A machine description has two parts: a file of instruction patterns (`.md' file) and a C header file of macro definitions.
The `.md' file for a target machine contains a pattern for each instruction that the target machine supports (or at least each instruction that is worth telling the compiler about). It may also contain comments. A semicolon causes the rest of the line to be a comment, unless the semicolon is inside a quoted string.
See the next chapter for information on the C header file.
Each instruction pattern contains an incomplete RTL expression, with pieces
to be filled in later, operand constraints that restrict how the pieces can
be filled in, and an output pattern or C code to generate the assembler
output, all wrapped up in a define_insn expression.
A define_insn is an RTL expression containing four or five operands:
match_operand,
match_operator, and match_dup expressions that stand for
operands of the instruction.
If the vector has only one element, that element is the template for the
instruction pattern. If the vector has multiple elements, then the
instruction pattern is a parallel expression containing the
elements described.
operands.
define_insnHere is an actual example of an instruction pattern, for the 68000/68020.
(define_insn "tstsi"
[(set (cc0)
(match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "rm"))]
""
"*
{ if (TARGET_68020 || ! ADDRESS_REG_P (operands[0]))
return \"tstl %0\";
return \"cmpl #0,%0\"; }")
This is an instruction that sets the condition codes based on the value of
a general operand. It has no condition, so any insn whose RTL description
has the form shown may be handled according to this pattern. The name
`tstsi' means "test a SImode value" and tells the RTL generation
pass that, when it is necessary to test such a value, an insn to do so
can be constructed using this pattern.
The output control string is a piece of C code which chooses which output template to return based on the kind of operand and the specific type of CPU for which code is being generated.
`"rm"' is an operand constraint. Its meaning is explained below.
The RTL template is used to define which insns match the particular pattern and how to find their operands. For named patterns, the RTL template also says how to construct an insn from specified operands.
Construction involves substituting specified operands into a copy of the template. Matching involves determining the values that serve as the operands in the insn being matched. Both of these activities are controlled by special expression types that direct matching and substitution of the operands.
(match_operand:m n predicate constraint)
match_operand
expression in the pattern for each operand number. Usually operands
are numbered in the order of appearance in match_operand
expressions. In the case of a define_expand, any operand numbers
used only in match_dup expressions have higher values than all
other operand numbers.
predicate is a string that is the name of a C function that accepts two
arguments, an expression and a machine mode. During matching, the
function will be called with the putative operand as the expression and
m as the mode argument (if m is not specified,
VOIDmode will be used, which normally causes predicate to accept
any mode). If it returns zero, this instruction pattern fails to match.
predicate may be an empty string; then it means no test is to be done
on the operand, so anything which occurs in this position is valid.
Most of the time, predicate will reject modes other than m---but
not always. For example, the predicate address_operand uses
m as the mode of memory ref that the address should be valid for.
Many predicates accept const_int nodes even though their mode is
VOIDmode.
constraint controls reloading and the choice of the best register
class to use for a value, as explained later (see section Operand Constraints).
People are often unclear on the difference between the constraint and the
predicate. The predicate helps decide whether a given insn matches the
pattern. The constraint plays no role in this decision; instead, it
controls various decisions in the case of an insn which does match.
On CISC machines, the most common predicate is
"general_operand". This function checks that the putative
operand is either a constant, a register or a memory reference, and that
it is valid for mode m.
For an operand that must be a register, predicate should be
"register_operand". Using "general_operand" would be
valid, since the reload pass would copy any non-register operands
through registers, but this would make GNU CC do extra work, it would
prevent invariant operands (such as constant) from being removed from
loops, and it would prevent the register allocator from doing the best
possible job. On RISC machines, it is usually most efficient to allow
predicate to accept only objects that the constraints allow.
For an operand that must be a constant, you must be sure to either use
"immediate_operand" for predicate, or make the instruction
pattern's extra condition require a constant, or both. You cannot
expect the constraints to do this work! If the constraints allow only
constants, but the predicate allows something else, the compiler will
crash when that case arises.
(match_scratch:m n constraint)
scratch or reg
expression.
When matching patterns, this is equivalent to
(match_operand:m n "scratch_operand" pred)but, when generating RTL, it produces a (
scratch:m)
expression.
If the last few expressions in a parallel are clobber
expressions whose operands are either a hard register or
match_scratch, the combiner can add or delete them when
necessary. See section Side Effect Expressions.
(match_dup n)
match_dup acts just like match_operand:
the operand is substituted into the insn being constructed. But in
matching, match_dup behaves differently. It assumes that operand
number n has already been determined by a match_operand
appearing earlier in the recognition template, and it matches only an
identical-looking expression.
(match_operator:m n predicate [operands...])
commutative_operator is defined as
follows, to match any expression whose operator is one of the
commutative arithmetic operators of RTL and whose mode is mode:
int
commutative_operator (x, mode)
rtx x;
enum machine_mode mode;
{
enum rtx_code code = GET_CODE (x);
if (GET_MODE (x) != mode)
return 0;
return (GET_RTX_CLASS (code) == 'c'
|| code == EQ || code == NE);
}
Then the following pattern will match any RTL expression consisting
of a commutative operator applied to two general operands:
(match_operator:SI 3 "commutative_operator" [(match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "g") (match_operand:SI 2 "general_operand" "g")])Here the vector
[operands...] contains two patterns
because the expressions to be matched all contain two operands.
When this pattern does match, the two operands of the commutative
operator are recorded as operands 1 and 2 of the insn. (This is done
by the two instances of match_operand.) Operand 3 of the insn
will be the entire commutative expression: use GET_CODE
(operands[3]) to see which commutative operator was used.
The machine mode m of match_operator works like that of
match_operand: it is passed as the second argument to the
predicate function, and that function is solely responsible for
deciding whether the expression to be matched "has" that mode.
When constructing an insn, argument 3 of the gen-function will specify
the operation (i.e. the expression code) for the expression to be
made. It should be an RTL expression, whose expression code is copied
into a new expression whose operands are arguments 1 and 2 of the
gen-function. The subexpressions of argument 3 are not used;
only its expression code matters.
When match_operator is used in a pattern for matching an insn,
it usually best if the operand number of the match_operator
is higher than that of the actual operands of the insn. This improves
register allocation because the register allocator often looks at
operands 1 and 2 of insns to see if it can do register tying.
There is no way to specify constraints in match_operator. The
operand of the insn which corresponds to the match_operator
never has any constraints because it is never reloaded as a whole.
However, if parts of its operands are matched by
match_operand patterns, those parts may have constraints of
their own.
(match_op_dup:m n[operands...])
match_dup, except that it applies to operators instead of
operands. When constructing an insn, operand number n will be
substituted at this point. But in matching, match_op_dup behaves
differently. It assumes that operand number n has already been
determined by a match_operator appearing earlier in the
recognition template, and it matches only an identical-looking
expression.
(match_parallel n predicate [subpat...])
parallel expression with a variable number of elements. This
expression should only appear at the top level of an insn pattern.
When constructing an insn, operand number n will be substituted at
this point. When matching an insn, it matches if the body of the insn
is a parallel expression with at least as many elements as the
vector of subpat expressions in the match_parallel, if each
subpat matches the corresponding element of the parallel,
and the function predicate returns nonzero on the
parallel that is the body of the insn. It is the responsibility
of the predicate to validate elements of the parallel beyond
those listed in the match_parallel.
A typical use of match_parallel is to match load and store
multiple expressions, which can contain a variable number of elements
in a parallel. For example,
(define_insn ""
[(match_parallel 0 "load_multiple_operation"
[(set (match_operand:SI 1 "gpc_reg_operand" "=r")
(match_operand:SI 2 "memory_operand" "m"))
(use (reg:SI 179))
(clobber (reg:SI 179))])]
""
"loadm 0,0,%1,%2")
This example comes from `a29k.md'. The function
load_multiple_operations is defined in `a29k.c' and checks
that subsequent elements in the parallel are the same as the
set in the pattern, except that they are referencing subsequent
registers and memory locations.
An insn that matches this pattern might look like:
(parallel
[(set (reg:SI 20) (mem:SI (reg:SI 100)))
(use (reg:SI 179))
(clobber (reg:SI 179))
(set (reg:SI 21)
(mem:SI (plus:SI (reg:SI 100)
(const_int 4))))
(set (reg:SI 22)
(mem:SI (plus:SI (reg:SI 100)
(const_int 8))))])
(match_par_dup n [subpat...])
match_op_dup, but for match_parallel instead of
match_operator.
(match_insn predicate)
match_* recognizers,
match_insn does not take an operand number.
The machine mode m of match_insn works like that of
match_operand: it is passed as the second argument to the
predicate function, and that function is solely responsible for
deciding whether the expression to be matched "has" that mode.
(match_insn2 n predicate)
match_insn2 works like that of
match_operand: it is passed as the second argument to the
predicate function, and that function is solely responsible for
deciding whether the expression to be matched "has" that mode.
(address (match_operand:m n "address_operand" ""))
address expressions never appear in RTL code, only in machine
descriptions. And they are used only in machine descriptions that do
not use the operand constraint feature. When operand constraints are
in use, the letter `p' in the constraint serves this purpose.
m is the machine mode of the memory location being
addressed, not the machine mode of the address itself. That mode is
always the same on a given target machine (it is Pmode, which
normally is SImode), so there is no point in mentioning it;
thus, no machine mode is written in the address expression. If
some day support is added for machines in which addresses of different
kinds of objects appear differently or are used differently (such as
the PDP-10), different formats would perhaps need different machine
modes and these modes might be written in the address
expression.
The output template is a string which specifies how to output the assembler code for an instruction pattern. Most of the template is a fixed string which is output literally. The character `%' is used to specify where to substitute an operand; it can also be used to identify places where different variants of the assembler require different syntax.
In the simplest case, a `%' followed by a digit n says to output operand n at that point in the string.
`%' followed by a letter and a digit says to output an operand in an
alternate fashion. Four letters have standard, built-in meanings described
below. The machine description macro PRINT_OPERAND can define
additional letters with nonstandard meanings.
