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1FileCheck - Flexible pattern matching file verifier
2===================================================
3
4
5SYNOPSIS
6--------
7
8
9**FileCheck** *match-filename* [*--check-prefix=XXX*] [*--strict-whitespace*]
10
11
12DESCRIPTION
13-----------
14
15
16**FileCheck** reads two files (one from standard input, and one specified on the
17command line) and uses one to verify the other.  This behavior is particularly
18useful for the testsuite, which wants to verify that the output of some tool
19(e.g. llc) contains the expected information (for example, a movsd from esp or
20whatever is interesting).  This is similar to using grep, but it is optimized
21for matching multiple different inputs in one file in a specific order.
22
23The *match-filename* file specifies the file that contains the patterns to
24match.  The file to verify is always read from standard input.
25
26
27OPTIONS
28-------
29
30
31
32**-help**
33
34 Print a summary of command line options.
35
36
37
38**--check-prefix** *prefix*
39
40 FileCheck searches the contents of *match-filename* for patterns to match.  By
41 default, these patterns are prefixed with "CHECK:".  If you'd like to use a
42 different prefix (e.g. because the same input file is checking multiple
43 different tool or options), the **--check-prefix** argument allows you to specify
44 a specific prefix to match.
45
46
47
48**--strict-whitespace**
49
50 By default, FileCheck canonicalizes input horizontal whitespace (spaces and
51 tabs) which causes it to ignore these differences (a space will match a tab).
52 The --strict-whitespace argument disables this behavior.
53
54
55
56**-version**
57
58 Show the version number of this program.
59
60
61
62
63EXIT STATUS
64-----------
65
66
67If **FileCheck** verifies that the file matches the expected contents, it exits
68with 0.  Otherwise, if not, or if an error occurs, it will exit with a non-zero
69value.
70
71
72TUTORIAL
73--------
74
75
76FileCheck is typically used from LLVM regression tests, being invoked on the RUN
77line of the test.  A simple example of using FileCheck from a RUN line looks
78like this:
79
80
81.. code-block:: llvm
82
83   ; RUN: llvm-as < %s | llc -march=x86-64 | FileCheck %s
84
85
86This syntax says to pipe the current file ("%s") into llvm-as, pipe that into
87llc, then pipe the output of llc into FileCheck.  This means that FileCheck will
88be verifying its standard input (the llc output) against the filename argument
89specified (the original .ll file specified by "%s").  To see how this works,
90let's look at the rest of the .ll file (after the RUN line):
91
92
93.. code-block:: llvm
94
95   define void @sub1(i32* %p, i32 %v) {
96   entry:
97   ; CHECK: sub1:
98   ; CHECK: subl
99           %0 = tail call i32 @llvm.atomic.load.sub.i32.p0i32(i32* %p, i32 %v)
100           ret void
101   }
102
103   define void @inc4(i64* %p) {
104   entry:
105   ; CHECK: inc4:
106   ; CHECK: incq
107           %0 = tail call i64 @llvm.atomic.load.add.i64.p0i64(i64* %p, i64 1)
108           ret void
109   }
110
111
112Here you can see some "CHECK:" lines specified in comments.  Now you can see
113how the file is piped into llvm-as, then llc, and the machine code output is
114what we are verifying.  FileCheck checks the machine code output to verify that
115it matches what the "CHECK:" lines specify.
116
117The syntax of the CHECK: lines is very simple: they are fixed strings that
118must occur in order.  FileCheck defaults to ignoring horizontal whitespace
119differences (e.g. a space is allowed to match a tab) but otherwise, the contents
120of the CHECK: line is required to match some thing in the test file exactly.
121
122One nice thing about FileCheck (compared to grep) is that it allows merging
123test cases together into logical groups.  For example, because the test above
124is checking for the "sub1:" and "inc4:" labels, it will not match unless there
125is a "subl" in between those labels.  If it existed somewhere else in the file,
126that would not count: "grep subl" matches if subl exists anywhere in the
127file.
128
129The FileCheck -check-prefix option
130~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
131
132
133The FileCheck -check-prefix option allows multiple test configurations to be
134driven from one .ll file.  This is useful in many circumstances, for example,
135testing different architectural variants with llc.  Here's a simple example:
136
137
138.. code-block:: llvm
139
140   ; RUN: llvm-as < %s | llc -mtriple=i686-apple-darwin9 -mattr=sse41 \
141   ; RUN:              | FileCheck %s -check-prefix=X32
142   ; RUN: llvm-as < %s | llc -mtriple=x86_64-apple-darwin9 -mattr=sse41 \
143   ; RUN:              | FileCheck %s -check-prefix=X64
144
145   define <4 x i32> @pinsrd_1(i32 %s, <4 x i32> %tmp) nounwind {
146           %tmp1 = insertelement <4 x i32>; %tmp, i32 %s, i32 1
147           ret <4 x i32> %tmp1
148   ; X32: pinsrd_1:
149   ; X32:    pinsrd $1, 4(%esp), %xmm0
150
151   ; X64: pinsrd_1:
152   ; X64:    pinsrd $1, %edi, %xmm0
153   }
154
155
156In this case, we're testing that we get the expected code generation with
157both 32-bit and 64-bit code generation.
