llvm dev - Aug 2016 - Initial State of the DWARF CFI register states

Hi All,

In reading the DWARF standard, it states with respect to the initial
disposition of the unwind rules for any particular register:
> The default rule for all columns before interpretation of 
> the initial instructions is the undefined rule. However,
> an ABI authoring body or a compilation system authoring body
> may specify an alternate default value for any or all columns.
Now, the first question is, do we know of such a definition
(I'm particularly interested in x86_64 here, but information on
other architecures would be appreciated as well), either in the ABI
docs or somewhere in LLVM?

Second, if I understand correctly what we're currently doing
(looking at X86FrameLowering::emitCalleeSavedFrameMoves), is
that we're looking at the callee saved registers for the current
frame and emitting cfi instructions if those get saved. That
seems sensible to me, but would imply that we're assuming that
the initial state for callee-saved registers is cfi_same_value.
That seems sensible to me, but if that's the definition, I am
worried about mixing calling conventions in the same compile
unit. Should we settle on some definition and add the extra unwind
info where we deviate (or even better add whatever definition
we settle on to initial_instructions)?

CFI clients (gdb, lldb, libunwind, etc.) seem to deviate in how they
handle this, treating it either as undefined or same_value.

Thanks,
Keno

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keno Fischer [mailto:keno at juliacomputing.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 6:28 PM
> To: llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> Cc: aprantl at apple.com; Robinson, Paul
> Subject: Initial State of the DWARF CFI register states
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> In reading the DWARF standard, it states with respect to the initial
> disposition of the unwind rules for any particular register:
> 
> > The default rule for all columns before interpretation of
> > the initial instructions is the undefined rule. However,
> > an ABI authoring body or a compilation system authoring body
> > may specify an alternate default value for any or all columns.
> 
> Now, the first question is, do we know of such a definition
> (I'm particularly interested in x86_64 here, but information on
> other architecures would be appreciated as well), either in the ABI
> docs or somewhere in LLVM?
I'm in an airport so don't have time for serious research, but
googling 'dwarf cfi initial state' turned up r200255 which in
turn has a review at reviews.llvm.org/D2597 where Keith Walker
cites an ARM document that might be relevant to this topic.

The "System V Application Binary Interface AMD64 Architecture
Processor Supplement" 0.99.8 doesn't mention anything about this
in the DWARF-specific sections, but other parts of the document
might say things that could imply defaults.
HTH,
--paulr
> 
> Second, if I understand correctly what we're currently doing
> (looking at X86FrameLowering::emitCalleeSavedFrameMoves), is
> that we're looking at the callee saved registers for the current
> frame and emitting cfi instructions if those get saved. That
> seems sensible to me, but would imply that we're assuming that
> the initial state for callee-saved registers is cfi_same_value.
> That seems sensible to me, but if that's the definition, I am
> worried about mixing calling conventions in the same compile
> unit. Should we settle on some definition and add the extra unwind
> info where we deviate (or even better add whatever definition
> we settle on to initial_instructions)?
> 
> CFI clients (gdb, lldb, libunwind, etc.) seem to deviate in how they
> handle this, treating it either as undefined or same_value.
> 
> Thanks,
> Keno