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1================================
2Source Level Debugging with LLVM
3================================
4
5.. contents::
6   :local:
7
8Introduction
9============
10
11This document is the central repository for all information pertaining to debug
12information in LLVM.  It describes the :ref:`actual format that the LLVM debug
13information takes <format>`, which is useful for those interested in creating
14front-ends or dealing directly with the information.  Further, this document
15provides specific examples of what debug information for C/C++ looks like.
16
17Philosophy behind LLVM debugging information
18--------------------------------------------
19
20The idea of the LLVM debugging information is to capture how the important
21pieces of the source-language's Abstract Syntax Tree map onto LLVM code.
22Several design aspects have shaped the solution that appears here.  The
23important ones are:
24
25* Debugging information should have very little impact on the rest of the
26  compiler.  No transformations, analyses, or code generators should need to
27  be modified because of debugging information.
28
29* LLVM optimizations should interact in :ref:`well-defined and easily described
30  ways <intro_debugopt>` with the debugging information.
31
32* Because LLVM is designed to support arbitrary programming languages,
33  LLVM-to-LLVM tools should not need to know anything about the semantics of
34  the source-level-language.
35
36* Source-level languages are often **widely** different from one another.
37  LLVM should not put any restrictions of the flavor of the source-language,
38  and the debugging information should work with any language.
39
40* With code generator support, it should be possible to use an LLVM compiler
41  to compile a program to native machine code and standard debugging
42  formats.  This allows compatibility with traditional machine-code level
43  debuggers, like GDB or DBX.
44
45The approach used by the LLVM implementation is to use a small set of
46:ref:`intrinsic functions <format_common_intrinsics>` to define a mapping
47between LLVM program objects and the source-level objects.  The description of
48the source-level program is maintained in LLVM metadata in an
49:ref:`implementation-defined format <ccxx_frontend>` (the C/C++ front-end
50currently uses working draft 7 of the `DWARF 3 standard
51<http://www.eagercon.com/dwarf/dwarf3std.htm>`_).
52
53When a program is being debugged, a debugger interacts with the user and turns
54the stored debug information into source-language specific information.  As
55such, a debugger must be aware of the source-language, and is thus tied to a
56specific language or family of languages.
57
58Debug information consumers
59---------------------------
60
61The role of debug information is to provide meta information normally stripped
62away during the compilation process.  This meta information provides an LLVM
63user a relationship between generated code and the original program source
64code.
65
66Currently, there are two backend consumers of debug info: DwarfDebug and
67CodeViewDebug. DwarfDebug produces DWARF suitable for use with GDB, LLDB, and
68other DWARF-based debuggers. :ref:`CodeViewDebug <codeview>` produces CodeView,
69the Microsoft debug info format, which is usable with Microsoft debuggers such
70as Visual Studio and WinDBG. LLVM's debug information format is mostly derived
71from and inspired by DWARF, but it is feasible to translate into other target
72debug info formats such as STABS.
73
74It would also be reasonable to use debug information to feed profiling tools
75for analysis of generated code, or, tools for reconstructing the original
76source from generated code.
77
78.. _intro_debugopt:
79
80Debug information and optimizations
81-----------------------------------
82
83An extremely high priority of LLVM debugging information is to make it interact
84well with optimizations and analysis.  In particular, the LLVM debug
85information provides the following guarantees:
86
87* LLVM debug information **always provides information to accurately read
88  the source-level state of the program**, regardless of which LLVM
89  optimizations have been run, and without any modification to the
90  optimizations themselves.  However, some optimizations may impact the
91  ability to modify the current state of the program with a debugger, such
92  as setting program variables, or calling functions that have been
93  deleted.
94
95* As desired, LLVM optimizations can be upgraded to be aware of debugging
96  information, allowing them to update the debugging information as they
97  perform aggressive optimizations.  This means that, with effort, the LLVM
98  optimizers could optimize debug code just as well as non-debug code.
99
100* LLVM debug information does not prevent optimizations from
101  happening (for example inlining, basic block reordering/merging/cleanup,
102  tail duplication, etc).
103
104* LLVM debug information is automatically optimized along with the rest of
105  the program, using existing facilities.  For example, duplicate
106  information is automatically merged by the linker, and unused information
107  is automatically removed.
108
109Basically, the debug information allows you to compile a program with
110"``-O0 -g``" and get full debug information, allowing you to arbitrarily modify
111the program as it executes from a debugger.  Compiling a program with
112"``-O3 -g``" gives you full debug information that is always available and
113accurate for reading (e.g., you get accurate stack traces despite tail call
114elimination and inlining), but you might lose the ability to modify the program
115and call functions which were optimized out of the program, or inlined away
116completely.
117
118The :ref:`LLVM test suite <test-suite-quickstart>` provides a framework to test
119optimizer's handling of debugging information.  It can be run like this:
120
121.. code-block:: bash
122
123  % cd llvm/projects/test-suite/MultiSource/Benchmarks  # or some other level
124  % make TEST=dbgopt
125
126This will test impact of debugging information on optimization passes.  If
127debugging information influences optimization passes then it will be reported
128as a failure.  See :doc:`TestingGuide` for more information on LLVM test
129infrastructure and how to run various tests.
130
131.. _format:
132
133Debugging information format
134============================
135
136LLVM debugging information has been carefully designed to make it possible for
137the optimizer to optimize the program and debugging information without
138necessarily having to know anything about debugging information.  In
139particular, the use of metadata avoids duplicated debugging information from
140the beginning, and the global dead code elimination pass automatically deletes
141debugging information for a function if it decides to delete the function.
142
143To do this, most of the debugging information (descriptors for types,
144variables, functions, source files, etc) is inserted by the language front-end
145in the form of LLVM metadata.
146
147Debug information is designed to be agnostic about the target debugger and
148debugging information representation (e.g. DWARF/Stabs/etc).  It uses a generic
149pass to decode the information that represents variables, types, functions,
150namespaces, etc: this allows for arbitrary source-language semantics and
151type-systems to be used, as long as there is a module written for the target
152debugger to interpret the information.
153
154To provide basic functionality, the LLVM debugger does have to make some
155assumptions about the source-level language being debugged, though it keeps
156these to a minimum.  The only common features that the LLVM debugger assumes
157exist are `source files <LangRef.html#difile>`_, and `program objects
158<LangRef.html#diglobalvariable>`_.  These abstract objects are used by a
159debugger to form stack traces, show information about local variables, etc.
160
161This section of the documentation first describes the representation aspects
162common to any source-language.  :ref:`ccxx_frontend` describes the data layout
163conventions used by the C and C++ front-ends.
164
165Debug information descriptors are `specialized metadata nodes
166<LangRef.html#specialized-metadata>`_, first-class subclasses of ``Metadata``.
167
168.. _format_common_intrinsics:
169
170Debugger intrinsic functions
171----------------------------
172
173LLVM uses several intrinsic functions (name prefixed with "``llvm.dbg``") to
174track source local variables through optimization and code generation.
175
176``llvm.dbg.addr``
177^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
178
179.. code-block:: llvm
180
181  void @llvm.dbg.addr(metadata, metadata, metadata)
182
183This intrinsic provides information about a local element (e.g., variable).
184The first argument is metadata holding the address of variable, typically a
185static alloca in the function entry block.  The second argument is a
186`local variable <LangRef.html#dilocalvariable>`_ containing a description of
187the variable.  The third argument is a `complex expression
188<LangRef.html#diexpression>`_.  An `llvm.dbg.addr` intrinsic describes the
189*address* of a source variable.
190
191.. code-block:: text
192
193    %i.addr = alloca i32, align 4
194    call void @llvm.dbg.addr(metadata i32* %i.addr, metadata !1,
195                             metadata !DIExpression()), !dbg !2
196    !1 = !DILocalVariable(name: "i", ...) ; int i
197    !2 = !DILocation(...)
198    ...
199    %buffer = alloca [256 x i8], align 8
200    ; The address of i is buffer+64.
201    call void @llvm.dbg.addr(metadata [256 x i8]* %buffer, metadata !3,
202                             metadata !DIExpression(DW_OP_plus, 64)), !dbg !4
203    !3 = !DILocalVariable(name: "i", ...) ; int i
204    !4 = !DILocation(...)
205
206A frontend should generate exactly one call to ``llvm.dbg.addr`` at the point
207of declaration of a source variable. Optimization passes that fully promote the
208variable from memory to SSA values will replace this call with possibly
209multiple calls to `llvm.dbg.value`. Passes that delete stores are effectively
210partial promotion, and they will insert a mix of calls to ``llvm.dbg.value``
211and ``llvm.dbg.addr`` to track the source variable value when it is available.
