Author: lattner
Date: Wed Nov 10 17:51:50 2010
New Revision: 118740
URL: http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?rev=118740&view=rev
Log:
add a note about inline asm compatibility.
Modified:
cfe/trunk/www/compatibility.html
Modified: cfe/trunk/www/compatibility.html
URL:
http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project/cfe/trunk/www/compatibility.html?rev=118740&r1=118739&r2=118740&view=diff
==============================================================================
--- cfe/trunk/www/compatibility.html (original)
+++ cfe/trunk/www/compatibility.html Wed Nov 10 17:51:50 2010
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@
<li><a href="#lvalue-cast">Lvalue casts</a></li>
<li><a href="#blocks-in-protected-scope">Jumps to within
<tt>__block</tt> variable scope</a></li>
<li><a href="#block-variable-initialization">Non-initialization of
<tt>__block</tt> variables</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#inline-asm">Inline assembly</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#objective-c">Objective-C compatibility</a>
@@ -247,6 +248,49 @@
<p>Clang does not zero initialize local block variables, and programs which
rely
on such behavior will most likely break when built with Clang.</p>
+
+<!-- =======================================================================
-->
+<h3 id="inline-asm">Inline assembly</h3>
+<!-- =======================================================================
-->
+
+<p>In general, Clang is highly compatible with the GCC inline assembly
+extensions, allowing the same set of constraints, modifiers and operands as GCC
+inline assembly.</p>
+
+<p>On targets that use the integrated assembler (such as most X86 targets),
+inline assembly is run through the integrated assembler instead of your system
+assembler (which is most commonly "gas", the GNU assembler). The LLVM
+integrated assembler is extremely compatible with GAS, but there are a couple
of
+minor places where it is more picky, particularly due to outright GAS bugs.</p>
+
+<p>One specific example is that the assembler rejects ambiguous X86
instructions
+that don't have suffixes. For example:</p>
+
+<pre>
+ asm("add %al, (%rax)");
+ asm("addw $4, (%rax)");
+ asm("add $4, (%rax)");
+</pre>
+
+<p>Both clang and GAS accept the first instruction: because the first
+instruction uses the 8-bit <tt>%al</tt> register as an operand, it is clear
that
+it is an 8-bit add. The second instruction is accepted by both because the "w"
+suffix indicates that it is a 16-bit add. The last instruction is accepted by
+GAS even though there is nothing that specifies the size of the instruction
(and
+the assembler randomly picks a 32-bit add). Because it is ambiguous, Clang
+rejects the instruction with this error message:
+</p>
+
+<pre>
+<inline asm>:3:1: error: ambiguous instructions require an explicit
suffix (could be 'addb', 'addw', 'addl', or 'addq')
+add $4, (%rax)
+^
+1 error generated.
+</pre>
+
+<p>To fix this compatibility issue, add an explicit suffix to the instruction:
+this makes your code more clear and is compatible with both GCC and Clang.</p>
+
<!-- =======================================================================
-->
<h2 id="objective-c">Objective-C compatibility</h3>
<!-- =======================================================================
-->
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