Re: [PATCH v2 02/10] target/hexagon: import README for idef-parser

[Richard Henderson <richard.henderson@linaro.org>]

On 2/25/21 7:18 AM, Alessandro Di Federico wrote:
> +Now let's have a quick look at the generated code, line by line.
> +
> +::
> +
> +   tcg_gen_movi_i32(RdV, 0);
> +
> +This code starts by initializing ``RdV``, since reading from that register
> +without initialization will cause a segmentation fault by QEMU.  This is emitted
> +because a declaration of the ``RdV`` register was parsed, but no reading of the
> +``RdV`` register was found.

This is odd, as is the description of why.  Yes, if RdV is read without
initialization, TCG middle-end will abort (at least with --enable-debug-tcg
enabling the assertions).  But you've just said that "no reading" was found.
So why did you perform this dummy initialization, which will be eliminated later?


> +Another example that highlight the limitation of the flex/bison parser can be
> +found even in the add operation we already saw:
> +
> +::
> +
> +   TCGv_i32 tmp_0 = tcg_temp_new_i32();
> +   tcg_gen_add_i32(tmp_0, RsV, RtV);
> +   tcg_gen_mov_i32(RdV, tmp_0);
> +
> +The fact that we cannot directly use ``RdV`` as the destination of the sum is a
> +consequence of the syntax-driven nature of the parser. In fact when we parse the
> +assignment, the ``rvalue`` token, representing the sum has already been reduced,
> +and thus its code emitted and unchangeable. We rely on the fact that QEMU will
> +optimize our code reducing the useless move operations and the relative
> +temporaries.

So, I take it from this that you're emitting tcg directly from within the
parser, and not generating any kind of abstract syntax tree?

A little disappointing, but not critical.  Even what you have is an improvement.

> +A more radical improvement will use the parser, not to generate directly the
> +tinycode generator code, but to generate an intermediate representation like the
> +LLVM IR, which in turn could be compiled using the clang TCG backend.

I sincerely doubt this is worth it.


r~