158
159
160The "CHECK-NEXT:" directive
161~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
162
163
164Sometimes you want to match lines and would like to verify that matches
165happen on exactly consecutive lines with no other lines in between them.  In
166this case, you can use CHECK: and CHECK-NEXT: directives to specify this.  If
167you specified a custom check prefix, just use "<PREFIX>-NEXT:".  For
168example, something like this works as you'd expect:
169
170
171.. code-block:: llvm
172
173   define void @t2(<2 x double>* %r, <2 x double>* %A, double %B) {
174 	%tmp3 = load <2 x double>* %A, align 16
175 	%tmp7 = insertelement <2 x double> undef, double %B, i32 0
176 	%tmp9 = shufflevector <2 x double> %tmp3,
177                               <2 x double> %tmp7,
178                               <2 x i32> < i32 0, i32 2 >
179 	store <2 x double> %tmp9, <2 x double>* %r, align 16
180 	ret void
181
182   ; CHECK:          t2:
183   ; CHECK: 	        movl	8(%esp), %eax
184   ; CHECK-NEXT: 	movapd	(%eax), %xmm0
185   ; CHECK-NEXT: 	movhpd	12(%esp), %xmm0
186   ; CHECK-NEXT: 	movl	4(%esp), %eax
187   ; CHECK-NEXT: 	movapd	%xmm0, (%eax)
188   ; CHECK-NEXT: 	ret
189   }
190
191
192CHECK-NEXT: directives reject the input unless there is exactly one newline
193between it an the previous directive.  A CHECK-NEXT cannot be the first
194directive in a file.
195
196
197The "CHECK-NOT:" directive
198~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
199
200
201The CHECK-NOT: directive is used to verify that a string doesn't occur
202between two matches (or before the first match, or after the last match).  For
203example, to verify that a load is removed by a transformation, a test like this
204can be used:
205
206
207.. code-block:: llvm
208
209   define i8 @coerce_offset0(i32 %V, i32* %P) {
210     store i32 %V, i32* %P
211
212     %P2 = bitcast i32* %P to i8*
213     %P3 = getelementptr i8* %P2, i32 2
214
215     %A = load i8* %P3
216     ret i8 %A
217   ; CHECK: @coerce_offset0
218   ; CHECK-NOT: load
219   ; CHECK: ret i8
220   }
221
222
223
224FileCheck Pattern Matching Syntax
225~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
226
227
228The CHECK: and CHECK-NOT: directives both take a pattern to match.  For most
229uses of FileCheck, fixed string matching is perfectly sufficient.  For some
230things, a more flexible form of matching is desired.  To support this, FileCheck
231allows you to specify regular expressions in matching strings, surrounded by
232double braces: **{{yourregex}}**.  Because we want to use fixed string
233matching for a majority of what we do, FileCheck has been designed to support
234mixing and matching fixed string matching with regular expressions.  This allows
235you to write things like this:
236
237
238.. code-block:: llvm
239
240   ; CHECK: movhpd	{{[0-9]+}}(%esp), {{%xmm[0-7]}}
241
242
243In this case, any offset from the ESP register will be allowed, and any xmm
244register will be allowed.
245
246Because regular expressions are enclosed with double braces, they are
247visually distinct, and you don't need to use escape characters within the double
248braces like you would in C.  In the rare case that you want to match double
249braces explicitly from the input, you can use something ugly like
250**{{[{][{]}}** as your pattern.
251
252
253FileCheck Variables
254~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
255
256
257It is often useful to match a pattern and then verify that it occurs again
258later in the file.  For codegen tests, this can be useful to allow any register,
259but verify that that register is used consistently later.  To do this, FileCheck
260allows named variables to be defined and substituted into patterns.  Here is a
261simple example:
262
263
264.. code-block:: llvm
265
266   ; CHECK: test5:
267   ; CHECK:    notw	[[REGISTER:%[a-z]+]]
268   ; CHECK:    andw	{{.*}}[[REGISTER]]
269
270
271The first check line matches a regex (**%[a-z]+**) and captures it into
272the variable "REGISTER".  The second line verifies that whatever is in REGISTER
273occurs later in the file after an "andw".  FileCheck variable references are
274always contained in **[[ ]]** pairs, are named, and their names can be
275name, then it is a definition of the variable, if not, it is a use.
276
277FileCheck variables can be defined multiple times, and uses always get the
278latest value.  Note that variables are all read at the start of a "CHECK" line
279and are all defined at the end.  This means that if you have something like
280"**CHECK: [[XYZ:.\\*]]x[[XYZ]]**", the check line will read the previous
281value of the XYZ variable and define a new one after the match is performed.  If
282you need to do something like this you can probably take advantage of the fact
283that FileCheck is not actually line-oriented when it matches, this allows you to
284define two separate CHECK lines that match on the same line.
285