`%cdigit' can be used to substitute an operand that is a constant value without the syntax that normally indicates an immediate operand.
`%ndigit' is like `%cdigit' except that the value of the constant is negated before printing.
`%adigit' can be used to substitute an operand as if it were a memory reference, with the actual operand treated as the address. This may be useful when outputting a "load address" instruction, because often the assembler syntax for such an instruction requires you to write the operand as if it were a memory reference.
`%ldigit' is used to substitute a label_ref into a jump
instruction.
`%=' outputs a number which is unique to each instruction in the entire compilation. This is useful for making local labels to be referred to more than once in a single template that generates multiple assembler instructions.
`%' followed by a punctuation character specifies a substitution that
does not use an operand. Only one case is standard: `%%' outputs a
`%' into the assembler code. Other nonstandard cases can be
defined in the PRINT_OPERAND macro. You must also define
which punctuation characters are valid with the
PRINT_OPERAND_PUNCT_VALID_P macro.
The template may generate multiple assembler instructions. Write the text for the instructions, with `\;' between them.
When the RTL contains two operands which are required by constraint to match each other, the output template must refer only to the lower-numbered operand. Matching operands are not always identical, and the rest of the compiler arranges to put the proper RTL expression for printing into the lower-numbered operand.
One use of nonstandard letters or punctuation following `%' is to
distinguish between different assembler languages for the same machine; for
example, Motorola syntax versus MIT syntax for the 68000. Motorola syntax
requires periods in most opcode names, while MIT syntax does not. For
example, the opcode `movel' in MIT syntax is `move.l' in Motorola
syntax. The same file of patterns is used for both kinds of output syntax,
but the character sequence `%.' is used in each place where Motorola
syntax wants a period. The PRINT_OPERAND macro for Motorola syntax
defines the sequence to output a period; the macro for MIT syntax defines
it to do nothing.
As a special case, a template consisting of the single character #
instructs the compiler to first split the insn, and then output the
resulting instructions separately. This helps eliminate redundancy in the
output templates. If you have a define_insn that needs to emit
multiple assembler instructions, and there is an matching define_split
already defined, then you can simply use # as the output template
instead of writing an output template that emits the multiple assembler
instructions.
If the macro ASSEMBLER_DIALECT is defined, you can use construct
of the form `{option0|option1|option2}' in the templates. These
describe multiple variants of assembler language syntax.
See section Output of Assembler Instructions.
Often a single fixed template string cannot produce correct and efficient assembler code for all the cases that are recognized by a single instruction pattern. For example, the opcodes may depend on the kinds of operands; or some unfortunate combinations of operands may require extra machine instructions.
If the output control string starts with a `@', then it is actually a series of templates, each on a separate line. (Blank lines and leading spaces and tabs are ignored.) The templates correspond to the pattern's constraint alternatives (see section Multiple Alternative Constraints). For example, if a target machine has a two-address add instruction `addr' to add into a register and another `addm' to add a register to memory, you might write this pattern:
(define_insn "addsi3"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=r,m")
(plus:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "0,0")
(match_operand:SI 2 "general_operand" "g,r")))]
""
"@
addr %2,%0
addm %2,%0")
If the output control string starts with a `*', then it is not an
output template but rather a piece of C program that should compute a
template. It should execute a return statement to return the
template-string you want. Most such templates use C string literals, which
require doublequote characters to delimit them. To include these
doublequote characters in the string, prefix each one with `\'.
The operands may be found in the array operands, whose C data type
is rtx [].
It is very common to select different ways of generating assembler code
based on whether an immediate operand is within a certain range. Be
careful when doing this, because the result of INTVAL is an
integer on the host machine. If the host machine has more bits in an
int than the target machine has in the mode in which the constant
will be used, then some of the bits you get from INTVAL will be
superfluous. For proper results, you must carefully disregard the
values of those bits.
It is possible to output an assembler instruction and then go on to output
or compute more of them, using the subroutine output_asm_insn. This
receives two arguments: a template-string and a vector of operands. The
vector may be operands, or it may be another array of rtx
that you declare locally and initialize yourself.
When an insn pattern has multiple alternatives in its constraints, often
the appearance of the assembler code is determined mostly by which alternative
was matched. When this is so, the C code can test the variable
which_alternative, which is the ordinal number of the alternative
that was actually satisfied (0 for the first, 1 for the second alternative,
etc.).
For example, suppose there are two opcodes for storing zero, `clrreg'
for registers and `clrmem' for memory locations. Here is how
a pattern could use which_alternative to choose between them:
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=r,m")
(const_int 0))]
""
"*
return (which_alternative == 0
? \"clrreg %0\" : \"clrmem %0\");
")
The example above, where the assembler code to generate was solely determined by the alternative, could also have been specified as follows, having the output control string start with a `@':
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=r,m")
(const_int 0))]
""
"@
clrreg %0
clrmem %0")
Each match_operand in an instruction pattern can specify a
constraint for the type of operands allowed.
Constraints can say whether
an operand may be in a register, and which kinds of register; whether the
operand can be a memory reference, and which kinds of address; whether the
operand may be an immediate constant, and which possible values it may
have. Constraints can also require two operands to match.
The simplest kind of constraint is a string full of letters, each of which describes one kind of operand that is permitted. Here are the letters that are allowed:
const_double) is
allowed, but only if the target floating point format is the same as
that of the host machine (on which the compiler is running).
const_double) is
allowed.
general_operand. This is normally used in the constraint of
a match_scratch when certain alternatives will not actually
require a scratch register.
addl #35,r12Matching constraints are used in these circumstances. More precisely, the two operands that match must include one input-only operand and one output-only operand. Moreover, the digit must be a smaller number than the number of the operand that uses it in the constraint. For operands to match in a particular case usually means that they are identical-looking RTL expressions. But in a few special cases specific kinds of dissimilarity are allowed. For example,
*x
as an input operand will match *x++ as an output operand.
For proper results in such cases, the output template should always
use the output-operand's number when printing the operand.
address_operand
as the predicate in the match_operand. This predicate interprets
the mode specified in the match_operand as the mode of the memory
reference for which the address would be valid.
EXTRA_CONSTRAINT is passed the
operand as its first argument and the constraint letter as its
second operand.
A typical use for this would be to distinguish certain types of
memory references that affect other insn operands.
Do not define these constraint letters to accept register references
(reg); the reload pass does not expect this and would not handle
it properly.
In order to have valid assembler code, each operand must satisfy its constraint. But a failure to do so does not prevent the pattern from applying to an insn. Instead, it directs the compiler to modify the code so that the constraint will be satisfied. Usually this is done by copying an operand into a register.
Contrast, therefore, the two instruction patterns that follow:
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=r")
(plus:SI (match_dup 0)
(match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "r")))]
""
"...")
which has two operands, one of which must appear in two places, and
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=r")
(plus:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "0")
(match_operand:SI 2 "general_operand" "r")))]
""
"...")
which has three operands, two of which are required by a constraint to be identical. If we are considering an insn of the form
(insn n prev next
(set (reg:SI 3)
(plus:SI (reg:SI 6) (reg:SI 109)))
...)
the first pattern would not apply at all, because this insn does not contain two identical subexpressions in the right place. The pattern would say, "That does not look like an add instruction; try other patterns." The second pattern would say, "Yes, that's an add instruction, but there is something wrong with it." It would direct the reload pass of the compiler to generate additional insns to make the constraint true. The results might look like this:
(insn n2 prev n
(set (reg:SI 3) (reg:SI 6))
...)
(insn n n2 next
(set (reg:SI 3)
(plus:SI (reg:SI 3) (reg:SI 109)))
...)
It is up to you to make sure that each operand, in each pattern, has constraints that can handle any RTL expression that could be present for that operand. (When multiple alternatives are in use, each pattern must, for each possible combination of operand expressions, have at least one alternative which can handle that combination of operands.) The constraints don't need to allow any possible operand--when this is the case, they do not constrain--but they must at least point the way to reloading any possible operand so that it will fit.
If the operand's predicate can recognize registers, but the constraint does not permit them, it can make the compiler crash. When this operand happens to be a register, the reload pass will be stymied, because it does not know how to copy a register temporarily into memory.
If the predicate accepts a unary operator, the constraint applies to the
operand. For example, the MIPS processor at ISA level 3 supports an
instruction which adds two registers in SImode to produce a
DImode result, but only if the registers are correctly sign
extended. This predicate for the input operands accepts a
sign_extend of an SImode register. Write the constraint
to indicate the type of register that is required for the operand of the
sign_extend.
Sometimes a single instruction has multiple alternative sets of possible operands. For example, on the 68000, a logical-or instruction can combine register or an immediate value into memory, or it can combine any kind of operand into a register; but it cannot combine one memory location into another.
These constraints are represented as multiple alternatives. An alternative can be described by a series of letters for each operand. The overall constraint for an operand is made from the letters for this operand from the first alternative, a comma, the letters for this operand from the second alternative, a comma, and so on until the last alternative. Here is how it is done for fullword logical-or on the 68000:
(define_insn "iorsi3"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=m,d")
(ior:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "%0,0")
(match_operand:SI 2 "general_operand" "dKs,dmKs")))]
...)
The first alternative has `m' (memory) for operand 0, `0' for operand 1 (meaning it must match operand 0), and `dKs' for operand 2. The second alternative has `d' (data register) for operand 0, `0' for operand 1, and `dmKs' for operand 2. The `=' and `%' in the constraints apply to all the alternatives; their meaning is explained in the next section (see section Register Class Preferences).
If all the operands fit any one alternative, the instruction is valid. Otherwise, for each alternative, the compiler counts how many instructions must be added to copy the operands so that that alternative applies. The alternative requiring the least copying is chosen. If two alternatives need the same amount of copying, the one that comes first is chosen. These choices can be altered with the `?' and `!' characters:
?
!
