Info file gcc.info, produced by Makeinfo, -*- Text -*- from input file gcc.texinfo. This file documents the use and the internals of the GNU compiler. Copyright (C) 1988, 1989 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled ``GNU General Public License'' and ``Protect Your Freedom--Fight `Look And Feel''' are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the sections entitled ``GNU General Public License'' and ``Protect Your Freedom--Fight `Look And Feel''' and this permission notice may be included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.  File: gcc.info, Node: Output Statement, Next: Constraints, Prev: Output Template, Up: Machine Desc C Statements for Generating Assembler Output ============================================ 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 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 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\"); ")  File: gcc.info, Node: Constraints, Next: Standard Names, Prev: Output Statement, Up: Machine Desc Operand Constraints =================== 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. * Menu: * Simple Constraints:: Basic use of constraints. * Multi-Alternative:: When an insn has two alternative constraint-patterns. * Class Preferences:: Constraints guide which hard register to put things in. * Modifiers:: More precise control over effects of constraints. * No Constraints:: Describing a clean machine without constraints.  File: gcc.info, Node: Simple Constraints, Next: Multi-Alternative, Prev: Constraints, Up: Constraints Simple Constraints ------------------ 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: `m' A memory operand is allowed, with any kind of address that the machine supports in general. `o' A memory operand is allowed, but only if the address is "offsettable". This means that adding a small integer (actually, the width in bytes of the operand, as determined by its machine mode) may be added to the address and the result is also a valid memory address. For example, an address which is constant is offsettable; so is an address that is the sum of a register and a constant (as long as a slightly larger constant is also within the range of address-offsets supported by the machine); but an autoincrement or autodecrement address is not offsettable. More complicated indirect/indexed addresses may or may not be offsettable depending on the other addressing modes that the machine supports. Note that in an output operand which can be matched by another operand, the constraint letter `o' is valid only when accompanied by both `<' (if the target machine has predecrement addressing) and `>' (if the target machine has preincrement addressing). When the constraint letter `o' is used, the reload pass may generate instructions which copy a nonoffsettable address into an index register. The idea is that the register can be used as a replacement offsettable address. But this method requires that there be patterns to copy any kind of address into a register. Auto-increment and auto-decrement addresses are an exception; there need not be an instruction that can copy such an address into a register, because reload handles these cases specially. Most older machine designs have ``load address'' instructions which do just what is needed here. Some RISC machines do not advertise such instructions, but the possible addresses on these machines are very limited, so it is easy to fake them. `<' A memory operand with autodecrement addressing (either predecrement or postdecrement) is allowed. `>' A memory operand with autoincrement addressing (either preincrement or postincrement) is allowed. `r' A register operand is allowed provided that it is in a general register. `d', `a', `f', ... Other letters can be defined in machine-dependent fashion to stand for particular classes of registers. `d', `a' and `f' are defined on the 68000/68020 to stand for data, address and floating point registers. `i' An immediate integer operand (one with constant value) is allowed. This includes symbolic constants whose values will be known only at assembly time. `n' An immediate integer operand with a known numeric value is allowed. Many systems cannot support assembly-time constants for operands less than a word wide. Constraints for these operands should use `n' rather than `i'. `I', `J', `K', ... Other letters in the range `I' through `M' may be defined in a machine-dependent fashion to permit immediate integer operands with explicit integer values in specified ranges. For example, on the 68000, `I' is defined to stand for the range of values 1 to 8. This is the range permitted as a shift count in the shift instructions. `F' An immediate floating operand (expression code `const_double') is allowed. `G', `H' `G' and `H' may be defined in a machine-dependent fashion to permit immediate floating operands in particular ranges of values. `s' An immediate integer operand whose value is not an explicit integer is allowed. This might appear strange; if an insn allows a constant operand with a value not known at compile time, it certainly must allow any known value. So why use `s' instead of `i'? Sometimes it allows better code to be generated. For example, on the 68000 in a fullword instruction it is possible to use an immediate operand; but if the immediate value is between -128 and 127, better code results from loading the value into a register and using the register. This is because the load into the register can be done with a `moveq' instruction. We arrange for this to happen by defining the letter `K' to mean ``any integer outside the range -128 to 127'', and then specifying `Ks' in the operand constraints. `g' Any register, memory or immediate integer operand is allowed, except for registers that are not general registers. `N' (a digit) An operand that matches operand number N is allowed. If a digit is used together with letters, the digit should come last. This is called a "matching constraint" and what it really means is that the assembler has only a single operand that fills two roles considered separate in the RTL insn. For example, an add insn has two input operands and one output operand in the RTL, but on most machines an add instruction really has only two operands, one of them an input-output operand. Matching constraints work only in circumstances like that add insn. More precisely, the matching constraint must appear in an input-only operand and the operand that it matches must be an output-only operand with a lower number. Thus, operand N must have `=' in its 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. `p' An operand that is a valid memory address is allowed. This is for ``load address'' and ``push address'' instructions. `p' in the constraint must be accompanies by `address_operand' as the predicate in the `match_operand'. 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 constraint accepts whatever operands the predicate permits, there is no problem: reloading is never necessary for this operand. For example, an operand whose constraints permit everything except registers is safe provided its predicate rejects registers. An operand whose predicate accepts only constant values is safe provided its constraints include the letter `i'. If any possible constant value is accepted, then nothing less than `i' will do; if the predicate is more selective, then the constraints may also be more selective. * Any operand expression can be reloaded by copying it into a register. So if an operand's constraints allow some kind of register, it is certain to be safe. It need not permit all classes of registers; the compiler knows how to copy a register into another register of the proper class in order to make an instruction valid. * A nonoffsettable memory reference can be reloaded by copying the address into a register. So if the constraint uses the letter `o', all memory references are taken care of. * A constant operand can be reloaded by allocating space in memory to hold it as preinitialized data. Then the memory reference can be used in place of the constant. So if the constraint uses the letters `o' or `m', constant operands are not a problem. 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.  File: gcc.info, Node: Multi-Alternative, Next: Class Preferences, Prev: Simple Constraints, Up: Constraints Multiple Alternative Constraints -------------------------------- 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. 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: `?' Disparage slightly the alternative that the `?' appears in, as a choice when no alternative applies exactly. The compiler regards this alternative as one unit more costly for each `?' that appears in it. `!' Disparage severely the alternative that the `!' appears in. When operands must be copied into registers, the compiler will never choose this alternative as the one to strive for. 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.). For example: (define_insn "" [(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "r,m") (const_int 0))] "" "* return (which_alternative == 0 ? \"clrreg %0\" : \"clrmem %0\"); ")  File: gcc.info, Node: Class Preferences, Next: Modifiers, Prev: Multi-Alternative, Up: Constraints Register Class Preferences -------------------------- 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.  File: gcc.info, Node: Modifiers, Next: No Constraints, Prev: Class Preferences, Up: Constraints Constraint Modifier Characters ------------------------------ `=' Means that this operand is write-only for this instruction: the previous value is discarded and replaced by output data. `+' Means that this operand is both read and written by the instruction. When the compiler fixes up the operands to satisfy the constraints, it needs to know which operands are inputs to the instruction and which are outputs from it. `=' identifies an output; `+' identifies an operand that is both input and output; all other operands are assumed to be input only. `&' Means (in a particular alternative) that this operand is written before the instruction is finished using the input operands. Therefore, this operand may not lie in a register that is used as an input operand or as part of any memory address. `&' applies only to the alternative