wasmtime/cranelift/docs/compare-llvm.md

# Cranelift compared to LLVM

[LLVM](https://llvm.org) is a collection of compiler components implemented as
a set of C++ libraries. It can be used to build both JIT compilers and static
compilers like [Clang](https://clang.llvm.org), and it is deservedly very
popular.
[Chris Lattner's chapter about LLVM](https://www.aosabook.org/en/llvm.html)
in the 
[Architecture of Open Source Applications](https://aosabook.org/en/index.html>)
book gives an excellent overview of the architecture and design of LLVM.

Cranelift and LLVM are superficially similar projects, so it is worth
highlighting some of the differences and similarities. Both projects:

- Use a mostly-ISA-agnostic input language in order to mostly abstract away the
  differences between target instruction set architectures.
- Depend extensively on SSA form.
- Have both textual and in-memory forms of their primary intermediate
  representation. (LLVM also has a binary bitcode format; Cranelift doesn't.)
- Can target multiple ISAs.
- Can cross-compile by default without rebuilding the code generator.

However, there are also some major differences, described in the following sections.

## Intermediate representations

LLVM uses multiple intermediate representations as it translates a program to
binary machine code:

[LLVM IR](https://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html):
    This is the primary intermediate representation which has textual, binary, and
    in-memory forms. It serves two main purposes:

    - An ISA-agnostic, stable(ish) input language that front ends can generate
      easily.
    - Intermediate representation for common mid-level optimizations. A large
      library of code analysis and transformation passes operate on LLVM IR.

[SelectionDAG](https://llvm.org/docs/CodeGenerator.html#instruction-selection-section):
    A graph-based representation of the code in a single basic block is used by
    the instruction selector. It has both ISA-agnostic and ISA-specific
    opcodes. These main passes are run on the SelectionDAG representation:

    - Type legalization eliminates all value types that don't have a
      representation in the target ISA registers.
    - Operation legalization eliminates all opcodes that can't be mapped to
      target ISA instructions.
    - DAG-combine cleans up redundant code after the legalization passes.
    - Instruction selection translates ISA-agnostic expressions to ISA-specific
      instructions.

    The SelectionDAG representation automatically eliminates common
    subexpressions and dead code.

[MachineInstr](https://llvm.org/docs/CodeGenerator.html#machine-code-representation):
    A linear representation of ISA-specific instructions that initially is in
    SSA form, but it can also represent non-SSA form during and after register
    allocation. Many low-level optimizations run on MI code. The most important
    passes are:

    - Scheduling.
    - Register allocation.

[MC](https://llvm.org/docs/CodeGenerator.html#the-mc-layer)
    MC serves as the output abstraction layer and is the basis for LLVM's
    integrated assembler. It is used for:

    - Branch relaxation.
    - Emitting assembly or binary object code.
    - Assemblers.
    - Disassemblers.

There is an ongoing "global instruction selection" project to replace the
SelectionDAG representation with ISA-agnostic opcodes on the MachineInstr
representation. Some target ISAs have a fast instruction selector that can
translate simple code directly to MachineInstrs, bypassing SelectionDAG when
possible.

[Cranelift IR](ir.md) uses a single intermediate representation to cover
these levels of abstraction. This is possible in part because of Cranelift's
smaller scope.

- Cranelift does not provide assemblers and disassemblers, so it is not
  necessary to be able to represent every weird instruction in an ISA. Only
  those instructions that the code generator emits have a representation.
- Cranelift's opcodes are ISA-agnostic, but after legalization / instruction
  selection, each instruction is annotated with an ISA-specific encoding which
  represents a native instruction.
- SSA form is preserved throughout. After register allocation, each SSA value
  is annotated with an assigned ISA register or stack slot.

The Cranelift intermediate representation is similar to LLVM IR, but at a slightly
lower level of abstraction, to allow it to be used all the way through the
codegen process.