212After optimization, there may be multiple calls to ``llvm.dbg.addr`` describing
213the program points where the variables lives in memory. All calls for the same
214concrete source variable must agree on the memory location.
215
216
217``llvm.dbg.declare``
218^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
219
220.. code-block:: llvm
221
222  void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata, metadata, metadata)
223
224This intrinsic is identical to `llvm.dbg.addr`, except that there can only be
225one call to `llvm.dbg.declare` for a given concrete `local variable
226<LangRef.html#dilocalvariable>`_. It is not control-dependent, meaning that if
227a call to `llvm.dbg.declare` exists and has a valid location argument, that
228address is considered to be the true home of the variable across its entire
229lifetime. This makes it hard for optimizations to preserve accurate debug info
230in the presence of ``llvm.dbg.declare``, so we are transitioning away from it,
231and we plan to deprecate it in future LLVM releases.
232
233
234``llvm.dbg.value``
235^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
236
237.. code-block:: llvm
238
239  void @llvm.dbg.value(metadata, metadata, metadata)
240
241This intrinsic provides information when a user source variable is set to a new
242value.  The first argument is the new value (wrapped as metadata).  The second
243argument is a `local variable <LangRef.html#dilocalvariable>`_ containing a
244description of the variable.  The third argument is a `complex expression
245<LangRef.html#diexpression>`_.
246
247An `llvm.dbg.value` intrinsic describes the *value* of a source variable
248directly, not its address.  Note that the value operand of this intrinsic may
249be indirect (i.e, a pointer to the source variable), provided that interpreting
250the complex expression derives the direct value.
251
252Object lifetimes and scoping
253============================
254
255In many languages, the local variables in functions can have their lifetimes or
256scopes limited to a subset of a function.  In the C family of languages, for
257example, variables are only live (readable and writable) within the source
258block that they are defined in.  In functional languages, values are only
259readable after they have been defined.  Though this is a very obvious concept,
260it is non-trivial to model in LLVM, because it has no notion of scoping in this
261sense, and does not want to be tied to a language's scoping rules.
262
263In order to handle this, the LLVM debug format uses the metadata attached to
264llvm instructions to encode line number and scoping information.  Consider the
265following C fragment, for example:
266
267.. code-block:: c
268
269  1.  void foo() {
270  2.    int X = 21;
271  3.    int Y = 22;
272  4.    {
273  5.      int Z = 23;
274  6.      Z = X;
275  7.    }
276  8.    X = Y;
277  9.  }
278
279.. FIXME: Update the following example to use llvm.dbg.addr once that is the
280   default in clang.
281
282Compiled to LLVM, this function would be represented like this:
283
284.. code-block:: text
285
286  ; Function Attrs: nounwind ssp uwtable
287  define void @foo() #0 !dbg !4 {
288  entry:
289    %X = alloca i32, align 4
290    %Y = alloca i32, align 4
291    %Z = alloca i32, align 4
292    call void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata i32* %X, metadata !11, metadata !13), !dbg !14
293    store i32 21, i32* %X, align 4, !dbg !14
294    call void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata i32* %Y, metadata !15, metadata !13), !dbg !16
295    store i32 22, i32* %Y, align 4, !dbg !16
296    call void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata i32* %Z, metadata !17, metadata !13), !dbg !19
297    store i32 23, i32* %Z, align 4, !dbg !19
298    %0 = load i32, i32* %X, align 4, !dbg !20
299    store i32 %0, i32* %Z, align 4, !dbg !21
300    %1 = load i32, i32* %Y, align 4, !dbg !22
301    store i32 %1, i32* %X, align 4, !dbg !23
302    ret void, !dbg !24
303  }
304
305  ; Function Attrs: nounwind readnone
306  declare void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata, metadata, metadata) #1
307
308  attributes #0 = { nounwind ssp uwtable "less-precise-fpmad"="false" "no-frame-pointer-elim"="true" "no-frame-pointer-elim-non-leaf" "no-infs-fp-math"="false" "no-nans-fp-math"="false" "stack-protector-buffer-size"="8" "unsafe-fp-math"="false" "use-soft-float"="false" }
309  attributes #1 = { nounwind readnone }
310
311  !llvm.dbg.cu = !{!0}
312  !llvm.module.flags = !{!7, !8, !9}
313  !llvm.ident = !{!10}
314
315  !0 = !DICompileUnit(language: DW_LANG_C99, file: !1, producer: "clang version 3.7.0 (trunk 231150) (llvm/trunk 231154)", isOptimized: false, runtimeVersion: 0, emissionKind: FullDebug, enums: !2, retainedTypes: !2, subprograms: !3, globals: !2, imports: !2)
316  !1 = !DIFile(filename: "/dev/stdin", directory: "/Users/dexonsmith/data/llvm/debug-info")
317  !2 = !{}
318  !3 = !{!4}
319  !4 = distinct !DISubprogram(name: "foo", scope: !1, file: !1, line: 1, type: !5, isLocal: false, isDefinition: true, scopeLine: 1, isOptimized: false, variables: !2)
320  !5 = !DISubroutineType(types: !6)
321  !6 = !{null}
322  !7 = !{i32 2, !"Dwarf Version", i32 2}
323  !8 = !{i32 2, !"Debug Info Version", i32 3}
324  !9 = !{i32 1, !"PIC Level", i32 2}
325  !10 = !{!"clang version 3.7.0 (trunk 231150) (llvm/trunk 231154)"}
326  !11 = !DILocalVariable(name: "X", scope: !4, file: !1, line: 2, type: !12)
327  !12 = !DIBasicType(name: "int", size: 32, align: 32, encoding: DW_ATE_signed)
328  !13 = !DIExpression()
329  !14 = !DILocation(line: 2, column: 9, scope: !4)
330  !15 = !DILocalVariable(name: "Y", scope: !4, file: !1, line: 3, type: !12)
331  !16 = !DILocation(line: 3, column: 9, scope: !4)
332  !17 = !DILocalVariable(name: "Z", scope: !18, file: !1, line: 5, type: !12)
333  !18 = distinct !DILexicalBlock(scope: !4, file: !1, line: 4, column: 5)
334  !19 = !DILocation(line: 5, column: 11, scope: !18)
335  !20 = !DILocation(line: 6, column: 11, scope: !18)
336  !21 = !DILocation(line: 6, column: 9, scope: !18)
337  !22 = !DILocation(line: 8, column: 9, scope: !4)
338  !23 = !DILocation(line: 8, column: 7, scope: !4)
339  !24 = !DILocation(line: 9, column: 3, scope: !4)
340
341
342This example illustrates a few important details about LLVM debugging
343information.  In particular, it shows how the ``llvm.dbg.declare`` intrinsic and
344location information, which are attached to an instruction, are applied
345together to allow a debugger to analyze the relationship between statements,
346variable definitions, and the code used to implement the function.
347
348.. code-block:: llvm
349
350  call void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata i32* %X, metadata !11, metadata !13), !dbg !14
351    ; [debug line = 2:7] [debug variable = X]
352
353The first intrinsic ``%llvm.dbg.declare`` encodes debugging information for the
354variable ``X``.  The metadata ``!dbg !14`` attached to the intrinsic provides
355scope information for the variable ``X``.
356
357.. code-block:: text
358
359  !14 = !DILocation(line: 2, column: 9, scope: !4)
360  !4 = distinct !DISubprogram(name: "foo", scope: !1, file: !1, line: 1, type: !5,
361                              isLocal: false, isDefinition: true, scopeLine: 1,
362                              isOptimized: false, variables: !2)
363
364Here ``!14`` is metadata providing `location information
365<LangRef.html#dilocation>`_.  In this example, scope is encoded by ``!4``, a
366`subprogram descriptor <LangRef.html#disubprogram>`_.  This way the location
367information attached to the intrinsics indicates that the variable ``X`` is
368declared at line number 2 at a function level scope in function ``foo``.
369
370Now lets take another example.
371
372.. code-block:: llvm
373
374  call void @llvm.dbg.declare(metadata i32* %Z, metadata !17, metadata !13), !dbg !19
375    ; [debug line = 5:9] [debug variable = Z]
376
377The third intrinsic ``%llvm.dbg.declare`` encodes debugging information for
378variable ``Z``.  The metadata ``!dbg !19`` attached to the intrinsic provides
379scope information for the variable ``Z``.
380
381.. code-block:: text
382
383  !18 = distinct !DILexicalBlock(scope: !4, file: !1, line: 4, column: 5)
384  !19 = !DILocation(line: 5, column: 11, scope: !18)
385
386Here ``!19`` indicates that ``Z`` is declared at line number 5 and column
387number 0 inside of lexical scope ``!18``.  The lexical scope itself resides
388inside of subprogram ``!4`` described above.
389
390The scope information attached with each instruction provides a straightforward
391way to find instructions covered by a scope.
