
| %addtmp = fadd double 2.000000e+00, 1.000000e+00 |
| %addtmp1 = fadd double %addtmp, %x |
| ret double %addtmp1 |
| } |
| |
| Constant folding, as seen above, in particular, is a very common and |
| very important optimization: so much so that many language implementors |
| implement constant folding support in their AST representation. |
| |
| With LLVM, you don't need this support in the AST. Since all calls to |
| build LLVM IR go through the LLVM IR builder, the builder itself checked |
| to see if there was a constant folding opportunity when you call it. If |
| so, it just does the constant fold and return the constant instead of |
| creating an instruction. |
| |
| Well, that was easy :). In practice, we recommend always using |
| ``IRBuilder`` when generating code like this. It has no "syntactic |
| overhead" for its use (you don't have to uglify your compiler with |
| constant checks everywhere) and it can dramatically reduce the amount of |
| LLVM IR that is generated in some cases (particular for languages with a |
| macro preprocessor or that use a lot of constants). |
| |
| On the other hand, the ``IRBuilder`` is limited by the fact that it does |
| all of its analysis inline with the code as it is built. If you take a |
| slightly more complex example: |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> def test(x) (1+2+x)*(x+(1+2)); |
| ready> Read function definition: |
| define double @test(double %x) { |
| entry: |
| %addtmp = fadd double 3.000000e+00, %x |
| %addtmp1 = fadd double %x, 3.000000e+00 |
| %multmp = fmul double %addtmp, %addtmp1 |
| ret double %multmp |
| } |
| |
| In this case, the LHS and RHS of the multiplication are the same value. |
| We'd really like to see this generate "``tmp = x+3; result = tmp*tmp;``" |
| instead of computing "``x+3``" twice. |
| |
| Unfortunately, no amount of local analysis will be able to detect and |
| correct this. This requires two transformations: reassociation of |
| expressions (to make the add's lexically identical) and Common |
| Subexpression Elimination (CSE) to delete the redundant add instruction. |
| Fortunately, LLVM provides a broad range of optimizations that you can |
| use, in the form of "passes". |
| |
| LLVM Optimization Passes |
| ======================== |
| |
| LLVM provides many optimization passes, which do many different sorts of |
| things and have different tradeoffs. Unlike other systems, LLVM doesn't |
| hold to the mistaken notion that one set of optimizations is right for |
| all languages and for all situations. LLVM allows a compiler implementor |
| to make complete decisions about what optimizations to use, in which |
| order, and in what situation. |
| |
| As a concrete example, LLVM supports both "whole module" passes, which |
| look across as large of body of code as they can (often a whole file, |
| but if run at link time, this can be a substantial portion of the whole |
| program). It also supports and includes "per-function" passes which just |
| operate on a single function at a time, without looking at other |
| functions. For more information on passes and how they are run, see the |
| `How to Write a Pass <../WritingAnLLVMPass.html>`_ document and the |
| `List of LLVM Passes <../Passes.html>`_. |
| |
| For Kaleidoscope, we are currently generating functions on the fly, one |
| at a time, as the user types them in. We aren't shooting for the |
| ultimate optimization experience in this setting, but we also want to |
| catch the easy and quick stuff where possible. As such, we will choose |
| to run a few per-function optimizations as the user types the function |
| in. If we wanted to make a "static Kaleidoscope compiler", we would use |
| exactly the code we have now, except that we would defer running the |
| optimizer until the entire file has been parsed. |
| |
| In order to get per-function optimizations going, we need to set up a |
| `FunctionPassManager <../WritingAnLLVMPass.html#passmanager>`_ to hold |
| and organize the LLVM optimizations that we want to run. Once we have |
| that, we can add a set of optimizations to run. The code looks like |
