[llvm-dev] End-to-end -fembed-bitcode .llvmbc and .llvmcmd

[Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev]

Hello,

I'm trying to understand how .llvmbc and .llvmcmd fit into an end-to-end story. From the RFC, and reading through the implementation, I'm piecing together that the goal was to enable capturing IR right after clang and before passing it to LLVM's optimization passes, as well as the command line options needed for later compiling that IR to the same native object it was compiled to originally (with the same compiler).

Here's what I don't understand: say you have a.o and b.o compiled with -fembed-bitcode=all. They are linked into a binary called my_binary. How do you re-create the corresponding IR for modules a and b (let's call them a.bc and b.bc), and their corresponding command lines? From what I can tell, the linker just concatenates the IR for a and b in my_binary's .llvmbc, and the same for the command line in .llvmcmd. Is there a separator maybe I missed? For .llvmcmd, I could see how *maybe* -cc1 could be that separator, what about the .llvmbc part? The magic number?

Thanks!

[Steven Wu via llvm-dev]

Hi Mircea

From the RFC you mentioned, that is a Darwin specific implementation, which later got extended to support other targets. The main use case for the embed bitcode option is to allow compiler passing intermediate IR and command flags in the object file it produced for later use. For Darwin, it is used for bitcode recompilation, and some might use it to achieve other goals.

In order to use this information properly, you needs to have tools that understand the layout and sections for embedded bitcode. You can't just use an ordinary linker, because like you said, an ELF linker will just append the bitcode. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, you need to implement the downstream tools, like linker, binary analysis tools, etc. to understand this concept.

Steven

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[Sean Bartell via llvm-dev]

Hi Mircea,

If you use an ordinary linker that concatenates .llvmbc sections, you can use this code to get the size of each bitcode module. As far as I know, there's no clean way to separate the .llvmcmd sections without making assumptions about what options were used.

// Given a bitcode file followed by garbage, get the size of the actual

// bitcode. This only works correctly with some kinds of garbage (in

// particular, it will work if the bitcode file is followed by zeros, or if

// it's followed by another bitcode file).

size_t GetBitcodeSize(MemoryBufferRef Buffer) {

  const unsigned char *BufPtr =

      reinterpret_cast<const unsigned char *>(Buffer.getBufferStart());

  const unsigned char *EndBufPtr =

      reinterpret_cast<const unsigned char *>(Buffer.getBufferEnd());

  if (isBitcodeWrapper(BufPtr, EndBufPtr)) {

    const unsigned char *FixedBufPtr = BufPtr;

    if (SkipBitcodeWrapperHeader(FixedBufPtr, EndBufPtr, true))

      report_fatal_error("Invalid bitcode wrapper");

    return EndBufPtr - BufPtr;

  }

  if (!isRawBitcode(BufPtr, EndBufPtr))

    report_fatal_error("Invalid magic bytes; not a bitcode file?");

  BitstreamCursor Reader(Buffer);

  Reader.Read(32); // skip signature

  while (true) {

    size_t EntryStart = Reader.getCurrentByteNo();

    BitstreamEntry Entry =

        Reader.advance(BitstreamCursor::AF_DontAutoprocessAbbrevs);

    if (Entry.Kind == BitstreamEntry::SubBlock) {

      if (Reader.SkipBlock())

        report_fatal_error("Invalid bitcode file");

    } else {

      // We must have reached the end of the module.

      return EntryStart;

    }

  }

}

Sean

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020, at 13:17, Steven Wu via llvm-dev wrote:

Hi Mircea

From the RFC you mentioned, that is a Darwin specific implementation, which later got extended to support other targets. The main use case for the embed bitcode option is to allow compiler passing intermediate IR and command flags in the object file it produced for later use. For Darwin, it is used for bitcode recompilation, and some might use it to achieve other goals.

In order to use this information properly, you needs to have tools that understand the layout and sections for embedded bitcode. You can't just use an ordinary linker, because like you said, an ELF linker will just append the bitcode. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, you need to implement the downstream tools, like linker, binary analysis tools, etc. to understand this concept.

Steven

On Aug 24, 2020, at 7:10 PM, Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev <llvm...@lists.llvm.org> wrote:

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[Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev]

Thanks, Sean, Steven,

to explore this a bit further, are there currently users for non-Darwin cases? I wonder if it would it be an issue if we inserted markers in the section (maybe as an opt-in, if there were users), such that, when concatenated, the resulting section would be self-describing, for a specialized reader, of course - basically, achieve what Sean described, but "by design". 

