Here's a brief update on the current state of 16-bit x86 support...
The assembler has support for the .code16 directive and can happily
output 16-bit code. In pending patches¹ I have also added an
i386-*-*-code16 triple and fixed the disassembler to support 16-bit mode
(which was previously present, but could not be invoked and was fairly
broken). And added a '-m16' option to clang.
The main caveats to bear in mind for 16-bit code which was previously
built with gcc/gas are:
• We do not support the explicit 'data32' and 'addr32' prefixes
in asm.
The data32 prefix is almost never needed. If you use the correct
suffix on an instruction (retl vs. retw, for example), then you
should never need to use 'data32'.
The addr32 prefix *is* needed by GNU binutils, because *even* when
given an explicit address which is greater than 64KiB, it'll just
give you a warning about truncation, and emit the instruction with
a 16-bit addressing mode and the wrong address. LLVM doesn't do that,
and is far happier to just use 32-bit addressing whenever it *might*
need to. This means that we never really need an explicit addr32
prefix to use 32-bit addressing in 16-bit mode. And also that our
code tends to be larger.
• We do not support '.code16gcc'. This is a hack which emits code in
16-bit mode but parses the input as if it's in 32-bit mode. So
instructions which are ambiguous about their operand size will take
their 32-bit form — a plain 'ret' will cause it to emit
'retl', etc.
We *could* support this mode, but it would be moderately non-trivial.
It would require the code emitter and the asm parser to maintain
separate ideas of the mode. The fix for PR18303 makes that somewhat
simpler, but still not entirely trivial. Alternatively we could add
yet another mode bit for the *parser*, but I don't like that much.
• GCC allows the compilation of C code to 16-bit mode by using
asm(".code16gcc") and also adding other flags such as
-fno-unit-at-a-time to ensure that the .code16gcc really *is* the
first thing the assembler sees. We don't support that horridness,
and don't need it since clang can support '-m16'. We have also
filed
http://gcc.gnu.org/PR59672 to request the same in GCC.
I have been able to build the 16-bit startup code of the Linux kernel
with .code16 and 'clang -m16', and it works fine. I had to fix PR18303,
for which David Peixotto is working on a better fix, and I had to work
around PR3997 — which some people seem to be denying is a bug in the
first place, and claiming (wrongly) that GCC doesn't get it right
either. But both of those are pre-existing bugs, and Not My Fault™.
At this point, I'm not aware of any issues specifically with 16-bit
mode, other than the above. If anyone else wants to start testing it in
anger on real code, that would be useful...
--
David Woodhouse Open Source Technology Centre
David.Woodhouse at intel.com Intel Corporation
¹ http://git.infradead.org/users/dwmw2/llvm.git/summary/80bd3d9f and
http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20140113/201303.html
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Absolutely fantastic work, David. Thank you! On Jan 14, 2014, at 4:35 AM, David Woodhouse <dwmw2 at infradead.org> wrote:> Here's a brief update on the current state of 16-bit x86 support... > > The assembler has support for the .code16 directive and can happily > output 16-bit code. In pending patches¹ I have also added an > i386-*-*-code16 triple and fixed the disassembler to support 16-bit mode > (which was previously present, but could not be invoked and was fairly > broken). And added a '-m16' option to clang. > > The main caveats to bear in mind for 16-bit code which was previously > built with gcc/gas are: > > • We do not support the explicit 'data32' and 'addr32' prefixes in asm. > > The data32 prefix is almost never needed. If you use the correct > suffix on an instruction (retl vs. retw, for example), then you > should never need to use 'data32'. > > The addr32 prefix *is* needed by GNU binutils, because *even* when > given an explicit address which is greater than 64KiB, it'll just > give you a warning about truncation, and emit the instruction with > a 16-bit addressing mode and the wrong address. LLVM doesn't do that, > and is far happier to just use 32-bit addressing whenever it *might* > need to. This means that we never really need an explicit addr32 > prefix to use 32-bit addressing in 16-bit mode. And also that our > code tends to be larger. > > • We do not support '.code16gcc'. This is a hack which emits code in > 16-bit mode but parses the input as if it's in 32-bit mode. So > instructions which are ambiguous about their operand size will take > their 32-bit form — a plain 'ret' will cause it to emit 'retl', etc. > We *could* support this mode, but it would be moderately non-trivial. > It would require the code emitter and the asm parser to maintain > separate ideas of the mode. The fix for PR18303 makes that somewhat > simpler, but still not entirely trivial. Alternatively we could add > yet another mode bit for the *parser*, but I don't like that much. > > • GCC allows the compilation of C code to 16-bit mode by using > asm(".code16gcc") and also adding other flags such as > -fno-unit-at-a-time to ensure that the .code16gcc really *is* the > first thing the assembler sees. We don't support that horridness, > and don't need it since clang can support '-m16'. We have also filed > http://gcc.gnu.org/PR59672 to request the same in GCC. > > I have been able to build the 16-bit startup code of the Linux kernel > with .code16 and 'clang -m16', and it works fine. I had to fix PR18303, > for which David Peixotto is working on a better fix, and I had to work > around PR3997 — which some people seem to be denying is a bug in the > first place, and claiming (wrongly) that GCC doesn't get it right > either. But both of those are pre-existing bugs, and Not My Fault™. > > At this point, I'm not aware of any issues specifically with 16-bit > mode, other than the above. If anyone else wants to start testing it in > anger on real code, that would be useful... > > -- > David Woodhouse Open Source Technology Centre > David.Woodhouse at intel.com Intel Corporation > > ¹ http://git.infradead.org/users/dwmw2/llvm.git/summary/80bd3d9f and > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20140113/201303.html > _______________________________________________ > LLVM Developers mailing list > LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
I just want to state that I hope we never implement the 16-bit Microsoft C++ ABI for -m16. On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Jim Grosbach <grosbach at apple.com> wrote:> Absolutely fantastic work, David. Thank you! > > On Jan 14, 2014, at 4:35 AM, David Woodhouse <dwmw2 at infradead.org> wrote: > > > Here's a brief update on the current state of 16-bit x86 support... > > > > The assembler has support for the .code16 directive and can happily > > output 16-bit code. In pending patches¹ I have also added an > > i386-*-*-code16 triple and fixed the disassembler to support 16-bit mode > > (which was previously present, but could not be invoked and was fairly > > broken). And added a '-m16' option to clang. > > > > The main caveats to bear in mind for 16-bit code which was previously > > built with gcc/gas are: > > > > • We do not support the explicit 'data32' and 'addr32' prefixes in asm. > > > > The data32 prefix is almost never needed. If you use the correct > > suffix on an instruction (retl vs. retw, for example), then you > > should never need to use 'data32'. > > > > The addr32 prefix *is* needed by GNU binutils, because *even* when > > given an explicit address which is greater than 64KiB, it'll just > > give you a warning about truncation, and emit the instruction with > > a 16-bit addressing mode and the wrong address. LLVM doesn't do that, > > and is far happier to just use 32-bit addressing whenever it *might* > > need to. This means that we never really need an explicit addr32 > > prefix to use 32-bit addressing in 16-bit mode. And also that our > > code tends to be larger. > > > > • We do not support '.code16gcc'. This is a hack which emits code in > > 16-bit mode but parses the input as if it's in 32-bit mode. So > > instructions which are ambiguous about their operand size will take > > their 32-bit form — a plain 'ret' will cause it to emit 'retl', etc. > > We *could* support this mode, but it would be moderately non-trivial. > > It would require the code emitter and the asm parser to maintain > > separate ideas of the mode. The fix for PR18303 makes that somewhat > > simpler, but still not entirely trivial. Alternatively we could add > > yet another mode bit for the *parser*, but I don't like that much. > > > > • GCC allows the compilation of C code to 16-bit mode by using > > asm(".code16gcc") and also adding other flags such as > > -fno-unit-at-a-time to ensure that the .code16gcc really *is* the > > first thing the assembler sees. We don't support that horridness, > > and don't need it since clang can support '-m16'. We have also filed > > http://gcc.gnu.org/PR59672 to request the same in GCC. > > > > I have been able to build the 16-bit startup code of the Linux kernel > > with .code16 and 'clang -m16', and it works fine. I had to fix PR18303, > > for which David Peixotto is working on a better fix, and I had to work > > around PR3997 — which some people seem to be denying is a bug in the > > first place, and claiming (wrongly) that GCC doesn't get it right > > either. But both of those are pre-existing bugs, and Not My Fault™. > > > > At this point, I'm not aware of any issues specifically with 16-bit > > mode, other than the above. If anyone else wants to start testing it in > > anger on real code, that would be useful... > > > > -- > > David Woodhouse Open Source Technology Centre > > David.Woodhouse at intel.com Intel Corporation > > > > ¹ http://git.infradead.org/users/dwmw2/llvm.git/summary/80bd3d9f and > > > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20140113/201303.html > > _______________________________________________ > > LLVM Developers mailing list > > LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu > > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev > > > _______________________________________________ > LLVM Developers mailing list > LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20140114/96ccb57e/attachment.html>
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