When an insn pattern has multiple alternatives in its constraints, often
the appearance of the assembler code is determined mostly by which
alternative was matched. When this is so, the C code for writing the
assembler code can use the variable which_alternative, which is
the ordinal number of the alternative that was actually satisfied (0 for
the first, 1 for the second alternative, etc.). See section C Statements for Assembler Output.
The operand constraints have another function: they enable the compiler to decide which kind of hardware register a pseudo register is best allocated to. The compiler examines the constraints that apply to the insns that use the pseudo register, looking for the machine-dependent letters such as `d' and `a' that specify classes of registers. The pseudo register is put in whichever class gets the most "votes". The constraint letters `g' and `r' also vote: they vote in favor of a general register. The machine description says which registers are considered general.
Of course, on some machines all registers are equivalent, and no register classes are defined. Then none of this complexity is relevant.
Here are constraint modifier characters.
(define_insn "addhi3"
[(set (match_operand:HI 0 "general_operand" "=m,r")
(plus:HI (match_operand:HI 1 "general_operand" "%0,0")
(match_operand:HI 2 "general_operand" "di,g")))]
...)
(define_insn "extendhisi2"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=*d,a")
(sign_extend:SI
(match_operand:HI 1 "general_operand" "0,g")))]
...)
Whenever possible, you should use the general-purpose constraint letters
in asm arguments, since they will convey meaning more readily to
people reading your code. Failing that, use the constraint letters
that usually have very similar meanings across architectures. The most
commonly used constraints are `m' and `r' (for memory and
general-purpose registers respectively; see section Simple Constraints), and
`I', usually the letter indicating the most common
immediate-constant format.
For each machine architecture, the `config/machine.h' file
defines additional constraints. These constraints are used by the
compiler itself for instruction generation, as well as for asm
statements; therefore, some of the constraints are not particularly
interesting for asm. The constraints are defined through these
macros:
REG_CLASS_FROM_LETTER
CONST_OK_FOR_LETTER_P
CONST_DOUBLE_OK_FOR_LETTER_P
EXTRA_CONSTRAINT
Inspecting these macro definitions in the compiler source for your machine is the best way to be certain you have the right constraints. However, here is a summary of the machine-dependent constraints available on some particular machines.
f
F
G
I
J
K
L
M
Q
asm statements)
R
S
l
b
q
h
A
a
f
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
G
H
asm statements, use the machine
independent `E' or `F' instead)
b
f
h
q
c
l
x
y
z
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
G
Q
asm statements)
R
S
U
q
b, c, or d register
A
d register (for 64-bit ints)
f
t
u
a
b
c
d
D
S
I
J
K
L
M
lea instruction)
N
out instruction)
G
f
fp0 to fp3)
l
r0 to r15)
b
g0 to g15)
d
I
J
K
G
H
d
f
h
l
x
y
z
I
J
K
L
lui)
M
N
O
P
G
Q
asm statements)
R
asm statements)
S
asm statements)
a
d
f
x
y
I
J
K
L
M
G
H
f
e
I
J
K
sethi instruction)
G
H
Q
asm statements)
S
T
U
Some machines are so clean that operand constraints are not required. For example, on the Vax, an operand valid in one context is valid in any other context. On such a machine, every operand constraint would be `g', excepting only operands of "load address" instructions which are written as if they referred to a memory location's contents but actual refer to its address. They would have constraint `p'.
For such machines, instead of writing `g' and `p' for all
the constraints, you can choose to write a description with empty constraints.
Then you write `""' for the constraint in every match_operand.
Address operands are identified by writing an address expression
around the match_operand, not by their constraints.
When the machine description has just empty constraints, certain parts of compilation are skipped, making the compiler faster. However, few machines actually do not need constraints; all machine descriptions now in existence use constraints.
Here is a table of the instruction names that are meaningful in the RTL generation pass of the compiler. Giving one of these names to an instruction pattern tells the RTL generation pass that it can use the pattern to accomplish a certain task.
subreg with mode m of a register whose
own mode is wider than m, the effect of this instruction is
to store the specified value in the part of the register that corresponds
to mode m. The effect on the rest of the register is undefined.
This class of patterns is special in several ways. First of all, each
of these names must be defined, because there is no other way
to copy a datum from one place to another.
Second, these patterns are not used solely in the RTL generation pass.
Even the reload pass can generate move insns to copy values from stack
slots into temporary registers. When it does so, one of the operands is
a hard register and the other is an operand that can need to be reloaded
into a register.
Therefore, when given such a pair of operands, the pattern must generate
RTL which needs no reloading and needs no temporary registers--no
registers other than the operands. For example, if you support the
pattern with a define_expand, then in such a case the
define_expand mustn't call force_reg or any other such
function which might generate new pseudo registers.
This requirement exists even for subword modes on a RISC machine where
fetching those modes from memory normally requires several insns and
some temporary registers. Look in `spur.md' to see how the
requirement can be satisfied.
During reload a memory reference with an invalid address may be passed
as an operand. Such an address will be replaced with a valid address
later in the reload pass. In this case, nothing may be done with the
address except to use it as it stands. If it is copied, it will not be
replaced with a valid address. No attempt should be made to make such
an address into a valid address and no routine (such as
change_address) that will do so may be called. Note that
general_operand will fail when applied to such an address.
The global variable reload_in_progress (which must be explicitly
declared if required) can be used to determine whether such special
handling is required.
The variety of operands that have reloads depends on the rest of the
machine description, but typically on a RISC machine these can only be
pseudo registers that did not get hard registers, while on other
machines explicit memory references will get optional reloads.
If a scratch register is required to move an object to or from memory,
it can be allocated using gen_reg_rtx prior to life analysis.
If there are cases needing
scratch registers after reload, you must define
SECONDARY_INPUT_RELOAD_CLASS and perhaps also
SECONDARY_OUTPUT_RELOAD_CLASS to detect them, and provide
patterns `reload_inm' or `reload_outm' to handle
them. See section Register Classes.
The global variable no_new_pseudos can be used to determine if it
is unsafe to create new pseudo registers. If this variable is nonzero, then
it is unsafe to call gen_reg_rtx to allocate a new pseudo.
The constraints on a `movm' must permit moving any hard
register to any other hard register provided that
HARD_REGNO_MODE_OK permits mode m in both registers and
REGISTER_MOVE_COST applied to their classes returns a value of 2.
It is obligatory to support floating point `movm'
instructions into and out of any registers that can hold fixed point
values, because unions and structures (which have modes SImode or
DImode) can be in those registers and they may have floating
point members.
There may also be a need to support fixed point `movm'
instructions in and out of floating point registers. Unfortunately, I
have forgotten why this was so, and I don't know whether it is still
true. If HARD_REGNO_MODE_OK rejects fixed point values in
floating point registers, then the constraints of the fixed point
`movm' instructions must be designed to avoid ever trying to
reload into a floating point register.
SECONDARY_RELOAD_CLASS
macro in see section Register Classes.
subreg
with mode m of a register whose natural mode is wider,
the `movstrictm' instruction is guaranteed not to alter
any of the register except the part which belongs to mode m.
define_expand (see section Defining RTL Sequences for Code Generation)
and make the pattern fail if the restrictions are not met.
Write the generated insn as a parallel with elements being a
set of one register from the appropriate memory location (you may
also need use or clobber elements). Use a
match_parallel (see section RTL Template) to recognize the insn. See
`a29k.md' and `rs6000.md' for examples of the use of this insn
pattern.
HImode, and store
a SImode product in operand 0.
find_reg_note and look for a REG_UNUSED note on the
quotient or remainder and generate the appropriate instruction.
ashlm3 instructions.
sqrt built-in function of C always uses the mode which
corresponds to the C data type double.
ffs built-in function of C always uses the mode which
corresponds to the C data type int.
(set (cc0) (compare (match_operand:m 0 ...)
(match_operand:m 1 ...)))
(set (cc0) (match_operand:m 0 ...))`tstm' patterns should not be defined for machines that do not use
(cc0). Doing so would confuse the optimizer since it
would no longer be clear which set operations were comparisons.
The `cmpm' patterns should be used instead.
Pmode.
The number of bytes to move is the third operand, in mode m.
Usually, you specify word_mode for m. However, if you can
generate better code knowing the range of valid lengths is smaller than
those representable in a full word, you should provide a pattern with a
mode corresponding to the range of values you can handle efficiently
(e.g., QImode for values in the range 0--127; note we avoid numbers
that appear negative) and also a pattern with word_mode.
The fourth operand is the known shared alignment of the source and
destination, in the form of a const_int rtx. Thus, if the
compiler knows that both source and destination are word-aligned,
it may provide the value 4 for this operand.
Descriptions of multiple movstrm patterns can only be
beneficial if the patterns for smaller modes have fewer restrictions
on their first, second and fourth operands. Note that the mode m
in movstrm does not impose any restriction on the mode of
individually moved data units in the block.
These patterns need not give special consideration to the possibility
that the source and destination strings might overlap.
Pmode. The number of bytes to clear is
the second operand, in mode m. See `movstrm' for
a discussion of the choice of mode.
The third operand is the known alignment of the destination, in the form
of a const_int rtx. Thus, if the compiler knows that the
destination is word-aligned, it may provide the value 4 for this
operand.
The use for multiple clrstrm is as for movstrm.
mem referring to the first character of the string,
operand 2 is the character to search for (normally zero),
and operand 3 is a constant describing the known alignment
of the beginning of the string.
word_mode.
Operand 1 may have mode byte_mode or word_mode; often
word_mode is allowed only for registers. Operands 2 and 3 must
be valid for word_mode.
The RTL generation pass generates this instruction only with constants
for operands 2 and 3.
The bit-field value is sign-extended to a full word integer
before it is stored in operand 0.
word_mode) into a bit
field in operand 0, where operand 1 specifies the width in bits and
operand 2 the starting bit. Operand 0 may have mode byte_mode or
word_mode; often word_mode is allowed only for registers.
Operands 1 and 2 must be valid for word_mode.
The RTL generation pass generates this instruction only with constants
for operands 1 and 2.
eq, lt or leu.
