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2 Building a JIT: Starting out with KaleidoscopeJIT
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11 **Warning: This tutorial is currently being updated to account for ORC API
12 changes. Only Chapters 1 and 2 are up-to-date.**
14 **Example code from Chapters 3 to 5 will compile and run, but has not been
17 Welcome to Chapter 1 of the "Building an ORC-based JIT in LLVM" tutorial. This
18 tutorial runs through the implementation of a JIT compiler using LLVM's
19 On-Request-Compilation (ORC) APIs. It begins with a simplified version of the
20 KaleidoscopeJIT class used in the
21 `Implementing a language with LLVM <LangImpl01.html>`_ tutorials and then
22 introduces new features like concurrent compilation, optimization, lazy
23 compilation and remote execution.
25 The goal of this tutorial is to introduce you to LLVM's ORC JIT APIs, show how
26 these APIs interact with other parts of LLVM, and to teach you how to recombine
27 them to build a custom JIT that is suited to your use-case.
29 The structure of the tutorial is:
31 - Chapter #1: Investigate the simple KaleidoscopeJIT class. This will
32 introduce some of the basic concepts of the ORC JIT APIs, including the
33 idea of an ORC *Layer*.
35 - `Chapter #2 <BuildingAJIT2.html>`_: Extend the basic KaleidoscopeJIT by adding
36 a new layer that will optimize IR and generated code.
38 - `Chapter #3 <BuildingAJIT3.html>`_: Further extend the JIT by adding a
39 Compile-On-Demand layer to lazily compile IR.
41 - `Chapter #4 <BuildingAJIT4.html>`_: Improve the laziness of our JIT by
42 replacing the Compile-On-Demand layer with a custom layer that uses the ORC
43 Compile Callbacks API directly to defer IR-generation until functions are
46 - `Chapter #5 <BuildingAJIT5.html>`_: Add process isolation by JITing code into
47 a remote process with reduced privileges using the JIT Remote APIs.
49 To provide input for our JIT we will use a lightly modified version of the
50 Kaleidoscope REPL from `Chapter 7 <LangImpl07.html>`_ of the "Implementing a
51 language in LLVM tutorial".
53 Finally, a word on API generations: ORC is the 3rd generation of LLVM JIT API.
54 It was preceded by MCJIT, and before that by the (now deleted) legacy JIT.
55 These tutorials don't assume any experience with these earlier APIs, but
56 readers acquainted with them will see many familiar elements. Where appropriate
57 we will make this connection with the earlier APIs explicit to help people who
58 are transitioning from them to ORC.
63 The purpose of a JIT compiler is to compile code "on-the-fly" as it is needed,
64 rather than compiling whole programs to disk ahead of time as a traditional
65 compiler does. To support that aim our initial, bare-bones JIT API will have
68 1. ``Error addModule(std::unique_ptr<Module> M)``: Make the given IR module
69 available for execution.
70 2. ``Expected<JITEvaluatedSymbol> lookup()``: Search for pointers to
71 symbols (functions or variables) that have been added to the JIT.
73 A basic use-case for this API, executing the 'main' function from a module,
79 J.addModule(buildModule());
80 auto *Main = (int(*)(int, char*[]))J.lookup("main").getAddress();
83 The APIs that we build in these tutorials will all be variations on this simple
84 theme. Behind this API we will refine the implementation of the JIT to add
85 support for concurrent compilation, optimization and lazy compilation.
86 Eventually we will extend the API itself to allow higher-level program
87 representations (e.g. ASTs) to be added to the JIT.
92 In the previous section we described our API, now we examine a simple
93 implementation of it: The KaleidoscopeJIT class [1]_ that was used in the
94 `Implementing a language with LLVM <LangImpl01.html>`_ tutorials. We will use
95 the REPL code from `Chapter 7 <LangImpl07.html>`_ of that tutorial to supply the
96 input for our JIT: Each time the user enters an expression the REPL will add a
97 new IR module containing the code for that expression to the JIT. If the
98 expression is a top-level expression like '1+1' or 'sin(x)', the REPL will also
99 use the lookup method of our JIT class find and execute the code for the
100 expression. In later chapters of this tutorial we will modify the REPL to enable
101 new interactions with our JIT class, but for now we will take this setup for
102 granted and focus our attention on the implementation of our JIT itself.