| this: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c++ |
| |
| FunctionPassManager OurFPM(TheModule); |
| |
| // Set up the optimizer pipeline. Start with registering info about how the |
| // target lays out data structures. |
| OurFPM.add(new DataLayout(*TheExecutionEngine->getDataLayout())); |
| // Provide basic AliasAnalysis support for GVN. |
| OurFPM.add(createBasicAliasAnalysisPass()); |
| // Do simple "peephole" optimizations and bit-twiddling optzns. |
| OurFPM.add(createInstructionCombiningPass()); |
| // Reassociate expressions. |
| OurFPM.add(createReassociatePass()); |
| // Eliminate Common SubExpressions. |
| OurFPM.add(createGVNPass()); |
| // Simplify the control flow graph (deleting unreachable blocks, etc). |
| OurFPM.add(createCFGSimplificationPass()); |
| |
| OurFPM.doInitialization(); |
| |
| // Set the global so the code gen can use this. |
| TheFPM = &OurFPM; |
| |
| // Run the main "interpreter loop" now. |
| MainLoop(); |
| |
| This code defines a ``FunctionPassManager``, "``OurFPM``". It requires a |
| pointer to the ``Module`` to construct itself. Once it is set up, we use |
| a series of "add" calls to add a bunch of LLVM passes. The first pass is |
| basically boilerplate, it adds a pass so that later optimizations know |
| how the data structures in the program are laid out. The |
| "``TheExecutionEngine``" variable is related to the JIT, which we will |
| get to in the next section. |
| |
| In this case, we choose to add 4 optimization passes. The passes we |
| chose here are a pretty standard set of "cleanup" optimizations that are |
| useful for a wide variety of code. I won't delve into what they do but, |
| believe me, they are a good starting place :). |
| |
| Once the PassManager is set up, we need to make use of it. We do this by |
| running it after our newly created function is constructed (in |
| ``FunctionAST::Codegen``), but before it is returned to the client: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c++ |
| |
| if (Value *RetVal = Body->Codegen()) { |
| // Finish off the function. |
| Builder.CreateRet(RetVal); |
| |
| // Validate the generated code, checking for consistency. |
| verifyFunction(*TheFunction); |
| |
| // Optimize the function. |
| TheFPM->run(*TheFunction); |
| |
| return TheFunction; |
| } |
| |
| As you can see, this is pretty straightforward. The |
| ``FunctionPassManager`` optimizes and updates the LLVM Function\* in |
| place, improving (hopefully) its body. With this in place, we can try |
| our test above again: |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> def test(x) (1+2+x)*(x+(1+2)); |
| ready> Read function definition: |
| define double @test(double %x) { |
| entry: |
| %addtmp = fadd double %x, 3.000000e+00 |
| %multmp = fmul double %addtmp, %addtmp |
| ret double %multmp |
| } |
| |
| As expected, we now get our nicely optimized code, saving a floating |
| point add instruction from every execution of this function. |
| |
| LLVM provides a wide variety of optimizations that can be used in |
| certain circumstances. Some `documentation about the various |
| passes <../Passes.html>`_ is available, but it isn't very complete. |
| Another good source of ideas can come from looking at the passes that |
| ``Clang`` runs to get started. The "``opt``" tool allows you to |
| experiment with passes from the command line, so you can see if they do |
| anything. |
| |
| Now that we have reasonable code coming out of our front-end, lets talk |
| about executing it! |
| |
| Adding a JIT Compiler |
| ===================== |
| |
| Code that is available in LLVM IR can have a wide variety of tools |
| applied to it. For example, you can run optimizations on it (as we did |
| above), you can dump it out in textual or binary forms, you can compile |
| the code to an assembly file (.s) for some target, or you can JIT |
| compile it. The nice thing about the LLVM IR representation is that it |
| is the "common currency" between many different parts of the compiler. |
| |
| In this section, we'll add JIT compiler support to our interpreter. The |
| basic idea that we want for Kaleidoscope is to have the user enter |