You specify the mode that the operand must have when you write the
match_operand expression. The compiler automatically sees
which mode you have used and supplies an operand of that mode.
The value stored for a true condition must have 1 as its low bit, or
else must be negative. Otherwise the instruction is not suitable and
you should omit it from the machine description. You describe to the
compiler exactly which value is stored by defining the macro
STORE_FLAG_VALUE (see section Miscellaneous Parameters). If a description cannot be
found that can be used for all the `scond' patterns, you
should omit those operations from the machine description.
These operations may fail, but should do so only in relatively
uncommon cases; if they would fail for common cases involving
integer comparisons, it is best to omit these patterns.
If these operations are omitted, the compiler will usually generate code
that copies the constant one to the target and branches around an
assignment of zero to the target. If this code is more efficient than
the potential instructions used for the `scond' pattern
followed by those required to convert the result into a 1 or a zero in
SImode, you should omit the `scond' operations from
the machine description.
label_ref that
refers to the label to jump to. Jump if the condition codes meet
condition cond.
Some machines do not follow the model assumed here where a comparison
instruction is followed by a conditional branch instruction. In that
case, the `cmpm' (and `tstm') patterns should
simply store the operands away and generate all the required insns in a
define_expand (see section Defining RTL Sequences for Code Generation) for the conditional
branch operations. All calls to expand `bcond' patterns are
immediately preceded by calls to expand either a `cmpm'
pattern or a `tstm' pattern.
Machines that use a pseudo register for the condition code value, or
where the mode used for the comparison depends on the condition being
tested, should also use the above mechanism. See section Defining Jump Instruction Patterns.
The above discussion also applies to the `movmodecc' and
`scond' patterns.
const_int; operand 2 is the number of registers used as
operands.
On most machines, operand 2 is not actually stored into the RTL
pattern. It is supplied for the sake of some RISC machines which need
to put this information into the assembler code; they can put it in
the RTL instead of operand 1.
Operand 0 should be a mem RTX whose address is the address of the
function. Note, however, that this address can be a symbol_ref
expression even if it would not be a legitimate memory address on the
target machine. If it is also not a valid argument for a call
instruction, the pattern for this operation should be a
define_expand (see section Defining RTL Sequences for Code Generation) that places the
address into a register and uses that register in the call instruction.
BLKmode objects use the `call'
insn.
RETURN_POPS_ARGS is non-zero. They should emit a parallel
that contains both the function call and a set to indicate the
adjustment made to the frame pointer.
For machines where RETURN_POPS_ARGS can be non-zero, the use of these
patterns increases the number of functions for which the frame pointer
can be eliminated, if desired.
parallel
expression where each element is a set expression that indicates
the saving of a function return value into the result block.
This instruction pattern should be defined to support
__builtin_apply on machines where special instructions are needed
to call a subroutine with arbitrary arguments or to save the value
returned. This instruction pattern is required on machines that have
multiple registers that can hold a return value (i.e.
FUNCTION_VALUE_REGNO_P is true for more than one register).
reload_completed is non-zero and the function's
epilogue would only be a single instruction. For machines with register
windows, the routine leaf_function_p may be used to determine if
a register window push is required.
Machines that have conditional return instructions should define patterns
such as
(define_insn ""
[(set (pc)
(if_then_else (match_operator
0 "comparison_operator"
[(cc0) (const_int 0)])
(return)
(pc)))]
"condition"
"...")
where condition would normally be the same condition specified on the
named `return' pattern.
__builtin_return on machines where special
instructions are needed to return a value of any type.
Operand 0 is a memory location where the result of calling a function
with __builtin_apply is stored; operand 1 is a parallel
expression where each element is a set expression that indicates
the restoring of a function return value from the result block.
(const_int 0) will do as an
RTL pattern.
SImode.
CASE_DROPS_THROUGH is defined,
then an out-of-bounds index drops through to the code following
the jump table instead of jumping to this label. In that case,
this label is not actually used by the `casesi' instruction,
but it is always provided as an operand.)
addr_vec or addr_diff_vec inside of a
jump_insn. The number of elements in the table is one plus the
difference between the upper bound and the lower bound.
CASE_VECTOR_PC_RELATIVE evaluates to a nonzero value then the first
operand is an offset which counts from the address of the table; otherwise,
it is an absolute address to jump to. In either case, the first operand has
mode Pmode.
The `tablejump' insn is always the last insn before the jump
table it uses. Its assembler code normally has no need to use the
second operand, but you should incorporate it in the RTL pattern so
that the jump optimizer will not delete the table as unreachable code.
reg and has mode Pmode; operand 1
may be a reg, mem, symbol_ref, const_int, etc
and also has mode Pmode.
Canonicalization of a function pointer usually involves computing
the address of the function which would be called if the function
pointer were used in an indirect call.
Only define this pattern if function pointers on the target machine
can have different values but still call the same function when
used in an indirect call.
Pmode. Do not define these patterns on
such machines.
Some machines require special handling for stack pointer saves and
restores. On those machines, define the patterns corresponding to the
non-standard cases by using a define_expand (see section Defining RTL Sequences for Code Generation) that produces the required insns. The three types of
saves and restores are:
alloca. Only
the epilogue uses the restored stack pointer, allowing a simpler save or
restore sequence on some machines.
Pmode but you can override that choice by defining the
STACK_SAVEAREA_MODE macro (see section Storage Layout). You must
specify an integral mode, or VOIDmode if no save area is needed
for a particular type of save (either because no save is needed or
because a machine-specific save area can be used). Operand 0 is the
stack pointer and operand 1 is the save area for restore operations. If
`save_stack_block' is defined, operand 0 must not be
VOIDmode since these saves can be arbitrarily nested.
A save area is a mem that is at a constant offset from
virtual_stack_vars_rtx when the stack pointer is saved for use by
nonlocal gotos and a reg in the other two cases.
STACK_GROWS_DOWNWARD is undefined) operand 1 from
the stack pointer to create space for dynamically allocated data.
Store the resultant pointer to this space into operand 0. If you
are allocating space from the main stack, do this by emitting a
move insn to copy virtual_stack_dynamic_rtx to operand 0.
If you are allocating the space elsewhere, generate code to copy the
location of the space to operand 0. In the latter case, you must
ensure this space gets freed when the corresponding space on the main
stack is free.
Do not define this pattern if all that must be done is the subtraction.
Some machines require other operations such as stack probes or
maintaining the back chain. Define this pattern to emit those
operations in addition to updating the stack pointer.
jmp_buf. You will not normally need to define this pattern.
A typical reason why you might need this pattern is if some value, such
as a pointer to a global table, must be restored. Though it is
preferred that the pointer value be recalculated if possible (given the
address of a label for instance). The single argument is a pointer to
the jmp_buf. Note that the buffer is five words long and that
the first three are normally used by the generic mechanism.
builtin_setjmp_setup. The single argument is a pointer to the
jmp_buf.
__builtin_eh_return,
and thence __throw are built. It is intended to allow communication
between the exception handling machinery and the normal epilogue code
for the target.
The pattern takes three arguments. The first is the exception context
pointer. This will have already been copied to the function return
register appropriate for a pointer; normally this can be ignored. The
second argument is an offset to be added to the stack pointer. It will
have been copied to some arbitrary call-clobbered hard reg so that it
will survive until after reload to when the normal epilogue is generated.
The final argument is the address of the exception handler to which
the function should return. This will normally need to copied by the
pattern to some special register.
This pattern must be defined if RETURN_ADDR_RTX does not yield
something that can be reliably and permanently modified, i.e. a fixed
hard register or a stack memory reference.
FUNCTION_PROLOGUE to emit assembly code for the prologue.
The prologue pattern is particularly useful for targets which perform
instruction scheduling.
FUNCTION_EPILOGUE to emit assembly code for the prologue.
The epilogue pattern is particularly useful for targets which perform
instruction scheduling or which have delay slots for their return instruction.
sibcall_epilogue pattern must not clobber any arguments used for
parameter passing or any stack slots for arguments passed to the current
function.
Sometimes an insn can match more than one instruction pattern. Then the pattern that appears first in the machine description is the one used. Therefore, more specific patterns (patterns that will match fewer things) and faster instructions (those that will produce better code when they do match) should usually go first in the description.
In some cases the effect of ordering the patterns can be used to hide a pattern when it is not valid. For example, the 68000 has an instruction for converting a fullword to floating point and another for converting a byte to floating point. An instruction converting an integer to floating point could match either one. We put the pattern to convert the fullword first to make sure that one will be used rather than the other. (Otherwise a large integer might be generated as a single-byte immediate quantity, which would not work.) Instead of using this pattern ordering it would be possible to make the pattern for convert-a-byte smart enough to deal properly with any constant value.
Every machine description must have a named pattern for each of the conditional branch names `bcond'. The recognition template must always have the form
(set (pc)
(if_then_else (cond (cc0) (const_int 0))
(label_ref (match_operand 0 "" ""))
(pc)))
In addition, every machine description must have an anonymous pattern for each of the possible reverse-conditional branches. Their templates look like
(set (pc)
(if_then_else (cond (cc0) (const_int 0))
(pc)
(label_ref (match_operand 0 "" ""))))
They are necessary because jump optimization can turn direct-conditional branches into reverse-conditional branches.
It is often convenient to use the match_operator construct to
reduce the number of patterns that must be specified for branches. For
example,
(define_insn ""
[(set (pc)
(if_then_else (match_operator 0 "comparison_operator"
[(cc0) (const_int 0)])
(pc)
(label_ref (match_operand 1 "" ""))))]
"condition"
"...")
In some cases machines support instructions identical except for the machine mode of one or more operands. For example, there may be "sign-extend halfword" and "sign-extend byte" instructions whose patterns are
(set (match_operand:SI 0 ...)
(extend:SI (match_operand:HI 1 ...)))
(set (match_operand:SI 0 ...)
(extend:SI (match_operand:QI 1 ...)))