104 Our KaleidoscopeJIT class is defined in the KaleidoscopeJIT.h header. After the
105 usual include guards and #includes [2]_, we get to the definition of our class:
109 #ifndef LLVM_EXECUTIONENGINE_ORC_KALEIDOSCOPEJIT_H
110 #define LLVM_EXECUTIONENGINE_ORC_KALEIDOSCOPEJIT_H
112 #include "llvm/ADT/StringRef.h"
113 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/JITSymbol.h"
114 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/Orc/CompileUtils.h"
115 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/Orc/Core.h"
116 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/Orc/ExecutionUtils.h"
117 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/Orc/IRCompileLayer.h"
118 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/Orc/JITTargetMachineBuilder.h"
119 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/Orc/RTDyldObjectLinkingLayer.h"
120 #include "llvm/ExecutionEngine/SectionMemoryManager.h"
121 #include "llvm/IR/DataLayout.h"
122 #include "llvm/IR/LLVMContext.h"
128 class KaleidoscopeJIT {
131 RTDyldObjectLinkingLayer ObjectLayer;
132 IRCompileLayer CompileLayer;
135 MangleAndInterner Mangle;
136 ThreadSafeContext Ctx;
139 KaleidoscopeJIT(JITTargetMachineBuilder JTMB, DataLayout DL)
141 []() { return std::make_unique<SectionMemoryManager>(); }),
142 CompileLayer(ES, ObjectLayer, ConcurrentIRCompiler(std::move(JTMB))),
143 DL(std::move(DL)), Mangle(ES, this->DL),
144 Ctx(std::make_unique<LLVMContext>()) {
145 ES.getMainJITDylib().setGenerator(
146 cantFail(DynamicLibrarySearchGenerator::GetForCurrentProcess(DL)));
149 Our class begins with six member variables: An ExecutionSession member, ``ES``,
150 which provides context for our running JIT'd code (including the string pool,
151 global mutex, and error reporting facilities); An RTDyldObjectLinkingLayer,
152 ``ObjectLayer``, that can be used to add object files to our JIT (though we will
153 not use it directly); An IRCompileLayer, ``CompileLayer``, that can be used to
154 add LLVM Modules to our JIT (and which builds on the ObjectLayer), A DataLayout
155 and MangleAndInterner, ``DL`` and ``Mangle``, that will be used for symbol mangling
156 (more on that later); and finally an LLVMContext that clients will use when
157 building IR files for the JIT.
159 Next up we have our class constructor, which takes a `JITTargetMachineBuilder``
160 that will be used by our IRCompiler, and a ``DataLayout`` that we will use to
161 initialize our DL member. The constructor begins by initializing our
162 ObjectLayer. The ObjectLayer requires a reference to the ExecutionSession, and
163 a function object that will build a JIT memory manager for each module that is
164 added (a JIT memory manager manages memory allocations, memory permissions, and
165 registration of exception handlers for JIT'd code). For this we use a lambda
166 that returns a SectionMemoryManager, an off-the-shelf utility that provides all
167 the basic memory management functionality required for this chapter. Next we
168 initialize our CompileLayer. The CompileLayer needs three things: (1) A
169 reference to the ExecutionSession, (2) A reference to our object layer, and (3)
170 a compiler instance to use to perform the actual compilation from IR to object
171 files. We use the off-the-shelf ConcurrentIRCompiler utility as our compiler,
172 which we construct using this constructor's JITTargetMachineBuilder argument.
173 The ConcurrentIRCompiler utility will use the JITTargetMachineBuilder to build
174 llvm TargetMachines (which are not thread safe) as needed for compiles. After
175 this, we initialize our supporting members: ``DL``, ``Mangler`` and ``Ctx`` with
176 the input DataLayout, the ExecutionSession and DL member, and a new default
177 constucted LLVMContext respectively. Now that our members have been initialized,
178 so the one thing that remains to do is to tweak the configuration of the
179 *JITDylib* that we will store our code in. We want to modify this dylib to
180 contain not only the symbols that we add to it, but also the symbols from our
181 REPL process as well. We do this by attaching a
182 ``DynamicLibrarySearchGenerator`` instance using the
183 ``DynamicLibrarySearchGenerator::GetForCurrentProcess`` method.
188 static Expected<std::unique_ptr<KaleidoscopeJIT>> Create() {
189 auto JTMB = JITTargetMachineBuilder::detectHost();
192 return JTMB.takeError();
194 auto DL = JTMB->getDefaultDataLayoutForTarget();
196 return DL.takeError();
198 return std::make_unique<KaleidoscopeJIT>(std::move(*JTMB), std::move(*DL));
201 const DataLayout &getDataLayout() const { return DL; }
203 LLVMContext &getContext() { return *Ctx.getContext(); }
205 Next we have a named constructor, ``Create``, which will build a KaleidoscopeJIT
206 instance that is configured to generate code for our host process. It does this
207 by first generating a JITTargetMachineBuilder instance using that clases's
208 detectHost method and then using that instance to generate a datalayout for
209 the target process. Each of these operations can fail, so each returns its
210 result wrapped in an Expected value [3]_ that we must check for error before
211 continuing. If both operations succeed we can unwrap their results (using the
212 dereference operator) and pass them into KaleidoscopeJIT's constructor on the
213 last line of the function.