392
393.. _ccxx_frontend:
394
395C/C++ front-end specific debug information
396==========================================
397
398The C and C++ front-ends represent information about the program in a format
399that is effectively identical to `DWARF 3.0
400<http://www.eagercon.com/dwarf/dwarf3std.htm>`_ in terms of information
401content.  This allows code generators to trivially support native debuggers by
402generating standard dwarf information, and contains enough information for
403non-dwarf targets to translate it as needed.
404
405This section describes the forms used to represent C and C++ programs.  Other
406languages could pattern themselves after this (which itself is tuned to
407representing programs in the same way that DWARF 3 does), or they could choose
408to provide completely different forms if they don't fit into the DWARF model.
409As support for debugging information gets added to the various LLVM
410source-language front-ends, the information used should be documented here.
411
412The following sections provide examples of a few C/C++ constructs and the debug
413information that would best describe those constructs.  The canonical
414references are the ``DIDescriptor`` classes defined in
415``include/llvm/IR/DebugInfo.h`` and the implementations of the helper functions
416in ``lib/IR/DIBuilder.cpp``.
417
418C/C++ source file information
419-----------------------------
420
421``llvm::Instruction`` provides easy access to metadata attached with an
422instruction.  One can extract line number information encoded in LLVM IR using
423``Instruction::getDebugLoc()`` and ``DILocation::getLine()``.
424
425.. code-block:: c++
426
427  if (DILocation *Loc = I->getDebugLoc()) { // Here I is an LLVM instruction
428    unsigned Line = Loc->getLine();
429    StringRef File = Loc->getFilename();
430    StringRef Dir = Loc->getDirectory();
431  }
432
433C/C++ global variable information
434---------------------------------
435
436Given an integer global variable declared as follows:
437
438.. code-block:: c
439
440  _Alignas(8) int MyGlobal = 100;
441
442a C/C++ front-end would generate the following descriptors:
443
444.. code-block:: text
445
446  ;;
447  ;; Define the global itself.
448  ;;
449  @MyGlobal = global i32 100, align 8, !dbg !0
450
451  ;;
452  ;; List of debug info of globals
453  ;;
454  !llvm.dbg.cu = !{!1}
455
456  ;; Some unrelated metadata.
457  !llvm.module.flags = !{!6, !7}
458  !llvm.ident = !{!8}
459
460  ;; Define the global variable itself
461  !0 = distinct !DIGlobalVariable(name: "MyGlobal", scope: !1, file: !2, line: 1, type: !5, isLocal: false, isDefinition: true, align: 64)
462
463  ;; Define the compile unit.
464  !1 = distinct !DICompileUnit(language: DW_LANG_C99, file: !2,
465                               producer: "clang version 4.0.0 (http://llvm.org/git/clang.git ae4deadbea242e8ea517eef662c30443f75bd086) (http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git 818b4c1539df3e51dc7e62c89ead4abfd348827d)",
466                               isOptimized: false, runtimeVersion: 0, emissionKind: FullDebug,
467                               enums: !3, globals: !4)
468
469  ;;
470  ;; Define the file
471  ;;
472  !2 = !DIFile(filename: "/dev/stdin",
473               directory: "/Users/dexonsmith/data/llvm/debug-info")
474
475  ;; An empty array.
476  !3 = !{}
477
478  ;; The Array of Global Variables
479  !4 = !{!0}
480
481  ;;
482  ;; Define the type
483  ;;
484  !5 = !DIBasicType(name: "int", size: 32, encoding: DW_ATE_signed)
485
486  ;; Dwarf version to output.
487  !6 = !{i32 2, !"Dwarf Version", i32 4}
488
489  ;; Debug info schema version.
490  !7 = !{i32 2, !"Debug Info Version", i32 3}
491
492  ;; Compiler identification
493  !8 = !{!"clang version 4.0.0 (http://llvm.org/git/clang.git ae4deadbea242e8ea517eef662c30443f75bd086) (http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git 818b4c1539df3e51dc7e62c89ead4abfd348827d)"}
494
495
496The align value in DIGlobalVariable description specifies variable alignment in
497case it was forced by C11 _Alignas(), C++11 alignas() keywords or compiler
498attribute __attribute__((aligned ())). In other case (when this field is missing)
499alignment is considered default. This is used when producing DWARF output
500for DW_AT_alignment value.
501
502C/C++ function information
503--------------------------
504
505Given a function declared as follows:
506
507.. code-block:: c
508
509  int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
510    return 0;
511  }
512
513a C/C++ front-end would generate the following descriptors:
514
515.. code-block:: text
516
517  ;;
518  ;; Define the anchor for subprograms.
519  ;;
520  !4 = !DISubprogram(name: "main", scope: !1, file: !1, line: 1, type: !5,
521                     isLocal: false, isDefinition: true, scopeLine: 1,
522                     flags: DIFlagPrototyped, isOptimized: false,
523                     variables: !2)
524
525  ;;
526  ;; Define the subprogram itself.
527  ;;
528  define i32 @main(i32 %argc, i8** %argv) !dbg !4 {
529  ...
530  }
531
532Debugging information format
533============================
534
535Debugging Information Extension for Objective C Properties
536----------------------------------------------------------
537
538Introduction
539^^^^^^^^^^^^
540
541Objective C provides a simpler way to declare and define accessor methods using
542declared properties.  The language provides features to declare a property and
543to let compiler synthesize accessor methods.
544
545The debugger lets developer inspect Objective C interfaces and their instance
546variables and class variables.  However, the debugger does not know anything
547about the properties defined in Objective C interfaces.  The debugger consumes
548information generated by compiler in DWARF format.  The format does not support
549encoding of Objective C properties.  This proposal describes DWARF extensions to
550encode Objective C properties, which the debugger can use to let developers
551inspect Objective C properties.
552
553Proposal
554^^^^^^^^
555
556Objective C properties exist separately from class members.  A property can be
557defined only by "setter" and "getter" selectors, and be calculated anew on each
558access.  Or a property can just be a direct access to some declared ivar.
559Finally it can have an ivar "automatically synthesized" for it by the compiler,
560in which case the property can be referred to in user code directly using the
561standard C dereference syntax as well as through the property "dot" syntax, but
562there is no entry in the ``@interface`` declaration corresponding to this ivar.
563
564To facilitate debugging, these properties we will add a new DWARF TAG into the
565``DW_TAG_structure_type`` definition for the class to hold the description of a
566given property, and a set of DWARF attributes that provide said description.
567The property tag will also contain the name and declared type of the property.
568
569If there is a related ivar, there will also be a DWARF property attribute placed
570in the ``DW_TAG_member`` DIE for that ivar referring back to the property TAG
571for that property.  And in the case where the compiler synthesizes the ivar
572directly, the compiler is expected to generate a ``DW_TAG_member`` for that
573ivar (with the ``DW_AT_artificial`` set to 1), whose name will be the name used
574to access this ivar directly in code, and with the property attribute pointing
575back to the property it is backing.
576
577The following examples will serve as illustration for our discussion:
578
579.. code-block:: objc
580
581  @interface I1 {
582    int n2;
583  }
584
585  @property int p1;
586  @property int p2;
587  @end
588
589  @implementation I1
590  @synthesize p1;
591  @synthesize p2 = n2;
592  @end
593
594This produces the following DWARF (this is a "pseudo dwarfdump" output):
595
596.. code-block:: none
597
598  0x00000100:  TAG_structure_type [7] *
599                 AT_APPLE_runtime_class( 0x10 )
600                 AT_name( "I1" )
601                 AT_decl_file( "Objc_Property.m" )
602                 AT_decl_line( 3 )
603
604  0x00000110    TAG_APPLE_property
605                  AT_name ( "p1" )
606                  AT_type ( {0x00000150} ( int ) )
607
608  0x00000120:   TAG_APPLE_property
609                  AT_name ( "p2" )
610                  AT_type ( {0x00000150} ( int ) )
611
612  0x00000130:   TAG_member [8]
613                  AT_name( "_p1" )
614                  AT_APPLE_property ( {0x00000110} "p1" )
615                  AT_type( {0x00000150} ( int ) )
616                  AT_artificial ( 0x1 )
617
618  0x00000140:    TAG_member [8]
619                   AT_name( "n2" )
620                   AT_APPLE_property ( {0x00000120} "p2" )
621                   AT_type( {0x00000150} ( int ) )
622
623  0x00000150:  AT_type( ( int ) )
624
625Note, the current convention is that the name of the ivar for an
626auto-synthesized property is the name of the property from which it derives
627with an underscore prepended, as is shown in the example.  But we actually
628don't need to know this convention, since we are given the name of the ivar
629directly.