For instance, each .o file could have a size, followed by the payload (maybe include in the payload the name of the module, too; maybe compress it, too). Same for the .llvmcmd case. 

[David Blaikie via llvm-dev]

You should probably pull in some folks who implemented/maintain the feature for Darwin.

I guess they aren't linking this info, but only communicating in the object file between tools - maybe they flag these sections (either in the object, or by the linker) as ignored/dropped during linking. That semantic could be implemented in ELF too by marking the sections SHF_IGNORED or something (same-file split DWARF uses this technique).

So maybe the goal/desire is to have a different semantic, rather than the equivalent semantic being different on ELF compared to MachO. 

So if it's a different semantic - yeah, I'd guess a flag that prefixes the module metadata with a length would make sense, then it can be linked naturally on any platform. (if the "don't link these sections" support on Darwin is done by the linker hardcoding the section name - then maybe this flag would also put the data in a different section that isn't linker stripped on Darwin, so users interested in getting everything linked together can do so on any platform)

But if this data is linked, then it'd be hard to know which command line goes with which module, yes? So maybe it'd make sense then to have the command line as a header before the module, in the same section. So they're kept together.

[Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:22 AM David Blaikie <dbla...@gmail.com> wrote:

You should probably pull in some folks who implemented/maintain the feature for Darwin.

I guess they aren't linking this info, but only communicating in the object file between tools - maybe they flag these sections (either in the object, or by the linker) as ignored/dropped during linking. That semantic could be implemented in ELF too by marking the sections SHF_IGNORED or something (same-file split DWARF uses this technique).

So maybe the goal/desire is to have a different semantic, rather than the equivalent semantic being different on ELF compared to MachO. 

So if it's a different semantic - yeah, I'd guess a flag that prefixes the module metadata with a length would make sense, then it can be linked naturally on any platform. (if the "don't link these sections" support on Darwin is done by the linker hardcoding the section name - then maybe this flag would also put the data in a different section that isn't linker stripped on Darwin, so users interested in getting everything linked together can do so on any platform)

But if this data is linked, then it'd be hard to know which command line goes with which module, yes? So maybe it'd make sense then to have the command line as a header before the module, in the same section. So they're kept together.

This last point was my follow-up :) 

[Fangrui Song via llvm-dev]

On 2020-08-28, Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev wrote:
>On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:22 AM David Blaikie <dbla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You should probably pull in some folks who implemented/maintain the
>> feature for Darwin.
>>
>> I guess they aren't linking this info, but only communicating in the
>> object file between tools - maybe they flag these sections (either in the
>> object, or by the linker) as ignored/dropped during linking. That semantic
>> could be implemented in ELF too by marking the sections SHF_IGNORED or
>> something (same-file split DWARF uses this technique).

The .llvmbc / .llvmcmd section does not have the SHF_EXCLUDE flag. It
will be retained in the linked image.

>> So maybe the goal/desire is to have a different semantic, rather than the
>> equivalent semantic being different on ELF compared to MachO.
>>
>> So if it's a different semantic - yeah, I'd guess a flag that prefixes the
>> module metadata with a length would make sense, then it can be linked
>> naturally on any platform. (if the "don't link these sections" support on
>> Darwin is done by the linker hardcoding the section name - then maybe this
>> flag would also put the data in a different section that isn't linker
>> stripped on Darwin, so users interested in getting everything linked
>> together can do so on any platform)
>>
>> But if this data is linked, then it'd be hard to know which command line
>> goes with which module, yes? So maybe it'd make sense then to have the
>> command line as a header before the module, in the same section. So they're
>> kept together.
>>
>This last point was my follow-up :)

A module has a source_filename field.

clang -fembed-bitcode=all -c d/a.c
llvm-objcopy --dump-section=.llvmbc=a.bc a.o /dev/null
llvm-dis < a.bc => source_filename = "d/a.c"

The missing piece is a mechanism to extract a module from concatenated
bitcode (llvm-dis supports multi-module bitcode but not concatenated
bitcode https://reviews.llvm.org/D70153). I'll be happy to look into it:)

---

.llvmcmd may need the source file to be more useful.