Constant integers do not specify a machine mode, so an instruction to
extend a constant value could match either pattern. The pattern it
actually will match is the one that appears first in the file. For correct
results, this must be the one for the widest possible mode (HImode,
here). If the pattern matches the QImode instruction, the results
will be incorrect if the constant value does not actually fit that mode.
Such instructions to extend constants are rarely generated because they are optimized away, but they do occasionally happen in nonoptimized compilations.
If a constraint in a pattern allows a constant, the reload pass may replace a register with a constant permitted by the constraint in some cases. Similarly for memory references. Because of this substitution, you should not provide separate patterns for increment and decrement instructions. Instead, they should be generated from the same pattern that supports register-register add insns by examining the operands and generating the appropriate machine instruction.
For most machines, GNU CC assumes that the machine has a condition code. A comparison insn sets the condition code, recording the results of both signed and unsigned comparison of the given operands. A separate branch insn tests the condition code and branches or not according its value. The branch insns come in distinct signed and unsigned flavors. Many common machines, such as the Vax, the 68000 and the 32000, work this way.
Some machines have distinct signed and unsigned compare instructions, and
only one set of conditional branch instructions. The easiest way to handle
these machines is to treat them just like the others until the final stage
where assembly code is written. At this time, when outputting code for the
compare instruction, peek ahead at the following branch using
next_cc0_user (insn). (The variable insn refers to the insn
being output, in the output-writing code in an instruction pattern.) If
the RTL says that is an unsigned branch, output an unsigned compare;
otherwise output a signed compare. When the branch itself is output, you
can treat signed and unsigned branches identically.
The reason you can do this is that GNU CC always generates a pair of
consecutive RTL insns, possibly separated by note insns, one to
set the condition code and one to test it, and keeps the pair inviolate
until the end.
To go with this technique, you must define the machine-description macro
NOTICE_UPDATE_CC to do CC_STATUS_INIT; in other words, no
compare instruction is superfluous.
Some machines have compare-and-branch instructions and no condition code. A similar technique works for them. When it is time to "output" a compare instruction, record its operands in two static variables. When outputting the branch-on-condition-code instruction that follows, actually output a compare-and-branch instruction that uses the remembered operands.
It also works to define patterns for compare-and-branch instructions. In optimizing compilation, the pair of compare and branch instructions will be combined according to these patterns. But this does not happen if optimization is not requested. So you must use one of the solutions above in addition to any special patterns you define.
In many RISC machines, most instructions do not affect the condition code and there may not even be a separate condition code register. On these machines, the restriction that the definition and use of the condition code be adjacent insns is not necessary and can prevent important optimizations. For example, on the IBM RS/6000, there is a delay for taken branches unless the condition code register is set three instructions earlier than the conditional branch. The instruction scheduler cannot perform this optimization if it is not permitted to separate the definition and use of the condition code register.
On these machines, do not use (cc0), but instead use a register
to represent the condition code. If there is a specific condition code
register in the machine, use a hard register. If the condition code or
comparison result can be placed in any general register, or if there are
multiple condition registers, use a pseudo register.
On some machines, the type of branch instruction generated may depend on
the way the condition code was produced; for example, on the 68k and
Sparc, setting the condition code directly from an add or subtract
instruction does not clear the overflow bit the way that a test
instruction does, so a different branch instruction must be used for
some conditional branches. For machines that use (cc0), the set
and use of the condition code must be adjacent (separated only by
note insns) allowing flags in cc_status to be used.
(See section Condition Code Status.) Also, the comparison and branch insns can be
located from each other by using the functions prev_cc0_setter
and next_cc0_user.
However, this is not true on machines that do not use (cc0). On
those machines, no assumptions can be made about the adjacency of the
compare and branch insns and the above methods cannot be used. Instead,
we use the machine mode of the condition code register to record
different formats of the condition code register.
Registers used to store the condition code value should have a mode that
is in class MODE_CC. Normally, it will be CCmode. If
additional modes are required (as for the add example mentioned above in
the Sparc), define the macro EXTRA_CC_MODES to list the
additional modes required (see section Condition Code Status). Also define
EXTRA_CC_NAMES to list the names of those modes and
SELECT_CC_MODE to choose a mode given an operand of a compare.
If it is known during RTL generation that a different mode will be required (for example, if the machine has separate compare instructions for signed and unsigned quantities, like most IBM processors), they can be specified at that time.
If the cases that require different modes would be made by instruction
combination, the macro SELECT_CC_MODE determines which machine
mode should be used for the comparison result. The patterns should be
written using that mode. To support the case of the add on the Sparc
discussed above, we have the pattern
(define_insn ""
[(set (reg:CC_NOOV 0)
(compare:CC_NOOV
(plus:SI (match_operand:SI 0 "register_operand" "%r")
(match_operand:SI 1 "arith_operand" "rI"))
(const_int 0)))]
""
"...")
The SELECT_CC_MODE macro on the Sparc returns CC_NOOVmode
for comparisons whose argument is a plus.
There are often cases where multiple RTL expressions could represent an operation performed by a single machine instruction. This situation is most commonly encountered with logical, branch, and multiply-accumulate instructions. In such cases, the compiler attempts to convert these multiple RTL expressions into a single canonical form to reduce the number of insn patterns required.
In addition to algebraic simplifications, following canonicalizations are performed:
neg, not,
mult, plus, or minus expression, it will be the
first operand.
compare operator, a constant is always the second operand
on machines where cc0 is used (see section Defining Jump Instruction Patterns). On other
machines, there are rare cases where the compiler might want to construct
a compare with a constant as the first operand. However, these
cases are not common enough for it to be worthwhile to provide a pattern
matching a constant as the first operand unless the machine actually has
such an instruction.
An operand of neg, not, mult, plus, or
minus is made the first operand under the same conditions as
above.
(minus x (const_int n)) is converted to
(plus x (const_int -n)).
mem), a left shift is
converted into the appropriate multiplication by a power of two.
not expression, it will be the first one.
A machine that has an instruction that performs a bitwise logical-and of one
operand with the bitwise negation of the other should specify the pattern
for that instruction as
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:m 0 ...)
(and:m (not:m (match_operand:m 1 ...))
(match_operand:m 2 ...)))]
"..."
"...")
Similarly, a pattern for a "NAND" instruction should be written
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:m 0 ...)
(ior:m (not:m (match_operand:m 1 ...))
(not:m (match_operand:m 2 ...))))]
"..."
"...")
In both cases, it is not necessary to include patterns for the many
logically equivalent RTL expressions.
(xor:m x y)
and (not:m (xor:m x y)).
(plus:m (plus:m x y) constant)
cc0,
(compare x (const_int 0)) will be converted to
x.
zero_extract rather than the equivalent
and or sign_extract operations.
In addition to instruction patterns the `md' file may contain definitions of machine-specific peephole optimizations.
The combiner does not notice certain peephole optimizations when the data flow in the program does not suggest that it should try them. For example, sometimes two consecutive insns related in purpose can be combined even though the second one does not appear to use a register computed in the first one. A machine-specific peephole optimizer can detect such opportunities.
A definition looks like this:
(define_peephole [insn-pattern-1 insn-pattern-2 ...] "condition" "template" "optional insn-attributes")
The last string operand may be omitted if you are not using any
machine-specific information in this machine description. If present,
it must obey the same rules as in a define_insn.
In this skeleton, insn-pattern-1 and so on are patterns to match consecutive insns. The optimization applies to a sequence of insns when insn-pattern-1 matches the first one, insn-pattern-2 matches the next, and so on.
Each of the insns matched by a peephole must also match a
define_insn. Peepholes are checked only at the last stage just
before code generation, and only optionally. Therefore, any insn which
would match a peephole but no define_insn will cause a crash in code
generation in an unoptimized compilation, or at various optimization
stages.
The operands of the insns are matched with match_operands,
match_operator, and match_dup, as usual. What is not
usual is that the operand numbers apply to all the insn patterns in the
definition. So, you can check for identical operands in two insns by
using match_operand in one insn and match_dup in the
other.
The operand constraints used in match_operand patterns do not have
any direct effect on the applicability of the peephole, but they will
be validated afterward, so make sure your constraints are general enough
to apply whenever the peephole matches. If the peephole matches
but the constraints are not satisfied, the compiler will crash.
It is safe to omit constraints in all the operands of the peephole; or you can write constraints which serve as a double-check on the criteria previously tested.
Once a sequence of insns matches the patterns, the condition is checked. This is a C expression which makes the final decision whether to perform the optimization (we do so if the expression is nonzero). If condition is omitted (in other words, the string is empty) then the optimization is applied to every sequence of insns that matches the patterns.
The defined peephole optimizations are applied after register allocation is complete. Therefore, the peephole definition can check which operands have ended up in which kinds of registers, just by looking at the operands.
The way to refer to the operands in condition is to write
operands[i] for operand number i (as matched by
(match_operand i ...)). Use the variable insn
to refer to the last of the insns being matched; use
prev_active_insn to find the preceding insns.
When optimizing computations with intermediate results, you can use
condition to match only when the intermediate results are not used
elsewhere. Use the C expression dead_or_set_p (insn,
op), where insn is the insn in which you expect the value
to be used for the last time (from the value of insn, together
with use of prev_nonnote_insn), and op is the intermediate
value (from operands[i]).
Applying the optimization means replacing the sequence of insns with one
new insn. The template controls ultimate output of assembler code
for this combined insn. It works exactly like the template of a
define_insn. Operand numbers in this template are the same ones
used in matching the original sequence of insns.
The result of a defined peephole optimizer does not need to match any of the insn patterns in the machine description; it does not even have an opportunity to match them. The peephole optimizer definition itself serves as the insn pattern to control how the insn is output.
Defined peephole optimizers are run as assembler code is being output, so the insns they produce are never combined or rearranged in any way.