This design tradeoff does mean that Cranelift IR is less friendly for mid-level
optimizations. Cranelift doesn't currently perform mid-level optimizations,
however if it should grow to where this becomes important, the vision is that
Cranelift would add a separate IR layer, or possibly an separate IR, to support
this. Instead of frontends producing optimizer IR which is then translated to
codegen IR, Cranelift would have frontends producing codegen IR, which can be
translated to optimizer IR and back.

This biases the overall system towards fast compilation when mid-level
optimization is not needed, such as when emitting unoptimized code for or when
low-level optimizations are sufficient.

And, it removes some constraints in the mid-level optimize IR design space,
making it more feasible to consider ideas such as using a
[VSDG-based IR](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-705.pdf).

### Program structure

In LLVM IR, the largest representable unit is the *module* which corresponds
more or less to a C translation unit. It is a collection of functions and
global variables that may contain references to external symbols too.

In [Cranelift's IR](ir.md)
used by the [cranelift-codegen](https://docs.rs/cranelift-codegen/) crate,
functions are self-contained, allowing them to be compiled independently. At
this level, there is no explicit module that contains the functions.

Module functionality in Cranelift is provided as an optional library layer, in
the [cranelift-module](https://docs.rs/cranelift-module/) crate. It provides
facilities for working with modules, which can contain multiple functions as
well as data objects, and it links them together.

An LLVM IR function is a graph of *basic blocks*. A Cranelift IR function is a
graph of *extended basic blocks* that may contain internal branch instructions.
The main difference is that an LLVM conditional branch instruction has two
target basic blocks---a true and a false edge. A Cranelift branch instruction
only has a single target and falls through to the next instruction when its
condition is false. The Cranelift representation is closer to how machine code
works; LLVM's representation is more abstract.

LLVM uses
[phi instructions](https://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#phi-instruction)
in its SSA representation. Cranelift passes arguments to EBBs instead. The two
representations are equivalent, but the EBB arguments are better suited to
handle EBBs that may contain multiple branches to the same destination block
with different arguments. Passing arguments to an EBB looks a lot like passing
arguments to a function call, and the register allocator treats them very
similarly. Arguments are assigned to registers or stack locations.

### Value types

[Cranelift's type system](ir.md#value-types) is mostly a subset of LLVM's type
system. It is less abstract and closer to the types that common ISA registers
can hold.

- Integer types are limited to powers of two from `i8` to
  `i64`. LLVM can represent integer types of arbitrary bit width.
- Floating point types are limited to `f32` and `f64`
  which is what WebAssembly provides. It is possible that 16-bit and 128-bit
  types will be added in the future.
- Addresses are represented as integers---There are no Cranelift pointer types.
  LLVM currently has rich pointer types that include the pointee type. It may
  move to a simpler 'address' type in the future. Cranelift may add a single
  address type too.
- SIMD vector types are limited to a power-of-two number of vector lanes up to
  256. LLVM allows an arbitrary number of SIMD lanes.
- Cranelift has no aggregate types. LLVM has named and anonymous struct types as
  well as array types.

Cranelift has multiple boolean types, whereas LLVM simply uses `i1`. The sized
Cranelift boolean types are used to represent SIMD vector masks like `b32x4`
where each lane is either all 0 or all 1 bits.

Cranelift instructions and function calls can return multiple result values. LLVM
instead models this by returning a single value of an aggregate type.

### Instruction set

LLVM has a small well-defined basic instruction set and a large number of
intrinsics, some of which are ISA-specific. Cranelift has a larger instruction
set and no intrinsics. Some Cranelift instructions are ISA-specific.

Since Cranelift instructions are used all the way until the binary machine code
is emitted, there are opcodes for every native instruction that can be
generated. There is a lot of overlap between different ISAs, so for example the
`iadd_imm` instruction is used by every ISA that can add an
immediate integer to a register. A simple RISC ISA like RISC-V can be defined
with only shared instructions, while x86 needs a number of specific
instructions to model addressing modes.