>>>> <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-February/094851.html>,

>>>> and reading through the implementation, I'm piecing together that the goal
>>>> was to enable capturing IR right after clang and before passing it to
>>>> LLVM's optimization passes, as well as the command line options needed for
>>>> later compiling that IR to the same native object it was compiled to
>>>> originally (with the same compiler).
>>>>
>>>> Here's what I don't understand: say you have a.o and b.o compiled with
>>>> -fembed-bitcode=all. They are linked into a binary called my_binary. How do
>>>> you re-create the corresponding IR for modules a and b (let's call them
>>>> a.bc and b.bc), and their corresponding command lines? From what I can
>>>> tell, the linker just concatenates the IR for a and b in my_binary's
>>>> .llvmbc, and the same for the command line in .llvmcmd. Is there a
>>>> separator maybe I missed? For .llvmcmd, I could see how *maybe* -cc1 could
>>>> be that separator, what about the .llvmbc part? The magic number?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>>>> llvm...@lists.llvm.org
>>>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>>>
>>>>

>>>> *Attachments:*
>>>>
>>>> - ATT00001.txt

>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>>> llvm...@lists.llvm.org
>>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>>
>>

>_______________________________________________

[David Blaikie via llvm-dev]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 2:16 PM Fangrui Song <mas...@google.com> wrote:

On 2020-08-28, Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev wrote:
>On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:22 AM David Blaikie <dbla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You should probably pull in some folks who implemented/maintain the
>> feature for Darwin.
>>
>> I guess they aren't linking this info, but only communicating in the
>> object file between tools - maybe they flag these sections (either in the
>> object, or by the linker) as ignored/dropped during linking. That semantic
>> could be implemented in ELF too by marking the sections SHF_IGNORED or
>> something (same-file split DWARF uses this technique).

The .llvmbc / .llvmcmd section does not have the SHF_EXCLUDE flag. It
will be retained in the linked image.

Ah, yes, I understand that's the current situation - I meant "if dropping during linking is the semantic that's already implemented for MachO/ld64 (either with some MachO attribute, or hardcoded behavior in ld64) where the feature is fully-fledged/working-as-intended, we could match that semantic on ELF by using SHF_EXCLUDE".

& then designing a separate but related feature for "I want bitcode and build commands that end up in the final linked binary" - at which point it might be a different format (using a length prefix) and at that point maybe consider putting the build command in the header rather than in a separate section.
 

[Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 2:16 PM Fangrui Song <mas...@google.com> wrote:

Right - I think, for the non-Darwin concatenated case, all three of us (David, you, and I) are thinking along the lines of keeping together: the module name, the bytecode, and the command line - effectively not using .llvmcmd, and being able to correctly extract, by design, the rest of the information.

[Sean Bartell via llvm-dev]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020, at 16:31, Mircea Trofin via llvm-dev wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 2:16 PM Fangrui Song <mas...@google.com> wrote:

> Right - I think, for the non-Darwin concatenated case, all three of us (David, you, and I) are thinking along the lines of keeping together: the module name, the bytecode, and the command line - effectively not using .llvmcmd, and being able to correctly extract, by design, the rest of the information.

Here's the format I would suggest:

1. Put command-line flags in the module metadata instead of .llvmcmd.
2. Put each module in the bitcode wrapper supported by SkipBitcodeWrapperHeader, which includes a length field. I think LLVM only generates the wrapper for Darwin, but it can read the wrapper correctly on all platforms.
3. Change the .llvmbc section alignment so that no extra zeros are added between modules.

My use case: I'm using -fembed-bitcode on Linux as an alternative to the wllvm/whole-program-llvm tool. For my purposes, it'd be nice to also keep track of linker flags and other linker input files, but I can get most of what I need from the modules alone.

Sean

[Fāng-ruì Sòng via llvm-dev]

I investigated a bit about the bitcode file format today. The bitcode
is streaming style and I think an optional size field may be useful.
https://reviews.llvm.org/D86847 proposes to add a
BITCODE_SIZE_BLOCK_ID block. We actually don't need a container
because
the MODULE_CODE_SOURCE_FILENAME record encodes the source filename. We
can do a lightweight parse and obtain the field.
This should be fast because there are typically very few
blocks/records preceding MODULE_CODE_SOURCE_FILENAME.

For .llvmcmd, I am on the fence moving it into the bitcode. Downside:
retrieving the command line will be more difficult...
I'd like to mention that the functionality duplicates the existing
-frecord-command-line a bit...

% readelf -p .GCC.command.line a.o

String dump of section '.GCC.command.line':
[ 1] /tmp/clang-12 -c -frecord-command-line a.c

(GCC -frecord-gcc-switches uses a different format (some folks
consider it inferior to clang's format; and worse, the section is
SHF_MERGE|SHF_STRINGS):
% readelf -p .GCC.command.line a.o

String dump of section '.GCC.command.line':
[ 0] -imultiarch x86_64-linux-gnu
[ 1d] a.c
[ 21] -mtune=generic
[ 30] -march=x86-64
[ 3e] -frecord-gcc-switches
[ 54] -fasynchronous-unwind-tables