630
631Also, it is common practice in ObjC to have different property declarations in
632the @interface and @implementation - e.g. to provide a read-only property in
633the interface,and a read-write interface in the implementation.  In that case,
634the compiler should emit whichever property declaration will be in force in the
635current translation unit.
636
637Developers can decorate a property with attributes which are encoded using
638``DW_AT_APPLE_property_attribute``.
639
640.. code-block:: objc
641
642  @property (readonly, nonatomic) int pr;
643
644.. code-block:: none
645
646  TAG_APPLE_property [8]
647    AT_name( "pr" )
648    AT_type ( {0x00000147} (int) )
649    AT_APPLE_property_attribute (DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_readonly, DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_nonatomic)
650
651The setter and getter method names are attached to the property using
652``DW_AT_APPLE_property_setter`` and ``DW_AT_APPLE_property_getter`` attributes.
653
654.. code-block:: objc
655
656  @interface I1
657  @property (setter=myOwnP3Setter:) int p3;
658  -(void)myOwnP3Setter:(int)a;
659  @end
660
661  @implementation I1
662  @synthesize p3;
663  -(void)myOwnP3Setter:(int)a{ }
664  @end
665
666The DWARF for this would be:
667
668.. code-block:: none
669
670  0x000003bd: TAG_structure_type [7] *
671                AT_APPLE_runtime_class( 0x10 )
672                AT_name( "I1" )
673                AT_decl_file( "Objc_Property.m" )
674                AT_decl_line( 3 )
675
676  0x000003cd      TAG_APPLE_property
677                    AT_name ( "p3" )
678                    AT_APPLE_property_setter ( "myOwnP3Setter:" )
679                    AT_type( {0x00000147} ( int ) )
680
681  0x000003f3:     TAG_member [8]
682                    AT_name( "_p3" )
683                    AT_type ( {0x00000147} ( int ) )
684                    AT_APPLE_property ( {0x000003cd} )
685                    AT_artificial ( 0x1 )
686
687New DWARF Tags
688^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
689
690+-----------------------+--------+
691| TAG                   | Value  |
692+=======================+========+
693| DW_TAG_APPLE_property | 0x4200 |
694+-----------------------+--------+
695
696New DWARF Attributes
697^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
698
699+--------------------------------+--------+-----------+
700| Attribute                      | Value  | Classes   |
701+================================+========+===========+
702| DW_AT_APPLE_property           | 0x3fed | Reference |
703+--------------------------------+--------+-----------+
704| DW_AT_APPLE_property_getter    | 0x3fe9 | String    |
705+--------------------------------+--------+-----------+
706| DW_AT_APPLE_property_setter    | 0x3fea | String    |
707+--------------------------------+--------+-----------+
708| DW_AT_APPLE_property_attribute | 0x3feb | Constant  |
709+--------------------------------+--------+-----------+
710
711New DWARF Constants
712^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
713
714+--------------------------------------+-------+
715| Name                                 | Value |
716+======================================+=======+
717| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_readonly           | 0x01  |
718+--------------------------------------+-------+
719| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_getter             | 0x02  |
720+--------------------------------------+-------+
721| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_assign             | 0x04  |
722+--------------------------------------+-------+
723| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_readwrite          | 0x08  |
724+--------------------------------------+-------+
725| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_retain             | 0x10  |
726+--------------------------------------+-------+
727| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_copy               | 0x20  |
728+--------------------------------------+-------+
729| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_nonatomic          | 0x40  |
730+--------------------------------------+-------+
731| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_setter             | 0x80  |
732+--------------------------------------+-------+
733| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_atomic             | 0x100 |
734+--------------------------------------+-------+
735| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_weak               | 0x200 |
736+--------------------------------------+-------+
737| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_strong             | 0x400 |
738+--------------------------------------+-------+
739| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_unsafe_unretained  | 0x800 |
740+--------------------------------------+-------+
741| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_nullability        | 0x1000|
742+--------------------------------------+-------+
743| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_null_resettable    | 0x2000|
744+--------------------------------------+-------+
745| DW_APPLE_PROPERTY_class              | 0x4000|
746+--------------------------------------+-------+
747
748Name Accelerator Tables
749-----------------------
750
751Introduction
752^^^^^^^^^^^^
753
754The "``.debug_pubnames``" and "``.debug_pubtypes``" formats are not what a
755debugger needs.  The "``pub``" in the section name indicates that the entries
756in the table are publicly visible names only.  This means no static or hidden
757functions show up in the "``.debug_pubnames``".  No static variables or private
758class variables are in the "``.debug_pubtypes``".  Many compilers add different
759things to these tables, so we can't rely upon the contents between gcc, icc, or
760clang.
761
762The typical query given by users tends not to match up with the contents of
763these tables.  For example, the DWARF spec states that "In the case of the name
764of a function member or static data member of a C++ structure, class or union,
765the name presented in the "``.debug_pubnames``" section is not the simple name
766given by the ``DW_AT_name attribute`` of the referenced debugging information
767entry, but rather the fully qualified name of the data or function member."
768So the only names in these tables for complex C++ entries is a fully
769qualified name.  Debugger users tend not to enter their search strings as
770"``a::b::c(int,const Foo&) const``", but rather as "``c``", "``b::c``" , or
771"``a::b::c``".  So the name entered in the name table must be demangled in
772order to chop it up appropriately and additional names must be manually entered
773into the table to make it effective as a name lookup table for debuggers to
774use.
775
776All debuggers currently ignore the "``.debug_pubnames``" table as a result of
777its inconsistent and useless public-only name content making it a waste of
778space in the object file.  These tables, when they are written to disk, are not
779sorted in any way, leaving every debugger to do its own parsing and sorting.
780These tables also include an inlined copy of the string values in the table
781itself making the tables much larger than they need to be on disk, especially
782for large C++ programs.
783
784Can't we just fix the sections by adding all of the names we need to this
785table? No, because that is not what the tables are defined to contain and we
786won't know the difference between the old bad tables and the new good tables.
787At best we could make our own renamed sections that contain all of the data we
788need.
789
790These tables are also insufficient for what a debugger like LLDB needs.  LLDB
791uses clang for its expression parsing where LLDB acts as a PCH.  LLDB is then
792often asked to look for type "``foo``" or namespace "``bar``", or list items in
793namespace "``baz``".  Namespaces are not included in the pubnames or pubtypes
794tables.  Since clang asks a lot of questions when it is parsing an expression,
795we need to be very fast when looking up names, as it happens a lot.  Having new
796accelerator tables that are optimized for very quick lookups will benefit this
797type of debugging experience greatly.
798
799We would like to generate name lookup tables that can be mapped into memory
800from disk, and used as is, with little or no up-front parsing.  We would also
801be able to control the exact content of these different tables so they contain
802exactly what we need.  The Name Accelerator Tables were designed to fix these
803issues.  In order to solve these issues we need to:
804
805* Have a format that can be mapped into memory from disk and used as is
806* Lookups should be very fast
807* Extensible table format so these tables can be made by many producers
808* Contain all of the names needed for typical lookups out of the box
809* Strict rules for the contents of tables
810
811Table size is important and the accelerator table format should allow the reuse
812of strings from common string tables so the strings for the names are not
813duplicated.  We also want to make sure the table is ready to be used as-is by
814simply mapping the table into memory with minimal header parsing.
815
816The name lookups need to be fast and optimized for the kinds of lookups that
817debuggers tend to do.  Optimally we would like to touch as few parts of the
818mapped table as possible when doing a name lookup and be able to quickly find
819the name entry we are looking for, or discover there are no matches.  In the
820case of debuggers we optimized for lookups that fail most of the time.
821
822Each table that is defined should have strict rules on exactly what is in the
823accelerator tables and documented so clients can rely on the content.
824
825Hash Tables
826^^^^^^^^^^^
827
828Standard Hash Tables
829""""""""""""""""""""
830
831Typical hash tables have a header, buckets, and each bucket points to the
832bucket contents:
833
834.. code-block:: none
835
836  .------------.
837  |  HEADER    |
838  |------------|
839  |  BUCKETS   |
840  |------------|
841  |  DATA      |
842  `------------'
843
844The BUCKETS are an array of offsets to DATA for each hash:
845
846.. code-block:: none
847
848  .------------.
849  | 0x00001000 | BUCKETS[0]
850  | 0x00002000 | BUCKETS[1]
851  | 0x00002200 | BUCKETS[2]
852  | 0x000034f0 | BUCKETS[3]
853  |            | ...
854  | 0xXXXXXXXX | BUCKETS[n_buckets]
855  '------------'
856
857So for ``bucket[3]`` in the example above, we have an offset into the table
8580x000034f0 which points to a chain of entries for the bucket.  Each bucket must
859contain a next pointer, full 32 bit hash value, the string itself, and the data
860for the current string value.