Here is an example, taken from the 68000 machine description:
(define_peephole
[(set (reg:SI 15) (plus:SI (reg:SI 15) (const_int 4)))
(set (match_operand:DF 0 "register_operand" "=f")
(match_operand:DF 1 "register_operand" "ad"))]
"FP_REG_P (operands[0]) && ! FP_REG_P (operands[1])"
"*
{
rtx xoperands[2];
xoperands[1] = gen_rtx (REG, SImode, REGNO (operands[1]) + 1);
#ifdef MOTOROLA
output_asm_insn (\"move.l %1,(sp)\", xoperands);
output_asm_insn (\"move.l %1,-(sp)\", operands);
return \"fmove.d (sp)+,%0\";
#else
output_asm_insn (\"movel %1,sp@\", xoperands);
output_asm_insn (\"movel %1,sp@-\", operands);
return \"fmoved sp@+,%0\";
#endif
}
")
The effect of this optimization is to change
jbsr _foobar addql #4,sp movel d1,sp@- movel d0,sp@- fmoved sp@+,fp0
into
jbsr _foobar movel d1,sp@ movel d0,sp@- fmoved sp@+,fp0
insn-pattern-1 and so on look almost like the second
operand of define_insn. There is one important difference: the
second operand of define_insn consists of one or more RTX's
enclosed in square brackets. Usually, there is only one: then the same
action can be written as an element of a define_peephole. But
when there are multiple actions in a define_insn, they are
implicitly enclosed in a parallel. Then you must explicitly
write the parallel, and the square brackets within it, in the
define_peephole. Thus, if an insn pattern looks like this,
(define_insn "divmodsi4"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=d")
(div:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "0")
(match_operand:SI 2 "general_operand" "dmsK")))
(set (match_operand:SI 3 "general_operand" "=d")
(mod:SI (match_dup 1) (match_dup 2)))]
"TARGET_68020"
"divsl%.l %2,%3:%0")
then the way to mention this insn in a peephole is as follows:
(define_peephole
[...
(parallel
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=d")
(div:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "0")
(match_operand:SI 2 "general_operand" "dmsK")))
(set (match_operand:SI 3 "general_operand" "=d")
(mod:SI (match_dup 1) (match_dup 2)))])
...]
...)
On some target machines, some standard pattern names for RTL generation
cannot be handled with single insn, but a sequence of RTL insns can
represent them. For these target machines, you can write a
define_expand to specify how to generate the sequence of RTL.
A define_expand is an RTL expression that looks almost like a
define_insn; but, unlike the latter, a define_expand is used
only for RTL generation and it can produce more than one RTL insn.
A define_expand RTX has four operands:
define_expand must have a name, since the only
use for it is to refer to it by name.
define_peephole in that it is a vector of RTL expressions
each being one insn.
define_insn that
has a standard name. Therefore, the condition (if present) may not
depend on the data in the insn being matched, but only the
target-machine-type flags. The compiler needs to test these conditions
during initialization in order to learn exactly which named instructions
are available in a particular run.
emit_insn, etc.
Any such insns precede the ones that come from the RTL template.
Every RTL insn emitted by a define_expand must match some
define_insn in the machine description. Otherwise, the compiler
will crash when trying to generate code for the insn or trying to optimize
it.
The RTL template, in addition to controlling generation of RTL insns, also describes the operands that need to be specified when this pattern is used. In particular, it gives a predicate for each operand.
A true operand, which needs to be specified in order to generate RTL from
the pattern, should be described with a match_operand in its first
occurrence in the RTL template. This enters information on the operand's
predicate into the tables that record such things. GNU CC uses the
information to preload the operand into a register if that is required for
valid RTL code. If the operand is referred to more than once, subsequent
references should use match_dup.
The RTL template may also refer to internal "operands" which are
temporary registers or labels used only within the sequence made by the
define_expand. Internal operands are substituted into the RTL
template with match_dup, never with match_operand. The
values of the internal operands are not passed in as arguments by the
compiler when it requests use of this pattern. Instead, they are computed
within the pattern, in the preparation statements. These statements
compute the values and store them into the appropriate elements of
operands so that match_dup can find them.
There are two special macros defined for use in the preparation statements:
DONE and FAIL. Use them with a following semicolon,
as a statement.
DONE
DONE macro to end RTL generation for the pattern. The
only RTL insns resulting from the pattern on this occasion will be
those already emitted by explicit calls to emit_insn within the
preparation statements; the RTL template will not be generated.
FAIL
extv, extzv, and insv)
operations.
Here is an example, the definition of left-shift for the SPUR chip:
(define_expand "ashlsi3"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "register_operand" "")
(ashift:SI
(match_operand:SI 1 "register_operand" "")
(match_operand:SI 2 "nonmemory_operand" "")))]
""
"
{
if (GET_CODE (operands[2]) != CONST_INT
|| (unsigned) INTVAL (operands[2]) > 3)
FAIL;
}")
This example uses define_expand so that it can generate an RTL insn
for shifting when the shift-count is in the supported range of 0 to 3 but
fail in other cases where machine insns aren't available. When it fails,
the compiler tries another strategy using different patterns (such as, a
library call).
If the compiler were able to handle nontrivial condition-strings in
patterns with names, then it would be possible to use a
define_insn in that case. Here is another case (zero-extension
on the 68000) which makes more use of the power of define_expand:
(define_expand "zero_extendhisi2"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "")
(const_int 0))
(set (strict_low_part
(subreg:HI
(match_dup 0)
0))
(match_operand:HI 1 "general_operand" ""))]
""
"operands[1] = make_safe_from (operands[1], operands[0]);")
Here two RTL insns are generated, one to clear the entire output operand
and the other to copy the input operand into its low half. This sequence
is incorrect if the input operand refers to [the old value of] the output
operand, so the preparation statement makes sure this isn't so. The
function make_safe_from copies the operands[1] into a
temporary register if it refers to operands[0]. It does this
by emitting another RTL insn.
Finally, a third example shows the use of an internal operand.
Zero-extension on the SPUR chip is done by and-ing the result
against a halfword mask. But this mask cannot be represented by a
const_int because the constant value is too large to be legitimate
on this machine. So it must be copied into a register with
force_reg and then the register used in the and.
(define_expand "zero_extendhisi2"
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "register_operand" "")
(and:SI (subreg:SI
(match_operand:HI 1 "register_operand" "")
0)
(match_dup 2)))]
""
"operands[2]
= force_reg (SImode, GEN_INT (65535)); ")
Note: If the define_expand is used to serve a
standard binary or unary arithmetic operation or a bitfield operation,
then the last insn it generates must not be a code_label,
barrier or note. It must be an insn,
jump_insn or call_insn. If you don't need a real insn
at the end, emit an insn to copy the result of the operation into
itself. Such an insn will generate no code, but it can avoid problems
in the compiler.
There are two cases where you should specify how to split a pattern into multiple insns. On machines that have instructions requiring delay slots (see section Delay Slot Scheduling) or that have instructions whose output is not available for multiple cycles (see section Specifying Function Units), the compiler phases that optimize these cases need to be able to move insns into one-instruction delay slots. However, some insns may generate more than one machine instruction. These insns cannot be placed into a delay slot.
Often you can rewrite the single insn as a list of individual insns, each corresponding to one machine instruction. The disadvantage of doing so is that it will cause the compilation to be slower and require more space. If the resulting insns are too complex, it may also suppress some optimizations. The compiler splits the insn if there is a reason to believe that it might improve instruction or delay slot scheduling.
The insn combiner phase also splits putative insns. If three insns are
merged into one insn with a complex expression that cannot be matched by
some define_insn pattern, the combiner phase attempts to split
the complex pattern into two insns that are recognized. Usually it can
break the complex pattern into two patterns by splitting out some
subexpression. However, in some other cases, such as performing an
addition of a large constant in two insns on a RISC machine, the way to
split the addition into two insns is machine-dependent.
The define_split definition tells the compiler how to split a
complex insn into several simpler insns. It looks like this:
(define_split [insn-pattern] "condition" [new-insn-pattern-1 new-insn-pattern-2 ...] "preparation statements")
insn-pattern is a pattern that needs to be split and
condition is the final condition to be tested, as in a
define_insn. When an insn matching insn-pattern and
satisfying condition is found, it is replaced in the insn list
with the insns given by new-insn-pattern-1,
new-insn-pattern-2, etc.
The preparation statements are similar to those statements that
are specified for define_expand (see section Defining RTL Sequences for Code Generation)
and are executed before the new RTL is generated to prepare for the
generated code or emit some insns whose pattern is not fixed. Unlike
those in define_expand, however, these statements must not
generate any new pseudo-registers. Once reload has completed, they also
must not allocate any space in the stack frame.
Patterns are matched against insn-pattern in two different
circumstances. If an insn needs to be split for delay slot scheduling
or insn scheduling, the insn is already known to be valid, which means
that it must have been matched by some define_insn and, if
reload_completed is non-zero, is known to satisfy the constraints
of that define_insn. In that case, the new insn patterns must
also be insns that are matched by some define_insn and, if
reload_completed is non-zero, must also satisfy the constraints
of those definitions.
As an example of this usage of define_split, consider the following
example from `a29k.md', which splits a sign_extend from
HImode to SImode into a pair of shift insns:
(define_split
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "gen_reg_operand" "")
(sign_extend:SI (match_operand:HI 1 "gen_reg_operand" "")))]
""
[(set (match_dup 0)
(ashift:SI (match_dup 1)
(const_int 16)))
(set (match_dup 0)
(ashiftrt:SI (match_dup 0)
(const_int 16)))]
"
{ operands[1] = gen_lowpart (SImode, operands[1]); }")
When the combiner phase tries to split an insn pattern, it is always the
case that the pattern is not matched by any define_insn.
The combiner pass first tries to split a single set expression
and then the same set expression inside a parallel, but
followed by a clobber of a pseudo-reg to use as a scratch
register. In these cases, the combiner expects exactly two new insn
patterns to be generated. It will verify that these patterns match some
define_insn definitions, so you need not do this test in the
define_split (of course, there is no point in writing a
define_split that will never produce insns that match).