in which it is written. In constraints with multiple alternatives, sometimes one alternative requires `&' while others do not. See, for example, the `movdf' insn of the 68000. `&' does not obviate the need to write `='. `%' Declares the instruction to be commutative for this operand and the following operand. This means that the compiler may interchange the two operands if that is the cheapest way to make all operands fit the constraints. This is often used in patterns for addition instructions that really have only two operands: the result must go in one of the arguments. Here for example, is how the 68000 halfword-add instruction is defined: (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")))] ...) Note that in previous versions of GNU CC the `%' constraint modifier always applied to operands 1 and 2 regardless of which operand it was written in. The usual custom was to write it in operand 0. Now it must be in operand 1 if the operands to be exchanged are 1 and 2. `#' Says that all following characters, up to the next comma, are to be ignored as a constraint. They are significant only for choosing register preferences. `*' Says that the following character should be ignored when choosing register preferences. `*' has no effect on the meaning of the constraint as a constraint. Here is an example: the 68000 has an instruction to sign-extend a halfword in a data register, and can also sign-extend a value by copying it into an address register. While either kind of register is acceptable, the constraints on an address-register destination are less strict, so it is best if register allocation makes an address register its goal. Therefore, `*' is used so that the `d' constraint letter (for data register) is ignored when computing register preferences. (define_insn "extendhisi2" [(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "=*d,a") (sign_extend:SI (match_operand:HI 1 "general_operand" "0,g")))] ...)  File: gcc.info, Node: No Constraints, Prev: Modifiers, Up: Constraints Not Using Constraints --------------------- 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.  File: gcc.info, Node: Standard Names, Next: Pattern Ordering, Prev: Constraints, Up: Machine Desc Standard Names for Patterns Used in Generation ============================================== 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 in to accomplish a certain task. `movM' Here M stands for a two-letter machine mode name, in lower case. This instruction pattern moves data with that machine mode from operand 1 to operand 0. For example, `movsi' moves full-word data. If operand 0 is a `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. 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. The constraints on a `moveM' must allow any hard register to be moved to any other hard register (provided that `HARD_REGNO_MODE_OK' permits mode M in both registers). It is obligatory to support floating point `moveM' 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 `moveM' 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 `moveM' instructions must be designed to avoid ever trying to reload into a floating point register. `movstrictM' Like `movM' except that if operand 0 is a `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. `addM3' Add operand 2 and operand 1, storing the result in operand 0. All operands must have mode M. This can be used even on two-address machines, by means of constraints requiring operands 1 and 0 to be the same location. `subM3', `mulM3', `umulM3', `divM3', `udivM3', `modM3', `umodM3', `andM3', `iorM3', `xorM3' Similar, for other arithmetic operations. There are special considerations for register classes for logical-and instructions, affecting also the macro `PREFERRED_RELOAD_CLASS'. They apply not only to the patterns with these standard names, but to any patterns that will match such an instruction. *Note Register Classes::. `mulhisi3' Multiply operands 1 and 2, which have mode `HImode', and store a `SImode' product in operand 0. `mulqihi3', `mulsidi3' Similar widening-multiplication instructions of other widths. `umulqihi3', `umulhisi3', `umulsidi3' Similar widening-multiplication instructions that do unsigned multiplication. `divmodM4' Signed division that produces both a quotient and a remainder. Operand 1 is divided by operand 2 to produce a quotient stored in operand 0 and a remainder stored in operand 3. `udivmodM4' Similar, but does unsigned division. `ashlM3' Arithmetic-shift operand 1 left by a number of bits specified by operand 2, and store the result in operand 0. Operand 2 has mode `SImode', not mode M. `ashrM3', `lshlM3', `lshrM3', `rotlM3', `rotrM3' Other shift and rotate instructions. Logical and arithmetic left shift are the same. Machines that do not allow negative shift counts often have only one instruction for shifting left. On such machines, you should define a pattern named `ashlM3' and leave `lshlM3' undefined. There are special considerations for register classes for shift instructions, affecting also the macro `PREFERRED_RELOAD_CLASS'. They apply not only to the patterns with these standard names, but to any patterns that