861
862.. code-block:: none
863
864              .------------.
865  0x000034f0: | 0x00003500 | next pointer
866              | 0x12345678 | 32 bit hash
867              | "erase"    | string value
868              | data[n]    | HashData for this bucket
869              |------------|
870  0x00003500: | 0x00003550 | next pointer
871              | 0x29273623 | 32 bit hash
872              | "dump"     | string value
873              | data[n]    | HashData for this bucket
874              |------------|
875  0x00003550: | 0x00000000 | next pointer
876              | 0x82638293 | 32 bit hash
877              | "main"     | string value
878              | data[n]    | HashData for this bucket
879              `------------'
880
881The problem with this layout for debuggers is that we need to optimize for the
882negative lookup case where the symbol we're searching for is not present.  So
883if we were to lookup "``printf``" in the table above, we would make a 32-bit
884hash for "``printf``", it might match ``bucket[3]``.  We would need to go to
885the offset 0x000034f0 and start looking to see if our 32 bit hash matches.  To
886do so, we need to read the next pointer, then read the hash, compare it, and
887skip to the next bucket.  Each time we are skipping many bytes in memory and
888touching new pages just to do the compare on the full 32 bit hash.  All of
889these accesses then tell us that we didn't have a match.
890
891Name Hash Tables
892""""""""""""""""
893
894To solve the issues mentioned above we have structured the hash tables a bit
895differently: a header, buckets, an array of all unique 32 bit hash values,
896followed by an array of hash value data offsets, one for each hash value, then
897the data for all hash values:
898
899.. code-block:: none
900
901  .-------------.
902  |  HEADER     |
903  |-------------|
904  |  BUCKETS    |
905  |-------------|
906  |  HASHES     |
907  |-------------|
908  |  OFFSETS    |
909  |-------------|
910  |  DATA       |
911  `-------------'
912
913The ``BUCKETS`` in the name tables are an index into the ``HASHES`` array.  By
914making all of the full 32 bit hash values contiguous in memory, we allow
915ourselves to efficiently check for a match while touching as little memory as
916possible.  Most often checking the 32 bit hash values is as far as the lookup
917goes.  If it does match, it usually is a match with no collisions.  So for a
918table with "``n_buckets``" buckets, and "``n_hashes``" unique 32 bit hash
919values, we can clarify the contents of the ``BUCKETS``, ``HASHES`` and
920``OFFSETS`` as:
921
922.. code-block:: none
923
924  .-------------------------.
925  |  HEADER.magic           | uint32_t
926  |  HEADER.version         | uint16_t
927  |  HEADER.hash_function   | uint16_t
928  |  HEADER.bucket_count    | uint32_t
929  |  HEADER.hashes_count    | uint32_t
930  |  HEADER.header_data_len | uint32_t
931  |  HEADER_DATA            | HeaderData
932  |-------------------------|
933  |  BUCKETS                | uint32_t[n_buckets] // 32 bit hash indexes
934  |-------------------------|
935  |  HASHES                 | uint32_t[n_hashes] // 32 bit hash values
936  |-------------------------|
937  |  OFFSETS                | uint32_t[n_hashes] // 32 bit offsets to hash value data
938  |-------------------------|
939  |  ALL HASH DATA          |
940  `-------------------------'
941
942So taking the exact same data from the standard hash example above we end up
943with:
944
945.. code-block:: none
946
947              .------------.
948              | HEADER     |
949              |------------|
950              |          0 | BUCKETS[0]
951              |          2 | BUCKETS[1]
952              |          5 | BUCKETS[2]
953              |          6 | BUCKETS[3]
954              |            | ...
955              |        ... | BUCKETS[n_buckets]
956              |------------|
957              | 0x........ | HASHES[0]
958              | 0x........ | HASHES[1]
959              | 0x........ | HASHES[2]
960              | 0x........ | HASHES[3]
961              | 0x........ | HASHES[4]
962              | 0x........ | HASHES[5]
963              | 0x12345678 | HASHES[6]    hash for BUCKETS[3]
964              | 0x29273623 | HASHES[7]    hash for BUCKETS[3]
965              | 0x82638293 | HASHES[8]    hash for BUCKETS[3]
966              | 0x........ | HASHES[9]
967              | 0x........ | HASHES[10]
968              | 0x........ | HASHES[11]
969              | 0x........ | HASHES[12]
970              | 0x........ | HASHES[13]
971              | 0x........ | HASHES[n_hashes]
972              |------------|
973              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[0]
974              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[1]
975              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[2]
976              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[3]
977              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[4]
978              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[5]
979              | 0x000034f0 | OFFSETS[6]   offset for BUCKETS[3]
980              | 0x00003500 | OFFSETS[7]   offset for BUCKETS[3]
981              | 0x00003550 | OFFSETS[8]   offset for BUCKETS[3]
982              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[9]
983              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[10]
984              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[11]
985              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[12]
986              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[13]
987              | 0x........ | OFFSETS[n_hashes]
988              |------------|
989              |            |
990              |            |
991              |            |
992              |            |
993              |            |
994              |------------|
995  0x000034f0: | 0x00001203 | .debug_str ("erase")
996              | 0x00000004 | A 32 bit array count - number of HashData with name "erase"
997              | 0x........ | HashData[0]
998              | 0x........ | HashData[1]
999              | 0x........ | HashData[2]
1000              | 0x........ | HashData[3]
1001              | 0x00000000 | String offset into .debug_str (terminate data for hash)
1002              |------------|
1003  0x00003500: | 0x00001203 | String offset into .debug_str ("collision")
1004              | 0x00000002 | A 32 bit array count - number of HashData with name "collision"
1005              | 0x........ | HashData[0]
1006              | 0x........ | HashData[1]
1007              | 0x00001203 | String offset into .debug_str ("dump")
1008              | 0x00000003 | A 32 bit array count - number of HashData with name "dump"
1009              | 0x........ | HashData[0]
1010              | 0x........ | HashData[1]
1011              | 0x........ | HashData[2]
1012              | 0x00000000 | String offset into .debug_str (terminate data for hash)
1013              |------------|
1014  0x00003550: | 0x00001203 | String offset into .debug_str ("main")
1015              | 0x00000009 | A 32 bit array count - number of HashData with name "main"
1016              | 0x........ | HashData[0]
1017              | 0x........ | HashData[1]
1018              | 0x........ | HashData[2]
1019              | 0x........ | HashData[3]
1020              | 0x........ | HashData[4]
1021              | 0x........ | HashData[5]
1022              | 0x........ | HashData[6]
1023              | 0x........ | HashData[7]
1024              | 0x........ | HashData[8]
1025              | 0x00000000 | String offset into .debug_str (terminate data for hash)
1026              `------------'
1027
1028So we still have all of the same data, we just organize it more efficiently for
1029debugger lookup.  If we repeat the same "``printf``" lookup from above, we
1030would hash "``printf``" and find it matches ``BUCKETS[3]`` by taking the 32 bit
1031hash value and modulo it by ``n_buckets``.  ``BUCKETS[3]`` contains "6" which
1032is the index into the ``HASHES`` table.  We would then compare any consecutive
103332 bit hashes values in the ``HASHES`` array as long as the hashes would be in
1034``BUCKETS[3]``.  We do this by verifying that each subsequent hash value modulo
1035``n_buckets`` is still 3.  In the case of a failed lookup we would access the
1036memory for ``BUCKETS[3]``, and then compare a few consecutive 32 bit hashes
1037before we know that we have no match.  We don't end up marching through
1038multiple words of memory and we really keep the number of processor data cache
1039lines being accessed as small as possible.
1040
1041The string hash that is used for these lookup tables is the Daniel J.
1042Bernstein hash which is also used in the ELF ``GNU_HASH`` sections.  It is a
1043very good hash for all kinds of names in programs with very few hash
1044collisions.
1045
1046Empty buckets are designated by using an invalid hash index of ``UINT32_MAX``.
1047
1048Details
1049^^^^^^^
1050
1051These name hash tables are designed to be generic where specializations of the
1052table get to define additional data that goes into the header ("``HeaderData``"),
1053how the string value is stored ("``KeyType``") and the content of the data for each
1054hash value.