| function bodies as they do now, but immediately evaluate the top-level |
| expressions they type in. For example, if they type in "1 + 2;", we |
| should evaluate and print out 3. If they define a function, they should |
| be able to call it from the command line. |
| |
| In order to do this, we first declare and initialize the JIT. This is |
| done by adding a global variable and a call in ``main``: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c++ |
| |
| static ExecutionEngine *TheExecutionEngine; |
| ... |
| int main() { |
| .. |
| // Create the JIT. This takes ownership of the module. |
| TheExecutionEngine = EngineBuilder(TheModule).create(); |
| .. |
| } |
| |
| This creates an abstract "Execution Engine" which can be either a JIT |
| compiler or the LLVM interpreter. LLVM will automatically pick a JIT |
| compiler for you if one is available for your platform, otherwise it |
| will fall back to the interpreter. |
| |
| Once the ``ExecutionEngine`` is created, the JIT is ready to be used. |
| There are a variety of APIs that are useful, but the simplest one is the |
| "``getPointerToFunction(F)``" method. This method JIT compiles the |
| specified LLVM Function and returns a function pointer to the generated |
| machine code. In our case, this means that we can change the code that |
| parses a top-level expression to look like this: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c++ |
| |
| static void HandleTopLevelExpression() { |
| // Evaluate a top-level expression into an anonymous function. |
| if (FunctionAST *F = ParseTopLevelExpr()) { |
| if (Function *LF = F->Codegen()) { |
| LF->dump(); // Dump the function for exposition purposes. |
| |
| // JIT the function, returning a function pointer. |
| void *FPtr = TheExecutionEngine->getPointerToFunction(LF); |
| |
| // Cast it to the right type (takes no arguments, returns a double) so we |
| // can call it as a native function. |
| double (*FP)() = (double (*)())(intptr_t)FPtr; |
| fprintf(stderr, "Evaluated to %f\n", FP()); |
| } |
| |
| Recall that we compile top-level expressions into a self-contained LLVM |
| function that takes no arguments and returns the computed double. |
| Because the LLVM JIT compiler matches the native platform ABI, this |
| means that you can just cast the result pointer to a function pointer of |
| that type and call it directly. This means, there is no difference |
| between JIT compiled code and native machine code that is statically |
| linked into your application. |
| |
| With just these two changes, lets see how Kaleidoscope works now! |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> 4+5; |
| Read top-level expression: |
| define double @0() { |
| entry: |
| ret double 9.000000e+00 |
| } |
| |
| Evaluated to 9.000000 |
| |
| Well this looks like it is basically working. The dump of the function |
| shows the "no argument function that always returns double" that we |
| synthesize for each top-level expression that is typed in. This |
| demonstrates very basic functionality, but can we do more? |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> def testfunc(x y) x + y*2; |
| Read function definition: |
| define double @testfunc(double %x, double %y) { |
| entry: |
| %multmp = fmul double %y, 2.000000e+00 |
| %addtmp = fadd double %multmp, %x |
| ret double %addtmp |
| } |
| |
| ready> testfunc(4, 10); |
| Read top-level expression: |
| define double @1() { |
| entry: |
| %calltmp = call double @testfunc(double 4.000000e+00, double 1.000000e+01) |
| ret double %calltmp |
| } |
| |
| Evaluated to 24.000000 |
| |
| This illustrates that we can now call user code, but there is something |
| a bit subtle going on here. Note that we only invoke the JIT on the |
| anonymous functions that *call testfunc*, but we never invoked it on |
| *testfunc* itself. What actually happened here is that the JIT scanned |
| for all non-JIT'd functions transitively called from the anonymous |
| function and compiled all of them before returning from |
| ``getPointerToFunction()``. |
| |
| The JIT provides a number of other more advanced interfaces for things |