Here is an example of this use of define_split, taken from
`rs6000.md':
(define_split
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "gen_reg_operand" "")
(plus:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "gen_reg_operand" "")
(match_operand:SI 2 "non_add_cint_operand" "")))]
""
[(set (match_dup 0) (plus:SI (match_dup 1) (match_dup 3)))
(set (match_dup 0) (plus:SI (match_dup 0) (match_dup 4)))]
"
{
int low = INTVAL (operands[2]) & 0xffff;
int high = (unsigned) INTVAL (operands[2]) >> 16;
if (low & 0x8000)
high++, low |= 0xffff0000;
operands[3] = GEN_INT (high << 16);
operands[4] = GEN_INT (low);
}")
Here the predicate non_add_cint_operand matches any
const_int that is not a valid operand of a single add
insn. The add with the smaller displacement is written so that it
can be substituted into the address of a subsequent operation.
An example that uses a scratch register, from the same file, generates an equality comparison of a register and a large constant:
(define_split
[(set (match_operand:CC 0 "cc_reg_operand" "")
(compare:CC (match_operand:SI 1 "gen_reg_operand" "")
(match_operand:SI 2 "non_short_cint_operand" "")))
(clobber (match_operand:SI 3 "gen_reg_operand" ""))]
"find_single_use (operands[0], insn, 0)
&& (GET_CODE (*find_single_use (operands[0], insn, 0)) == EQ
|| GET_CODE (*find_single_use (operands[0], insn, 0)) == NE)"
[(set (match_dup 3) (xor:SI (match_dup 1) (match_dup 4)))
(set (match_dup 0) (compare:CC (match_dup 3) (match_dup 5)))]
"
{
/* Get the constant we are comparing against, C, and see what it
looks like sign-extended to 16 bits. Then see what constant
could be XOR'ed with C to get the sign-extended value. */
int c = INTVAL (operands[2]);
int sextc = (c << 16) >> 16;
int xorv = c ^ sextc;
operands[4] = GEN_INT (xorv);
operands[5] = GEN_INT (sextc);
}")
To avoid confusion, don't write a single define_split that
accepts some insns that match some define_insn as well as some
insns that don't. Instead, write two separate define_split
definitions, one for the insns that are valid and one for the insns that
are not valid.
In addition to describing the instruction supported by the target machine,
the `md' file also defines a group of attributes and a set of
values for each. Every generated insn is assigned a value for each attribute.
One possible attribute would be the effect that the insn has on the machine's
condition code. This attribute can then be used by NOTICE_UPDATE_CC
to track the condition codes.
The define_attr expression is used to define each attribute required
by the target machine. It looks like:
(define_attr name list-of-values default)
name is a string specifying the name of the attribute being defined.
list-of-values is either a string that specifies a comma-separated list of values that can be assigned to the attribute, or a null string to indicate that the attribute takes numeric values.
default is an attribute expression that gives the value of this attribute for insns that match patterns whose definition does not include an explicit value for this attribute. See section Example of Attribute Specifications, for more information on the handling of defaults. See section Constant Attributes, for information on attributes that do not depend on any particular insn.
For each defined attribute, a number of definitions are written to the `insn-attr.h' file. For cases where an explicit set of values is specified for an attribute, the following are defined:
For example, if the following is present in the `md' file:
(define_attr "type" "branch,fp,load,store,arith" ...)
the following lines will be written to the file `insn-attr.h'.
#define HAVE_ATTR_type
enum attr_type {TYPE_BRANCH, TYPE_FP, TYPE_LOAD,
TYPE_STORE, TYPE_ARITH};
extern enum attr_type get_attr_type ();
If the attribute takes numeric values, no enum type will be
defined and the function to obtain the attribute's value will return
int.
RTL expressions used to define attributes use the codes described above plus a few specific to attribute definitions, to be discussed below. Attribute value expressions must have one of the following forms:
(const_int i)
const_int, or as an integer represented as a string in
const_string, eq_attr (see below), attr,
symbol_ref, simple arithmetic expressions, and set_attr
overrides on specific instructions (see section Assigning Attribute Values to Insns).
(const_string value)
define_attr.
If the attribute whose value is being specified is numeric, value
must be a string containing a non-negative integer (normally
const_int would be used in this case). Otherwise, it must
contain one of the valid values for the attribute.
(if_then_else test true-value false-value)
(cond [test1 value1 ...] default)
cond expression is that of the
value corresponding to the first true test expression. If
none of the test expressions are true, the value of the cond
expression is that of the default expression.
test expressions can have one of the following forms:
(const_int i)
(not test)
(ior test1 test2)
(and test1 test2)
(match_operand:m n pred constraints)
VOIDmode) and the function specified by the string
pred returns a non-zero value when passed operand n and mode
m (this part of the test is ignored if pred is the null
string).
The constraints operand is ignored and should be the null string.
(le arith1 arith2)
(leu arith1 arith2)
(lt arith1 arith2)
(ltu arith1 arith2)
(gt arith1 arith2)
(gtu arith1 arith2)
(ge arith1 arith2)
(geu arith1 arith2)
(ne arith1 arith2)
(eq arith1 arith2)
plus, minus, mult, div, mod,
abs, neg, and, ior, xor, not,
ashift, lshiftrt, and ashiftrt expressions.
const_int and symbol_ref are always valid terms (see section Computing the Length of an Insn,for additional forms). symbol_ref is a string
denoting a C expression that yields an int when evaluated by the
`get_attr_...' routine. It should normally be a global
variable.
(eq_attr name value)
(eq_attr "type" "load,store")is equivalent to
(ior (eq_attr "type" "load") (eq_attr "type" "store"))If name specifies an attribute of `alternative', it refers to the value of the compiler variable
which_alternative
(see section C Statements for Assembler Output) and the values must be small integers. For
example,
(eq_attr "alternative" "2,3")is equivalent to
(ior (eq (symbol_ref "which_alternative") (const_int 2))
(eq (symbol_ref "which_alternative") (const_int 3)))
Note that, for most attributes, an eq_attr test is simplified in cases
where the value of the attribute being tested is known for all insns matching
a particular pattern. This is by far the most common case.
(attr_flag name)
attr_flag expression is true if the flag
specified by name is true for the insn currently being
scheduled.
name is a string specifying one of a fixed set of flags to test.
Test the flags forward and backward to determine the
direction of a conditional branch. Test the flags very_likely,
likely, very_unlikely, and unlikely to determine
if a conditional branch is expected to be taken.
If the very_likely flag is true, then the likely flag is also
true. Likewise for the very_unlikely and unlikely flags.
This example describes a conditional branch delay slot which
can be nullified for forward branches that are taken (annul-true) or
for backward branches which are not taken (annul-false).
(define_delay (eq_attr "type" "cbranch")
[(eq_attr "in_branch_delay" "true")
(and (eq_attr "in_branch_delay" "true")
(attr_flag "forward"))
(and (eq_attr "in_branch_delay" "true")
(attr_flag "backward"))])
The forward and backward flags are false if the current
insn being scheduled is not a conditional branch.
The very_likely and likely flags are true if the
insn being scheduled is not a conditional branch.
The very_unlikely and unlikely flags are false if the
insn being scheduled is not a conditional branch.
attr_flag is only used during delay slot scheduling and has no
meaning to other passes of the compiler.
(attr name)
eq_attr and attr_flag
produce more efficient code for non-numeric attributes.
The value assigned to an attribute of an insn is primarily determined by
which pattern is matched by that insn (or which define_peephole
generated it). Every define_insn and define_peephole can
have an optional last argument to specify the values of attributes for
matching insns. The value of any attribute not specified in a particular
insn is set to the default value for that attribute, as specified in its
define_attr. Extensive use of default values for attributes
permits the specification of the values for only one or two attributes
in the definition of most insn patterns, as seen in the example in the
next section.
The optional last argument of define_insn and
define_peephole is a vector of expressions, each of which defines
the value for a single attribute. The most general way of assigning an
attribute's value is to use a set expression whose first operand is an
attr expression giving the name of the attribute being set. The
second operand of the set is an attribute expression
(see section Attribute Expressions) giving the value of the attribute.
When the attribute value depends on the `alternative' attribute
(i.e., which is the applicable alternative in the constraint of the
insn), the set_attr_alternative expression can be used. It
allows the specification of a vector of attribute expressions, one for
each alternative.
When the generality of arbitrary attribute expressions is not required,
the simpler set_attr expression can be used, which allows
specifying a string giving either a single attribute value or a list
of attribute values, one for each alternative.
The form of each of the above specifications is shown below. In each case, name is a string specifying the attribute to be set.
(set_attr name value-string)
(set_attr_alternative name [value1 value2 ...])
cond with
tests on the `alternative' attribute.
(set (attr name) value)
set must be the special RTL expression
attr, whose sole operand is a string giving the name of the
attribute being set. value is the value of the attribute.
The following shows three different ways of representing the same attribute value specification:
(set_attr "type" "load,store,arith")
(set_attr_alternative "type"
[(const_string "load") (const_string "store")
(const_string "arith")])
(set (attr "type")
(cond [(eq_attr "alternative" "1") (const_string "load")
(eq_attr "alternative" "2") (const_string "store")]
(const_string "arith")))
The define_asm_attributes expression provides a mechanism to
specify the attributes assigned to insns produced from an asm
statement. It has the form:
(define_asm_attributes [attr-sets])
where attr-sets is specified the same as for both the
define_insn and the define_peephole expressions.
These values will typically be the "worst case" attribute values. For example, they might indicate that the condition code will be clobbered.
A specification for a length attribute is handled specially. The
way to compute the length of an asm insn is to multiply the
length specified in the expression define_asm_attributes by the
number of machine instructions specified in the asm statement,
determined by counting the number of semicolons and newlines in the
string. Therefore, the value of the length attribute specified
in a define_asm_attributes should be the maximum possible length
of a single machine instruction.
The judicious use of defaulting is important in the efficient use of
insn attributes. Typically, insns are divided into types and an
attribute, customarily called type, is used to represent this
value. This attribute is normally used only to define the default value
for other attributes. An example will clarify this usage.
Assume we have a RISC machine with a condition code and in which only full-word operations are performed in registers. Let us assume that we can divide all insns into loads, stores, (integer) arithmetic operations, floating point operations, and branches.