will match such an instruction. *Note Register Classes::. `negM2' Negate operand 1 and store the result in operand 0. `absM2' Store the absolute value of operand 1 into operand 0. `sqrtM2' Store the square root of operand 1 into operand 0. `ffsM2' Store into operand 0 one plus the index of the least significant 1-bit of operand 1. If operand 1 is zero, store zero. M is the mode of operand 0; operand 1's mode is specified by the instruction pattern, and the compiler will convert the operand to that mode before generating the instruction. `one_cmplM2' Store the bitwise-complement of operand 1 into operand 0. `cmpM' Compare operand 0 and operand 1, and set the condition codes. The RTL pattern should look like this: (set (cc0) (compare (match_operand:M 0 ...) (match_operand:M 1 ...))) Each such definition in the machine description, for integer mode M, must have a corresponding `tstM' pattern, because optimization can simplify the compare into a test when operand 1 is zero. `tstM' Compare operand 0 against zero, and set the condition codes. The RTL pattern should look like this: (set (cc0) (match_operand:M 0 ...)) `movstrM' Block move instruction. The addresses of the destination and source strings are the first two operands, and both are in mode `Pmode'. The number of bytes to move is the third operand, in mode M. The fourth operand is the known shared alignment of the source and destination, in the form of a `const_int' rtx. `cmpstrM' Block compare instruction, with operands like `movstrM' except that the two memory blocks are compared byte by byte in lexicographic order. The effect of the instruction is to set the condition codes. `floatMN2' Convert signed integer operand 1 (valid for fixed point mode M) to floating point mode N and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). `floatunsMN2' Convert unsigned integer operand 1 (valid for fixed point mode M) to floating point mode N and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). `fixMN2' Convert operand 1 (valid for floating point mode M) to fixed point mode N as a signed number and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). This instruction's result is defined only when the value of operand 1 is an integer. `fixunsMN2' Convert operand 1 (valid for floating point mode M) to fixed point mode N as an unsigned number and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). This instruction's result is defined only when the value of operand 1 is an integer. `ftruncM2' Convert operand 1 (valid for floating point mode M) to an integer value, still represented in floating point mode M, and store it in operand 0 (valid for floating point mode M). `fix_truncMN2' Like `fixMN2' but works for any floating point value of mode M by converting the value to an integer. `fixuns_truncMN2' Like `fixunsMN2' but works for any floating point value of mode M by converting the value to an integer. `truncMN' Truncate operand 1 (valid for mode M) to mode N and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). Both modes must be fixed point or both floating point. `extendMN' Sign-extend operand 1 (valid for mode M) to mode N and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). Both modes must be fixed point or both floating point. `zero_extendMN' Zero-extend operand 1 (valid for mode M) to mode N and store in operand 0 (which has mode N). Both modes must be fixed point. `extv' Extract a bit-field from operand 1 (a register or memory operand), where operand 2 specifies the width in bits and operand 3 the starting bit, and store it in operand 0. Operand 0 must have `Simode'. Operand 1 may have mode `QImode' or `SImode'; often `SImode' is allowed only for registers. Operands 2 and 3 must be valid for `SImode'. 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. `extzv' Like `extv' except that the bit-field value is zero-extended. `insv' Store operand 3 (which must be valid for `SImode') 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 `QImode' or `SImode'; often `SImode' is allowed only for registers. Operands 1 and 2 must be valid for `SImode'. The RTL generation pass generates this instruction only with constants for operands 1 and 2. `sCOND' Store zero or nonzero in the operand according to the condition codes. Value stored is nonzero iff the condition COND is true. COND is the name of a comparison operation expression code, such as `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 must be omitted from the machine description. You must tell the compiler exactly which value is stored by defining the macro `STORE_FLAG_VALUE'. `bCOND' Conditional branch instruction. Operand 0 is a `label_ref' that refers to the label to jump to. Jump if the condition codes meet condition COND. `call' Subroutine call instruction returning no value. Operand 0 is the function to call; operand 1 is the number of bytes of arguments pushed (in mode `SImode', except it is normally a `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. `call_value' Subroutine call instruction returning a value. Operand 0 is the hard register in which the value is returned. There are three more operands, the same as the three operands of the `call' instruction (but with numbers increased by one). Subroutines that return `BLKmode' objects use the `call' insn. `return' Subroutine return instruction. This instruction pattern name should be defined only if a single instruction can do all the work of returning from a function. `nop' No-op instruction. This instruction pattern name should always be defined to output a no-op in assembler code. `(const_int 0)' will do as an RTL pattern. `casesi' Instruction to jump through a dispatch table, including bounds checking. This instruction takes five operands: 1. The index to dispatch on, which has mode `SImode'. 