215 Following the named constructor we have the ``getDataLayout()`` and
216 ``getContext()`` methods. These are used to make data structures created and
217 managed by the JIT (especially the LLVMContext) available to the REPL code that
218 will build our IR modules.
222 void addModule(std::unique_ptr<Module> M) {
223 cantFail(CompileLayer.add(ES.getMainJITDylib(),
224 ThreadSafeModule(std::move(M), Ctx)));
227 Expected<JITEvaluatedSymbol> lookup(StringRef Name) {
228 return ES.lookup({&ES.getMainJITDylib()}, Mangle(Name.str()));
231 Now we come to the first of our JIT API methods: addModule. This method is
232 responsible for adding IR to the JIT and making it available for execution. In
233 this initial implementation of our JIT we will make our modules "available for
234 execution" by adding them to the CompileLayer, which will it turn store the
235 Module in the main JITDylib. This process will create new symbol table entries
236 in the JITDylib for each definition in the module, and will defer compilation of
237 the module until any of its definitions is looked up. Note that this is not lazy
238 compilation: just referencing a definition, even if it is never used, will be
239 enough to trigger compilation. In later chapters we will teach our JIT to defer
240 compilation of functions until they're actually called. To add our Module we
241 must first wrap it in a ThreadSafeModule instance, which manages the lifetime of
242 the Module's LLVMContext (our Ctx member) in a thread-friendly way. In our
243 example, all modules will share the Ctx member, which will exist for the
244 duration of the JIT. Once we switch to concurrent compilation in later chapters
245 we will use a new context per module.
247 Our last method is ``lookup``, which allows us to look up addresses for
248 function and variable definitions added to the JIT based on their symbol names.
249 As noted above, lookup will implicitly trigger compilation for any symbol
250 that has not already been compiled. Our lookup method calls through to
251 `ExecutionSession::lookup`, passing in a list of dylibs to search (in our case
252 just the main dylib), and the symbol name to search for, with a twist: We have
253 to *mangle* the name of the symbol we're searching for first. The ORC JIT
254 components use mangled symbols internally the same way a static compiler and
255 linker would, rather than using plain IR symbol names. This allows JIT'd code
256 to interoperate easily with precompiled code in the application or shared
257 libraries. The kind of mangling will depend on the DataLayout, which in turn
258 depends on the target platform. To allow us to remain portable and search based
259 on the un-mangled name, we just re-produce this mangling ourselves using our
260 ``Mangle`` member function object.
262 This brings us to the end of Chapter 1 of Building a JIT. You now have a basic
263 but fully functioning JIT stack that you can use to take LLVM IR and make it
264 executable within the context of your JIT process. In the next chapter we'll
265 look at how to extend this JIT to produce better quality code, and in the
266 process take a deeper look at the ORC layer concept.
268 `Next: Extending the KaleidoscopeJIT <BuildingAJIT2.html>`_
273 Here is the complete code listing for our running example. To build this
279 clang++ -g toy.cpp `llvm-config --cxxflags --ldflags --system-libs --libs core orcjit native` -O3 -o toy
285 .. literalinclude:: ../../examples/Kaleidoscope/BuildingAJIT/Chapter1/KaleidoscopeJIT.h
288 .. [1] Actually we use a cut-down version of KaleidoscopeJIT that makes a
289 simplifying assumption: symbols cannot be re-defined. This will make it
290 impossible to re-define symbols in the REPL, but will make our symbol
291 lookup logic simpler. Re-introducing support for symbol redefinition is
292 left as an exercise for the reader. (The KaleidoscopeJIT.h used in the
293 original tutorials will be a helpful reference).
295 .. [2] +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
296 | File | Reason for inclusion |
297 +=============================+===============================================+
298 | JITSymbol.h | Defines the lookup result type |
299 | | JITEvaluatedSymbol |
300 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
301 | CompileUtils.h | Provides the SimpleCompiler class. |
302 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
303 | Core.h | Core utilities such as ExecutionSession and |
305 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
306 | ExecutionUtils.h | Provides the DynamicLibrarySearchGenerator |
308 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
309 | IRCompileLayer.h | Provides the IRCompileLayer class. |
310 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
311 | JITTargetMachineBuilder.h | Provides the JITTargetMachineBuilder class. |
312 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
313 | RTDyldObjectLinkingLayer.h | Provides the RTDyldObjectLinkingLayer class. |
314 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
315 | SectionMemoryManager.h | Provides the SectionMemoryManager class. |
316 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
317 | DataLayout.h | Provides the DataLayout class. |
318 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
319 | LLVMContext.h | Provides the LLVMContext class. |
320 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
322 .. [3] See the ErrorHandling section in the LLVM Programmer's Manual
323 (http://llvm.org/docs/ProgrammersManual.html#error-handling)