1055
1056Header Layout
1057"""""""""""""
1058
1059The header has a fixed part, and the specialized part.  The exact format of the
1060header is:
1061
1062.. code-block:: c
1063
1064  struct Header
1065  {
1066    uint32_t   magic;           // 'HASH' magic value to allow endian detection
1067    uint16_t   version;         // Version number
1068    uint16_t   hash_function;   // The hash function enumeration that was used
1069    uint32_t   bucket_count;    // The number of buckets in this hash table
1070    uint32_t   hashes_count;    // The total number of unique hash values and hash data offsets in this table
1071    uint32_t   header_data_len; // The bytes to skip to get to the hash indexes (buckets) for correct alignment
1072                                // Specifically the length of the following HeaderData field - this does not
1073                                // include the size of the preceding fields
1074    HeaderData header_data;     // Implementation specific header data
1075  };
1076
1077The header starts with a 32 bit "``magic``" value which must be ``'HASH'``
1078encoded as an ASCII integer.  This allows the detection of the start of the
1079hash table and also allows the table's byte order to be determined so the table
1080can be correctly extracted.  The "``magic``" value is followed by a 16 bit
1081``version`` number which allows the table to be revised and modified in the
1082future.  The current version number is 1. ``hash_function`` is a ``uint16_t``
1083enumeration that specifies which hash function was used to produce this table.
1084The current values for the hash function enumerations include:
1085
1086.. code-block:: c
1087
1088  enum HashFunctionType
1089  {
1090    eHashFunctionDJB = 0u, // Daniel J Bernstein hash function
1091  };
1092
1093``bucket_count`` is a 32 bit unsigned integer that represents how many buckets
1094are in the ``BUCKETS`` array.  ``hashes_count`` is the number of unique 32 bit
1095hash values that are in the ``HASHES`` array, and is the same number of offsets
1096are contained in the ``OFFSETS`` array.  ``header_data_len`` specifies the size
1097in bytes of the ``HeaderData`` that is filled in by specialized versions of
1098this table.
1099
1100Fixed Lookup
1101""""""""""""
1102
1103The header is followed by the buckets, hashes, offsets, and hash value data.
1104
1105.. code-block:: c
1106
1107  struct FixedTable
1108  {
1109    uint32_t buckets[Header.bucket_count];  // An array of hash indexes into the "hashes[]" array below
1110    uint32_t hashes [Header.hashes_count];  // Every unique 32 bit hash for the entire table is in this table
1111    uint32_t offsets[Header.hashes_count];  // An offset that corresponds to each item in the "hashes[]" array above
1112  };
1113
1114``buckets`` is an array of 32 bit indexes into the ``hashes`` array.  The
1115``hashes`` array contains all of the 32 bit hash values for all names in the
1116hash table.  Each hash in the ``hashes`` table has an offset in the ``offsets``
1117array that points to the data for the hash value.
1118
1119This table setup makes it very easy to repurpose these tables to contain
1120different data, while keeping the lookup mechanism the same for all tables.
1121This layout also makes it possible to save the table to disk and map it in
1122later and do very efficient name lookups with little or no parsing.
1123
1124DWARF lookup tables can be implemented in a variety of ways and can store a lot
1125of information for each name.  We want to make the DWARF tables extensible and
1126able to store the data efficiently so we have used some of the DWARF features
1127that enable efficient data storage to define exactly what kind of data we store
1128for each name.
1129
1130The ``HeaderData`` contains a definition of the contents of each HashData chunk.
1131We might want to store an offset to all of the debug information entries (DIEs)
1132for each name.  To keep things extensible, we create a list of items, or
1133Atoms, that are contained in the data for each name.  First comes the type of
1134the data in each atom:
1135
1136.. code-block:: c
1137
1138  enum AtomType
1139  {
1140    eAtomTypeNULL       = 0u,
1141    eAtomTypeDIEOffset  = 1u,   // DIE offset, check form for encoding
1142    eAtomTypeCUOffset   = 2u,   // DIE offset of the compiler unit header that contains the item in question
1143    eAtomTypeTag        = 3u,   // DW_TAG_xxx value, should be encoded as DW_FORM_data1 (if no tags exceed 255) or DW_FORM_data2
1144    eAtomTypeNameFlags  = 4u,   // Flags from enum NameFlags
1145    eAtomTypeTypeFlags  = 5u,   // Flags from enum TypeFlags
1146  };
1147
1148The enumeration values and their meanings are:
1149
1150.. code-block:: none
1151
1152  eAtomTypeNULL       - a termination atom that specifies the end of the atom list
1153  eAtomTypeDIEOffset  - an offset into the .debug_info section for the DWARF DIE for this name
1154  eAtomTypeCUOffset   - an offset into the .debug_info section for the CU that contains the DIE
1155  eAtomTypeDIETag     - The DW_TAG_XXX enumeration value so you don't have to parse the DWARF to see what it is
1156  eAtomTypeNameFlags  - Flags for functions and global variables (isFunction, isInlined, isExternal...)
1157  eAtomTypeTypeFlags  - Flags for types (isCXXClass, isObjCClass, ...)
1158
1159Then we allow each atom type to define the atom type and how the data for each
1160atom type data is encoded:
1161
1162.. code-block:: c
1163
1164  struct Atom
1165  {
1166    uint16_t type;  // AtomType enum value
1167    uint16_t form;  // DWARF DW_FORM_XXX defines
1168  };
1169
1170The ``form`` type above is from the DWARF specification and defines the exact
1171encoding of the data for the Atom type.  See the DWARF specification for the
1172``DW_FORM_`` definitions.
1173
1174.. code-block:: c
1175
1176  struct HeaderData
1177  {
1178    uint32_t die_offset_base;
1179    uint32_t atom_count;
1180    Atoms    atoms[atom_count0];
1181  };
1182
1183``HeaderData`` defines the base DIE offset that should be added to any atoms
1184that are encoded using the ``DW_FORM_ref1``, ``DW_FORM_ref2``,
1185``DW_FORM_ref4``, ``DW_FORM_ref8`` or ``DW_FORM_ref_udata``.  It also defines
1186what is contained in each ``HashData`` object -- ``Atom.form`` tells us how large
1187each field will be in the ``HashData`` and the ``Atom.type`` tells us how this data
1188should be interpreted.
1189
1190For the current implementations of the "``.apple_names``" (all functions +
1191globals), the "``.apple_types``" (names of all types that are defined), and
1192the "``.apple_namespaces``" (all namespaces), we currently set the ``Atom``
1193array to be:
1194
1195.. code-block:: c
1196
1197  HeaderData.atom_count = 1;
1198  HeaderData.atoms[0].type = eAtomTypeDIEOffset;
1199  HeaderData.atoms[0].form = DW_FORM_data4;
1200
1201This defines the contents to be the DIE offset (eAtomTypeDIEOffset) that is
1202encoded as a 32 bit value (DW_FORM_data4).  This allows a single name to have
1203multiple matching DIEs in a single file, which could come up with an inlined
1204function for instance.  Future tables could include more information about the
1205DIE such as flags indicating if the DIE is a function, method, block,
1206or inlined.
1207
1208The KeyType for the DWARF table is a 32 bit string table offset into the
1209".debug_str" table.  The ".debug_str" is the string table for the DWARF which
1210may already contain copies of all of the strings.  This helps make sure, with
1211help from the compiler, that we reuse the strings between all of the DWARF
1212sections and keeps the hash table size down.  Another benefit to having the
1213compiler generate all strings as DW_FORM_strp in the debug info, is that
1214DWARF parsing can be made much faster.
1215
1216After a lookup is made, we get an offset into the hash data.  The hash data
1217needs to be able to deal with 32 bit hash collisions, so the chunk of data
1218at the offset in the hash data consists of a triple:
1219
1220.. code-block:: c
1221
1222  uint32_t str_offset
1223  uint32_t hash_data_count
1224  HashData[hash_data_count]
1225
1226If "str_offset" is zero, then the bucket contents are done. 99.9% of the
1227hash data chunks contain a single item (no 32 bit hash collision):
1228
1229.. code-block:: none
1230
1231  .------------.
1232  | 0x00001023 | uint32_t KeyType (.debug_str[0x0001023] => "main")
1233  | 0x00000004 | uint32_t HashData count
1234  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[0] DIE offset
1235  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[1] DIE offset
1236  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[2] DIE offset
1237  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[3] DIE offset
1238  | 0x00000000 | uint32_t KeyType (end of hash chain)
1239  `------------'
1240
1241If there are collisions, you will have multiple valid string offsets:
1242
1243.. code-block:: none
1244
1245  .------------.
1246  | 0x00001023 | uint32_t KeyType (.debug_str[0x0001023] => "main")
1247  | 0x00000004 | uint32_t HashData count
1248  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[0] DIE offset
1249  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[1] DIE offset
1250  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[2] DIE offset
1251  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[3] DIE offset
1252  | 0x00002023 | uint32_t KeyType (.debug_str[0x0002023] => "print")
1253  | 0x00000002 | uint32_t HashData count
1254  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[0] DIE offset
1255  | 0x........ | uint32_t HashData[1] DIE offset
1256  | 0x00000000 | uint32_t KeyType (end of hash chain)
1257  `------------'
1258
1259Current testing with real world C++ binaries has shown that there is around 1
126032 bit hash collision per 100,000 name entries.