2. The lower bound for indices in the table, an integer constant. 3. The total range of indices in the table--the largest index minus the smallest one (both inclusive). 4. A label to jump to if the index has a value outside the bounds. (If the machine-description macro `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.) 5. A label that precedes the table itself. The table is a `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. `tablejump' Instruction to jump to a variable address. This is a low-level capability which can be used to implement a dispatch table when there is no `casesi' pattern. This pattern requires two operands: the address or offset, and a label which should immediately precede the jump table. If the macro `CASE_VECTOR_PC_RELATIVE' is defined then the first operand is an absolute address to jump to; otherwise, it is an offset which counts from the address of the table. 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.  File: gcc.info, Node: Pattern Ordering, Next: Dependent Patterns, Prev: Standard Names, Up: Machine Desc When the Order of Patterns Matters ================================== 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.  File: gcc.info, Node: Dependent Patterns, Next: Jump Patterns, Prev: Pattern Ordering, Up: Machine Desc Interdependence of Patterns =========================== 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. These patterns 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. The compiler does more with RTL than just create it from patterns and recognize the patterns: it can perform arithmetic expression codes when constant values for their operands can be determined. As a result, sometimes having one pattern can require other patterns. For example, the Vax has no `and' instruction, but it has `and not' instructions. Here is the definition of one of them: (define_insn "andcbsi2" [(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "") (and:SI (match_dup 0) (not:SI (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" ""))))] "" "bicl2 %1,%0") If operand 1 is an explicit integer constant, an instruction constructed using that pattern can be simplified into an `and' like this: (set (reg:SI 41) (and:SI (reg:SI 41) (const_int 0xffff7fff))) (where the integer constant is the one's complement of what appeared in the original instruction). To avoid a fatal error, the compiler must have a pattern that recognizes such an instruction. Here is what is used: (define_insn "" [(set (match_operand:SI 0 "general_operand" "") (and:SI (match_dup 0) (match_operand:SI 1 "general_operand" "")))] "GET_CODE (operands[1]) == CONST_INT" "* { operands[1] = gen_rtx (CONST_INT, VOIDmode, ~INTVAL (operands[1])); return \"bicl2 %1,%0\"; }") Whereas a pattern to match a general `and' instruction is impossible to support on the Vax, this pattern is possible because it matches only a constant second argument: a special case that can be output as an `and not' instruction. A ``compare'' instruction whose RTL looks like this: (set (cc0) (compare OPERAND (const_int 0))) may be simplified by optimization into a ``test'' like this: (set (cc0) OPERAND) So in the machine description, each ``compare'' pattern for an integer mode must have a corresponding ``test'' pattern that will match the result of such simplification. 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. When an instruction has the constraint letter `o', the reload pass may generate instructions which copy a nonoffsettable address into an index register. The idea is that the register can be used as a replacement offsettable address. In order for these generated instructions to work, there must be patterns to copy any kind of valid address into a register. Most older machine designs have ``load address'' instructions which do just what is needed here. Some RISC machines do not advertise such instructions, but the possible addresses on these machines are very limited, so it is easy to fake them. Auto-increment and auto-decrement addresses are an exception; there need not be an instruction that can copy such an address into a register, because reload handles these cases in a different manner.  File: gcc.info, Node: Jump Patterns, Next: Peephole Definitions, Prev: Dependent Patterns, Up: Machine Desc Defining Jump Instruction Patterns ================================== 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_INSN (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, 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.