On a target with a 16-bit mask (for example), we would choose the type
of an integer literal "1024" to be an int16. Previously, we used an int32,
which is a worse fit and leads to less efficient code than an int16
on a 16-bit mask target. (However, we'd still give an integer literal
1000000 the type int32, even in a 16-bit target.)
Updated the tests to still pass with 8 and 16-bit targets, given this
change.
Initial support for ARM NEON on Cortex-A9 and A15 CPUs. All but ~10 tests
pass, and all examples compile and run correctly. Most of the examples
show a ~2x speedup on a single A15 core versus scalar code.
Current open issues/TODOs
- Code quality looks decent, but hasn't been carefully examined. Known
issues/opportunities for improvement include:
- fp32 vector divide is done as a series of scalar divides rather than
a vector divide (which I believe exists, but I may be mistaken.)
This is particularly harmful to examples/rt, which only runs ~1.5x
faster with ispc, likely due to long chains of scalar divides.
- The compiler isn't generating a vmin.f32 for e.g. the final scalar
min in reduce_min(); instead it's generating a compare and then a
select instruction (and similarly elsewhere).
- There are some additional FIXMEs in builtins/target-neon.ll that
include both a few pieces of missing functionality (e.g. rounding
doubles) as well as places that deserve attention for possible
code quality improvements.
- Currently only the "cortex-a9" and "cortex-15" CPU targets are
supported; LLVM supports many other ARM CPUs and ispc should provide
access to all of the ones that have NEON support (and aren't too
obscure.)
- ~5 of the reduce-* tests hit an assertion inside LLVM (unfortunately
only when the compiler runs on an ARM host, though).
- The Windows build hasn't been tested (though I've tried to update
ispc.vcxproj appropriately). It may just work, but will more likely
have various small issues.)
- Anything related to 64-bit ARM has seen no attention.
All temporary files are stored in tmp* directories, including generic targets
Generic target are handled correctly on Windows now (still fail for different reasons)
Allow to run from the build directory even if it is not on the path
properly decode subprocess stdout/stderr as UTF-8
Added newlines that were mistakenly left out of print->sys.stdout.wriote() conversion in previous CL
Python 3:
- fixed error message comparison
- explicit list creation
Windows:
- forward/back slash annoyances
- added stdint.h with definitions for int32_t, int64_t
- compile_error_files and run_error_files were being appended to improperly
Disconcertingly, this seems to fix some gcc-only crashes with the
generic-16 target (specifically, for half.ispc and for goto-[23].ispc--
those tests run fine with other compilers with generic-16.)
Add support for the generic targets (using the headers in examples/intrinsics
if none is provided.)
Provide option to run valgrind on the compiled code.
Print a list of all failing tests at the end.
Allow <, <=, >, >= comparisons of pointers
Allow explicit type-casting of pointers to and from integers
Fix bug in handling expressions of the form "int + ptr" ("ptr + int"
was fine).
Fix a bug in TypeCastExpr where varying -> uniform typecasts
would be allowed (leading to a crash later)
Pointers can be either uniform or varying, and behave correspondingly.
e.g.: "uniform float * varying" is a varying pointer to uniform float
data in memory, and "float * uniform" is a uniform pointer to varying
data in memory. Like other types, pointers are varying by default.
Pointer-based expressions, & and *, sizeof, ->, pointer arithmetic,
and the array/pointer duality all bahave as in C. Array arguments
to functions are converted to pointers, also like C.
There is a built-in NULL for a null pointer value; conversion from
compile-time constant 0 values to NULL still needs to be implemented.
Other changes:
- Syntax for references has been updated to be C++ style; a useful
warning is now issued if the "reference" keyword is used.
- It is now illegal to pass a varying lvalue as a reference parameter
to a function; references are essentially uniform pointers.
This case had previously been handled via special case call by value
return code. That path has been removed, now that varying pointers
are available to handle this use case (and much more).
- Some stdlib routines have been updated to take pointers as
arguments where appropriate (e.g. prefetch and the atomics).
A number of others still need attention.
- All of the examples have been updated
- Many new tests
TODO: documentation
If a flag along the lines of "--target=sse4,avx-x2" is provided on the command-line,
then the program will be compiled for each of the given targets, with a separate
output file generated for each one. Further, an output file with dispatch functions
that check the current system's CPU and then chooses the best available variant
is also created.
Issue #11.