1261
1262Contents
1263^^^^^^^^
1264
1265As we said, we want to strictly define exactly what is included in the
1266different tables.  For DWARF, we have 3 tables: "``.apple_names``",
1267"``.apple_types``", and "``.apple_namespaces``".
1268
1269"``.apple_names``" sections should contain an entry for each DWARF DIE whose
1270``DW_TAG`` is a ``DW_TAG_label``, ``DW_TAG_inlined_subroutine``, or
1271``DW_TAG_subprogram`` that has address attributes: ``DW_AT_low_pc``,
1272``DW_AT_high_pc``, ``DW_AT_ranges`` or ``DW_AT_entry_pc``.  It also contains
1273``DW_TAG_variable`` DIEs that have a ``DW_OP_addr`` in the location (global and
1274static variables).  All global and static variables should be included,
1275including those scoped within functions and classes.  For example using the
1276following code:
1277
1278.. code-block:: c
1279
1280  static int var = 0;
1281
1282  void f ()
1283  {
1284    static int var = 0;
1285  }
1286
1287Both of the static ``var`` variables would be included in the table.  All
1288functions should emit both their full names and their basenames.  For C or C++,
1289the full name is the mangled name (if available) which is usually in the
1290``DW_AT_MIPS_linkage_name`` attribute, and the ``DW_AT_name`` contains the
1291function basename.  If global or static variables have a mangled name in a
1292``DW_AT_MIPS_linkage_name`` attribute, this should be emitted along with the
1293simple name found in the ``DW_AT_name`` attribute.
1294
1295"``.apple_types``" sections should contain an entry for each DWARF DIE whose
1296tag is one of:
1297
1298* DW_TAG_array_type
1299* DW_TAG_class_type
1300* DW_TAG_enumeration_type
1301* DW_TAG_pointer_type
1302* DW_TAG_reference_type
1303* DW_TAG_string_type
1304* DW_TAG_structure_type
1305* DW_TAG_subroutine_type
1306* DW_TAG_typedef
1307* DW_TAG_union_type
1308* DW_TAG_ptr_to_member_type
1309* DW_TAG_set_type
1310* DW_TAG_subrange_type
1311* DW_TAG_base_type
1312* DW_TAG_const_type
1313* DW_TAG_file_type
1314* DW_TAG_namelist
1315* DW_TAG_packed_type
1316* DW_TAG_volatile_type
1317* DW_TAG_restrict_type
1318* DW_TAG_atomic_type
1319* DW_TAG_interface_type
1320* DW_TAG_unspecified_type
1321* DW_TAG_shared_type
1322
1323Only entries with a ``DW_AT_name`` attribute are included, and the entry must
1324not be a forward declaration (``DW_AT_declaration`` attribute with a non-zero
1325value).  For example, using the following code:
1326
1327.. code-block:: c
1328
1329  int main ()
1330  {
1331    int *b = 0;
1332    return *b;
1333  }
1334
1335We get a few type DIEs:
1336
1337.. code-block:: none
1338
1339  0x00000067:     TAG_base_type [5]
1340                  AT_encoding( DW_ATE_signed )
1341                  AT_name( "int" )
1342                  AT_byte_size( 0x04 )
1343
1344  0x0000006e:     TAG_pointer_type [6]
1345                  AT_type( {0x00000067} ( int ) )
1346                  AT_byte_size( 0x08 )
1347
1348The DW_TAG_pointer_type is not included because it does not have a ``DW_AT_name``.
1349
1350"``.apple_namespaces``" section should contain all ``DW_TAG_namespace`` DIEs.
1351If we run into a namespace that has no name this is an anonymous namespace, and
1352the name should be output as "``(anonymous namespace)``" (without the quotes).
1353Why?  This matches the output of the ``abi::cxa_demangle()`` that is in the
1354standard C++ library that demangles mangled names.
1355
1356
1357Language Extensions and File Format Changes
1358^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1359
1360Objective-C Extensions
1361""""""""""""""""""""""
1362
1363"``.apple_objc``" section should contain all ``DW_TAG_subprogram`` DIEs for an
1364Objective-C class.  The name used in the hash table is the name of the
1365Objective-C class itself.  If the Objective-C class has a category, then an
1366entry is made for both the class name without the category, and for the class
1367name with the category.  So if we have a DIE at offset 0x1234 with a name of
1368method "``-[NSString(my_additions) stringWithSpecialString:]``", we would add
1369an entry for "``NSString``" that points to DIE 0x1234, and an entry for
1370"``NSString(my_additions)``" that points to 0x1234.  This allows us to quickly
1371track down all Objective-C methods for an Objective-C class when doing
1372expressions.  It is needed because of the dynamic nature of Objective-C where
1373anyone can add methods to a class.  The DWARF for Objective-C methods is also
1374emitted differently from C++ classes where the methods are not usually
1375contained in the class definition, they are scattered about across one or more
1376compile units.  Categories can also be defined in different shared libraries.
1377So we need to be able to quickly find all of the methods and class functions
1378given the Objective-C class name, or quickly find all methods and class
1379functions for a class + category name.  This table does not contain any
1380selector names, it just maps Objective-C class names (or class names +
1381category) to all of the methods and class functions.  The selectors are added
1382as function basenames in the "``.debug_names``" section.
1383
1384In the "``.apple_names``" section for Objective-C functions, the full name is
1385the entire function name with the brackets ("``-[NSString
1386stringWithCString:]``") and the basename is the selector only
1387("``stringWithCString:``").
1388
1389Mach-O Changes
1390""""""""""""""
1391
1392The sections names for the apple hash tables are for non-mach-o files.  For
1393mach-o files, the sections should be contained in the ``__DWARF`` segment with
1394names as follows:
1395
1396* "``.apple_names``" -> "``__apple_names``"
1397* "``.apple_types``" -> "``__apple_types``"
1398* "``.apple_namespaces``" -> "``__apple_namespac``" (16 character limit)
1399* "``.apple_objc``" -> "``__apple_objc``"
1400
1401.. _codeview:
1402
1403CodeView Debug Info Format
1404==========================
1405
1406LLVM supports emitting CodeView, the Microsoft debug info format, and this
1407section describes the design and implementation of that support.
1408
1409Format Background
1410-----------------
1411
1412CodeView as a format is clearly oriented around C++ debugging, and in C++, the
1413majority of debug information tends to be type information. Therefore, the
1414overriding design constraint of CodeView is the separation of type information
1415from other "symbol" information so that type information can be efficiently
1416merged across translation units. Both type information and symbol information is
1417generally stored as a sequence of records, where each record begins with a
141816-bit record size and a 16-bit record kind.
1419
1420Type information is usually stored in the ``.debug$T`` section of the object
1421file.  All other debug info, such as line info, string table, symbol info, and
1422inlinee info, is stored in one or more ``.debug$S`` sections. There may only be
1423one ``.debug$T`` section per object file, since all other debug info refers to
1424it. If a PDB (enabled by the ``/Zi`` MSVC option) was used during compilation,
1425the ``.debug$T`` section will contain only an ``LF_TYPESERVER2`` record pointing
1426to the PDB. When using PDBs, symbol information appears to remain in the object
1427file ``.debug$S`` sections.
1428
1429Type records are referred to by their index, which is the number of records in
1430the stream before a given record plus ``0x1000``. Many common basic types, such
1431as the basic integral types and unqualified pointers to them, are represented
1432using type indices less than ``0x1000``. Such basic types are built in to
1433CodeView consumers and do not require type records.
1434
1435Each type record may only contain type indices that are less than its own type
1436index. This ensures that the graph of type stream references is acyclic. While
1437the source-level type graph may contain cycles through pointer types (consider a
1438linked list struct), these cycles are removed from the type stream by always
1439referring to the forward declaration record of user-defined record types. Only
1440"symbol" records in the ``.debug$S`` streams may refer to complete,
1441non-forward-declaration type records.
1442
1443Working with CodeView
1444---------------------
1445
1446These are instructions for some common tasks for developers working to improve
1447LLVM's CodeView support. Most of them revolve around using the CodeView dumper
1448embedded in ``llvm-readobj``.
1449
1450* Testing MSVC's output::
1451
1452    $ cl -c -Z7 foo.cpp # Use /Z7 to keep types in the object file
1453    $ llvm-readobj -codeview foo.obj
1454
1455* Getting LLVM IR debug info out of Clang::
1456
1457    $ clang -g -gcodeview --target=x86_64-windows-msvc foo.cpp -S -emit-llvm
1458
1459  Use this to generate LLVM IR for LLVM test cases.
1460
1461* Generate and dump CodeView from LLVM IR metadata::
1462
1463    $ llc foo.ll -filetype=obj -o foo.obj
1464    $ llvm-readobj -codeview foo.obj > foo.txt
1465
1466  Use this pattern in lit test cases and FileCheck the output of llvm-readobj
1467
1468Improving LLVM's CodeView support is a process of finding interesting type
1469records, constructing a C++ test case that makes MSVC emit those records,
1470dumping the records, understanding them, and then generating equivalent records
1471in LLVM's backend.
