Yes, the second version of my patch provides new builtins that we can define 
however we please, and leaves the originals alone.
--paulr

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] 
On Behalf Of Richard Smith
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 5:20 PM
To: Chandler Carruth
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PATCH][X86] __builtin_ctz/clz sometimed defined for zero input

On Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 10:24 PM, Chandler Carruth 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Sorry for the late replies, but as the last person to work on the CLZ / CTZ 
stuff, I have some small opinions here. =]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 9:52 PM, David Majnemer 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I think Paul's patch is fine.

I firmly disagree.


Having `__builtin_ctz` asking the target if `isCLZForZeroUndef` seems busted 
and this patch seems to fix that just fine.

Yes, that is busted and we should fix that aspect regardless. But changing the 
behavior on x86 seems actively harmful to portability.


So, let's look at the history.

I went and taught LLVM to produce optimal code in cases where undef-at-zero was 
acceptable and only instructions with undef-at-zero were available. In order to 
generate reasonable code for these scenarios, Clang and LLVM had to respect the 
contract specified for the GCC __builtin_clz and __builtin_ctz. That spec[1] 
*very* clearly states that if the input is zero the result is undefined.

1: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Other-Builtins.html

However, after this Bob changed ARM to not follow this spec citing a radar only 
in r149086. I objected at the time, and continue to feel this is the *wrong* 
approach for ARM. We should not be deviating from the clear, documented, and 
widely followed spec here. However, I had no real basis for arguing about the 
behavior of ARM at the time, and I doubt that I have much say in the behavior 
there even now. =] That said, on x86, I am firmly opposed to deviating from the 
clear and unambiguous spec.

If folks want a builtin to access unambiguously defined-at-zero CLZ or CTZ 
behavior, we should define *new* builtins which have a clear spec here. 
However, I'm unpersuaded that this is better or more portable. The alternative 
code seems quite palatable: (x == 0 ? 32 : __builtin_clz(x))

If LLVM fails to turn this into the maximally efficient code on some 
architecture, then much as others have suggested, we should enhance LLVM.

I agree with Chandler on all points here.

__builtin_clz and __builtin_ctz is clearly and unambiguously defined by GCC's 
specification for them, and we should not be providing additional definedness  
guarantees. If we want a defined-for-zero-input form of these intrinsics, they 
should have a different name (or an additional argument, or be written as "x == 
0 ? 32 : __builtin_clz(x)" or similar).

It is a major feature of Clang that we try not to lock people in by providing 
incompatible extensions.
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