Here we will concern ourselves with determining the effect of an insn on the condition code and will limit ourselves to the following possible effects: The condition code can be set unpredictably (clobbered), not be changed, be set to agree with the results of the operation, or only changed if the item previously set into the condition code has been modified.
Here is part of a sample `md' file for such a machine:
(define_attr "type" "load,store,arith,fp,branch" (const_string "arith"))
(define_attr "cc" "clobber,unchanged,set,change0"
(cond [(eq_attr "type" "load")
(const_string "change0")
(eq_attr "type" "store,branch")
(const_string "unchanged")
(eq_attr "type" "arith")
(if_then_else (match_operand:SI 0 "" "")
(const_string "set")
(const_string "clobber"))]
(const_string "clobber")))
(define_insn ""
[(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=r,r,m")
(match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "r,m,r"))]
""
"@
move %0,%1
load %0,%1
store %0,%1"
[(set_attr "type" "arith,load,store")])
Note that we assume in the above example that arithmetic operations performed on quantities smaller than a machine word clobber the condition code since they will set the condition code to a value corresponding to the full-word result.
For many machines, multiple types of branch instructions are provided, each
for different length branch displacements. In most cases, the assembler
will choose the correct instruction to use. However, when the assembler
cannot do so, GCC can when a special attribute, the `length'
attribute, is defined. This attribute must be defined to have numeric
values by specifying a null string in its define_attr.
In the case of the `length' attribute, two additional forms of arithmetic terms are allowed in test expressions:
(match_dup n)
label_ref.
(pc)
For normal insns, the length will be determined by value of the
`length' attribute. In the case of addr_vec and
addr_diff_vec insn patterns, the length is computed as
the number of vectors multiplied by the size of each vector.
Lengths are measured in addressable storage units (bytes).
The following macros can be used to refine the length computation:
FIRST_INSN_ADDRESS
length insn attribute is used, this macro specifies the
value to be assigned to the address of the first insn in a function. If
not specified, 0 is used.
ADJUST_INSN_LENGTH (insn, length)
addr_vec
insn must be increased by two to compensate for the fact that alignment
may be required.
The routine that returns get_attr_length (the value of the
length attribute) can be used by the output routine to
determine the form of the branch instruction to be written, as the
example below illustrates.
As an example of the specification of variable-length branches, consider the IBM 360. If we adopt the convention that a register will be set to the starting address of a function, we can jump to labels within 4k of the start using a four-byte instruction. Otherwise, we need a six-byte sequence to load the address from memory and then branch to it.
On such a machine, a pattern for a branch instruction might be specified as follows:
(define_insn "jump"
[(set (pc)
(label_ref (match_operand 0 "" "")))]
""
"*
{
return (get_attr_length (insn) == 4
? \"b %l0\" : \"l r15,=a(%l0); br r15\");
}"
[(set (attr "length") (if_then_else (lt (match_dup 0) (const_int 4096))
(const_int 4)
(const_int 6)))])
A special form of define_attr, where the expression for the
default value is a const expression, indicates an attribute that
is constant for a given run of the compiler. Constant attributes may be
used to specify which variety of processor is used. For example,
(define_attr "cpu" "m88100,m88110,m88000"
(const
(cond [(symbol_ref "TARGET_88100") (const_string "m88100")
(symbol_ref "TARGET_88110") (const_string "m88110")]
(const_string "m88000"))))
(define_attr "memory" "fast,slow"
(const
(if_then_else (symbol_ref "TARGET_FAST_MEM")
(const_string "fast")
(const_string "slow"))))
The routine generated for constant attributes has no parameters as it
does not depend on any particular insn. RTL expressions used to define
the value of a constant attribute may use the symbol_ref form,
but may not use either the match_operand form or eq_attr
forms involving insn attributes.
The insn attribute mechanism can be used to specify the requirements for delay slots, if any, on a target machine. An instruction is said to require a delay slot if some instructions that are physically after the instruction are executed as if they were located before it. Classic examples are branch and call instructions, which often execute the following instruction before the branch or call is performed.
On some machines, conditional branch instructions can optionally annul instructions in the delay slot. This means that the instruction will not be executed for certain branch outcomes. Both instructions that annul if the branch is true and instructions that annul if the branch is false are supported.
Delay slot scheduling differs from instruction scheduling in that determining whether an instruction needs a delay slot is dependent only on the type of instruction being generated, not on data flow between the instructions. See the next section for a discussion of data-dependent instruction scheduling.
The requirement of an insn needing one or more delay slots is indicated
via the define_delay expression. It has the following form:
(define_delay test
[delay-1 annul-true-1 annul-false-1
delay-2 annul-true-2 annul-false-2
...])
test is an attribute test that indicates whether this
define_delay applies to a particular insn. If so, the number of
required delay slots is determined by the length of the vector specified
as the second argument. An insn placed in delay slot n must
satisfy attribute test delay-n. annul-true-n is an
attribute test that specifies which insns may be annulled if the branch
is true. Similarly, annul-false-n specifies which insns in the
delay slot may be annulled if the branch is false. If annulling is not
supported for that delay slot, (nil) should be coded.
For example, in the common case where branch and call insns require a single delay slot, which may contain any insn other than a branch or call, the following would be placed in the `md' file:
(define_delay (eq_attr "type" "branch,call")
[(eq_attr "type" "!branch,call") (nil) (nil)])
Multiple define_delay expressions may be specified. In this
case, each such expression specifies different delay slot requirements
and there must be no insn for which tests in two define_delay
expressions are both true.
For example, if we have a machine that requires one delay slot for branches but two for calls, no delay slot can contain a branch or call insn, and any valid insn in the delay slot for the branch can be annulled if the branch is true, we might represent this as follows:
(define_delay (eq_attr "type" "branch")
[(eq_attr "type" "!branch,call")
(eq_attr "type" "!branch,call")
(nil)])
(define_delay (eq_attr "type" "call")
[(eq_attr "type" "!branch,call") (nil) (nil)
(eq_attr "type" "!branch,call") (nil) (nil)])
On most RISC machines, there are instructions whose results are not available for a specific number of cycles. Common cases are instructions that load data from memory. On many machines, a pipeline stall will result if the data is referenced too soon after the load instruction.
In addition, many newer microprocessors have multiple function units, usually one for integer and one for floating point, and often will incur pipeline stalls when a result that is needed is not yet ready.
The descriptions in this section allow the specification of how much time must elapse between the execution of an instruction and the time when its result is used. It also allows specification of when the execution of an instruction will delay execution of similar instructions due to function unit conflicts.
For the purposes of the specifications in this section, a machine is divided into function units, each of which execute a specific class of instructions in first-in-first-out order. Function units that accept one instruction each cycle and allow a result to be used in the succeeding instruction (usually via forwarding) need not be specified. Classic RISC microprocessors will normally have a single function unit, which we can call `memory'. The newer "superscalar" processors will often have function units for floating point operations, usually at least a floating point adder and multiplier.
Each usage of a function units by a class of insns is specified with a
define_function_unit expression, which looks like this:
(define_function_unit name multiplicity simultaneity
test ready-delay issue-delay
[conflict-list])
name is a string giving the name of the function unit.
multiplicity is an integer specifying the number of identical units in the processor. If more than one unit is specified, they will be scheduled independently. Only truly independent units should be counted; a pipelined unit should be specified as a single unit. (The only common example of a machine that has multiple function units for a single instruction class that are truly independent and not pipelined are the two multiply and two increment units of the CDC 6600.)
simultaneity specifies the maximum number of insns that can be executing in each instance of the function unit simultaneously or zero if the unit is pipelined and has no limit.
All define_function_unit definitions referring to function unit
name must have the same name and values for multiplicity and
simultaneity.
test is an attribute test that selects the insns we are describing
in this definition. Note that an insn may use more than one function
unit and a function unit may be specified in more than one
define_function_unit.
ready-delay is an integer that specifies the number of cycles after which the result of the instruction can be used without introducing any stalls.
issue-delay is an integer that specifies the number of cycles after the instruction matching the test expression begins using this unit until a subsequent instruction can begin. A cost of N indicates an N-1 cycle delay. A subsequent instruction may also be delayed if an earlier instruction has a longer ready-delay value. This blocking effect is computed using the simultaneity, ready-delay, issue-delay, and conflict-list terms. For a normal non-pipelined function unit, simultaneity is one, the unit is taken to block for the ready-delay cycles of the executing insn, and smaller values of issue-delay are ignored.
conflict-list is an optional list giving detailed conflict costs for this unit. If specified, it is a list of condition test expressions to be applied to insns chosen to execute in name following the particular insn matching test that is already executing in name. For each insn in the list, issue-delay specifies the conflict cost; for insns not in the list, the cost is zero. If not specified, conflict-list defaults to all instructions that use the function unit.
Typical uses of this vector are where a floating point function unit can pipeline either single- or double-precision operations, but not both, or where a memory unit can pipeline loads, but not stores, etc.
As an example, consider a classic RISC machine where the result of a load instruction is not available for two cycles (a single "delay" instruction is required) and where only one load instruction can be executed simultaneously. This would be specified as:
(define_function_unit "memory" 1 1 (eq_attr "type" "load") 2 0)
For the case of a floating point function unit that can pipeline either single or double precision, but not both, the following could be specified:
(define_function_unit "fp" 1 0 (eq_attr "type" "sp_fp") 4 4 [(eq_attr "type" "dp_fp")]) (define_function_unit "fp" 1 0 (eq_attr "type" "dp_fp") 4 4 [(eq_attr "type" "sp_fp")])
Note: The scheduler attempts to avoid function unit conflicts
and uses all the specifications in the define_function_unit
expression. It has recently come to our attention that these
specifications may not allow modeling of some of the newer
"superscalar" processors that have insns using multiple pipelined
units. These insns will cause a potential conflict for the second unit
used during their execution and there is no way of representing that
conflict. We welcome any examples of how function unit conflicts work
in such processors and suggestions for their representation.