1472
1473Testing Debug Info Preservation in Optimizations
1474================================================
1475
1476The following paragraphs are an introduction to the debugify utility
1477and examples of how to use it in regression tests to check debug info
1478preservation after optimizations.
1479
1480The ``debugify`` utility
1481------------------------
1482
1483The ``debugify`` synthetic debug info testing utility consists of two
1484main parts. The ``debugify`` pass and the ``check-debugify`` one. They are
1485meant to be used with ``opt`` for development purposes.
1486
1487The first applies synthetic debug information to every instruction of the module,
1488while the latter checks that this DI is still available after an optimization
1489has occurred, reporting any errors/warnings while doing so.
1490
1491The instructions are assigned sequentially increasing line locations,
1492and are immediately used by debug value intrinsics when possible.
1493
1494For example, here is a module before:
1495
1496.. code-block:: llvm
1497
1498   define dso_local void @f(i32* %x) {
1499   entry:
1500     %x.addr = alloca i32*, align 8
1501     store i32* %x, i32** %x.addr, align 8
1502     %0 = load i32*, i32** %x.addr, align 8
1503     store i32 10, i32* %0, align 4
1504     ret void
1505   }
1506
1507and after running ``opt -debugify``  on it we get:
1508
1509.. code-block:: llvm
1510
1511   define dso_local void @f(i32* %x) !dbg !6 {
1512   entry:
1513     %x.addr = alloca i32*, align 8, !dbg !12
1514     call void @llvm.dbg.value(metadata i32** %x.addr, metadata !9, metadata !DIExpression()), !dbg !12
1515     store i32* %x, i32** %x.addr, align 8, !dbg !13
1516     %0 = load i32*, i32** %x.addr, align 8, !dbg !14
1517     call void @llvm.dbg.value(metadata i32* %0, metadata !11, metadata !DIExpression()), !dbg !14
1518     store i32 10, i32* %0, align 4, !dbg !15
1519     ret void, !dbg !16
1520   }
1521
1522   !llvm.dbg.cu = !{!0}
1523   !llvm.debugify = !{!3, !4}
1524   !llvm.module.flags = !{!5}
1525
1526   !0 = distinct !DICompileUnit(language: DW_LANG_C, file: !1, producer: "debugify", isOptimized: true, runtimeVersion: 0, emissionKind: FullDebug, enums: !2)
1527   !1 = !DIFile(filename: "debugify-sample.ll", directory: "/")
1528   !2 = !{}
1529   !3 = !{i32 5}
1530   !4 = !{i32 2}
1531   !5 = !{i32 2, !"Debug Info Version", i32 3}
1532   !6 = distinct !DISubprogram(name: "f", linkageName: "f", scope: null, file: !1, line: 1, type: !7, isLocal: false, isDefinition: true, scopeLine: 1, isOptimized: true, unit: !0, retainedNodes: !8)
1533   !7 = !DISubroutineType(types: !2)
1534   !8 = !{!9, !11}
1535   !9 = !DILocalVariable(name: "1", scope: !6, file: !1, line: 1, type: !10)
1536   !10 = !DIBasicType(name: "ty64", size: 64, encoding: DW_ATE_unsigned)
1537   !11 = !DILocalVariable(name: "2", scope: !6, file: !1, line: 3, type: !10)
1538   !12 = !DILocation(line: 1, column: 1, scope: !6)
1539   !13 = !DILocation(line: 2, column: 1, scope: !6)
1540   !14 = !DILocation(line: 3, column: 1, scope: !6)
1541   !15 = !DILocation(line: 4, column: 1, scope: !6)
1542   !16 = !DILocation(line: 5, column: 1, scope: !6)
1543
1544The following is an example of the -check-debugify output:
1545
1546.. code-block:: none
1547
1548   $ opt -enable-debugify -loop-vectorize llvm/test/Transforms/LoopVectorize/i8-induction.ll -disable-output
1549   ERROR: Instruction with empty DebugLoc in function f --  %index = phi i32 [ 0, %vector.ph ], [ %index.next, %vector.body ]
1550
1551Errors/warnings can range from instructions with empty debug location to an
1552instruction having a type that's incompatible with the source variable it describes,
1553all the way to missing lines and missing debug value intrinsics.
1554
1555Fixing errors
1556^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1557
1558Each of the errors above has a relevant API available to fix it.
1559
1560* In the case of missing debug location, ``Instruction::setDebugLoc`` or possibly
1561  ``IRBuilder::setCurrentDebugLocation`` when using a Builder and the new location
1562  should be reused.
1563
1564* When a debug value has incompatible type ``llvm::replaceAllDbgUsesWith`` can be used.
1565  After a RAUW call an incompatible type error can occur because RAUW does not handle
1566  widening and narrowing of variables while ``llvm::replaceAllDbgUsesWith`` does. It is
1567  also capable of changing the DWARF expression used by the debugger to describe the variable.
1568  It also prevents use-before-def by salvaging or deleting invalid debug values.
1569
1570* When a debug value is missing ``llvm::salvageDebugInfo`` can be used when no replacement
1571  exists, or ``llvm::replaceAllDbgUsesWith`` when a replacement exists.
1572
1573Using ``debugify``
1574------------------
1575
1576In order for ``check-debugify`` to work, the DI must be coming from
1577``debugify``. Thus, modules with existing DI will be skipped.
1578
1579The most straightforward way to use ``debugify`` is as follows::
1580
1581  $ opt -debugify -pass-to-test -check-debugify sample.ll
1582
1583This will inject synthetic DI to ``sample.ll`` run the ``pass-to-test``
1584and then check for missing DI.
1585
1586Some other ways to run debugify are avaliable:
1587
1588.. code-block:: bash
1589
1590   # Same as the above example.
1591   $ opt -enable-debugify -pass-to-test sample.ll
1592
1593   # Suppresses verbose debugify output.
1594   $ opt -enable-debugify -debugify-quiet -pass-to-test sample.ll
1595
1596   # Prepend -debugify before and append -check-debugify -strip after
1597   # each pass on the pipeline (similar to -verify-each).
1598   $ opt -debugify-each -O2 sample.ll
1599
1600``debugify`` can also be used to test a backend, e.g:
1601
1602.. code-block:: bash
1603
1604   $ opt -debugify < sample.ll | llc -o -
1605
1606``debugify`` in regression tests
1607^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1608
1609The ``-debugify`` pass is especially helpful when it comes to testing that
1610a given pass preserves DI while transforming the module. For this to work,
1611the ``-debugify`` output must be stable enough to use in regression tests.
1612Changes to this pass are not allowed to break existing tests.
1613
1614It allows us to test for DI loss in the same tests we check that the
1615transformation is actually doing what it should.
1616
1617Here is an example from ``test/Transforms/InstCombine/cast-mul-select.ll``:
1618
1619.. code-block:: llvm
1620
1621   ; RUN: opt < %s -debugify -instcombine -S | FileCheck %s --check-prefix=DEBUGINFO
1622
1623   define i32 @mul(i32 %x, i32 %y) {
1624   ; DBGINFO-LABEL: @mul(
1625   ; DBGINFO-NEXT:    [[C:%.*]] = mul i32 {{.*}}
1626   ; DBGINFO-NEXT:    call void @llvm.dbg.value(metadata i32 [[C]]
1627   ; DBGINFO-NEXT:    [[D:%.*]] = and i32 {{.*}}
1628   ; DBGINFO-NEXT:    call void @llvm.dbg.value(metadata i32 [[D]]
1629
1630     %A = trunc i32 %x to i8
1631     %B = trunc i32 %y to i8
1632     %C = mul i8 %A, %B
1633     %D = zext i8 %C to i32
1634     ret i32 %D
1635   }
1636
1637Here we test that the two ``dbg.value`` instrinsics are preserved and
1638are correctly pointing to the ``[[C]]`` and ``[[D]]`` variables.
1639
1640.. note::
1641
1642   Note, that when writing this kind of regression tests, it is important
1643   to make them as robust as possible. That's why we should try to avoid
1644   hardcoding line/variable numbers in check lines. If for example you test
1645   for a ``DILocation`` to have a specific line number, and someone later adds
1646   an instruction before the one we check the test will fail. In the cases this
1647   can't be avoided (say, if a test wouldn't be precise enough), moving the
1648   test to it's own file is preferred.
1649