| like freeing allocated machine code, rejit'ing functions to update them, |
| etc. However, even with this simple code, we get some surprisingly |
| powerful capabilities - check this out (I removed the dump of the |
| anonymous functions, you should get the idea by now :) : |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ready> extern sin(x); |
| Read extern: |
| declare double @sin(double) |
| |
| ready> extern cos(x); |
| Read extern: |
| declare double @cos(double) |
| |
| ready> sin(1.0); |
| Read top-level expression: |
| define double @2() { |
| entry: |
| ret double 0x3FEAED548F090CEE |
| } |
| |
| Evaluated to 0.841471 |
| |
| ready> def foo(x) sin(x)*sin(x) + cos(x)*cos(x); |
| Read function definition: |
| define double @foo(double %x) { |
| entry: |
| %calltmp = call double @sin(double %x) |
| %multmp = fmul double %calltmp, %calltmp |
| %calltmp2 = call double @cos(double %x) |
| %multmp4 = fmul double %calltmp2, %calltmp2 |
| %addtmp = fadd double %multmp, %multmp4 |
| ret double %addtmp |
| } |
| |
| ready> foo(4.0); |
| Read top-level expression: |
| define double @3() { |
| entry: |
| %calltmp = call double @foo(double 4.000000e+00) |
| ret double %calltmp |
| } |
| |
| Evaluated to 1.000000 |
| |
| Whoa, how does the JIT know about sin and cos? The answer is |
| surprisingly simple: in this example, the JIT started execution of a |
| function and got to a function call. It realized that the function was |
| not yet JIT compiled and invoked the standard set of routines to resolve |
| the function. In this case, there is no body defined for the function, |
| so the JIT ended up calling "``dlsym("sin")``" on the Kaleidoscope |
| process itself. Since "``sin``" is defined within the JIT's address |
| space, it simply patches up calls in the module to call the libm version |
| of ``sin`` directly. |
| |
| The LLVM JIT provides a number of interfaces (look in the |
| ``ExecutionEngine.h`` file) for controlling how unknown functions get |
| resolved. It allows you to establish explicit mappings between IR |
| objects and addresses (useful for LLVM global variables that you want to |
| map to static tables, for example), allows you to dynamically decide on |
| the fly based on the function name, and even allows you to have the JIT |
| compile functions lazily the first time they're called. |
| |
| One interesting application of this is that we can now extend the |
| language by writing arbitrary C++ code to implement operations. For |
| example, if we add: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c++ |
| |
| /// putchard - putchar that takes a double and returns 0. |
| extern "C" |
| double putchard(double X) { |
| putchar((char)X); |
| return 0; |
| } |
| |
| Now we can produce simple output to the console by using things like: |
| "``extern putchard(x); putchard(120);``", which prints a lowercase 'x' |
| on the console (120 is the ASCII code for 'x'). Similar code could be |
| used to implement file I/O, console input, and many other capabilities |
| in Kaleidoscope. |
| |
| This completes the JIT and optimizer chapter of the Kaleidoscope |
| tutorial. At this point, we can compile a non-Turing-complete |
| programming language, optimize and JIT compile it in a user-driven way. |
| Next up we'll look into `extending the language with control flow |
| constructs <LangImpl5.html>`_, tackling some interesting LLVM IR issues |
| along the way. |
| |
| Full Code Listing |
| ================= |
| |
| Here is the complete code listing for our running example, enhanced with |
| the LLVM JIT and optimizer. To build this example, use: |
| |
| .. code-block:: bash |
| |
| # Compile |
| clang++ -g toy.cpp `llvm-config --cxxflags --ldflags --system-libs --libs core jit native` -O3 -o toy |
| # Run |
| ./toy |
| |
| If you are compiling this on Linux, make sure to add the "-rdynamic" |
| option as well. This makes sure that the external functions are resolved |
| properly at runtime. |
| |
| Here is the code: |
| |
| .. literalinclude:: ../../examples/Kaleidoscope/Chapter4/toy.cpp |
| :language: c++ |
| |
| `Next: Extending the language: control flow <LangImpl5.html>`_ |
| |