Adding a document to describe the MCJIT execution engine implementation.

llvm-svn: 188943

docs/MCJITDesignAndImplementation.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,180 @@
+===============================
+MCJIT Design and Implementation
+===============================
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+This document describes the internal workings of the MCJIT execution
+engine and the RuntimeDyld component.  It is intended as a high level
+overview of the implementation, showing the flow and interactions of
+objects throughout the code generation and dynamic loading process.
+
+Engine Creation
+===============
+
+In most cases, an EngineBuilder object is used to create an instance of
+the MCJIT execution engine.  The EngineBuilder takes an llvm::Module
+object as an argument to its constructor.  The client may then set various
+options that we control the later be passed along to the MCJIT engine,
+including the selection of MCJIT as the engine type to be created.
+Of particular interest is the EngineBuilder::setMCJITMemoryManager
+function.  If the client does not explicitly create a memory manager at
+this time, a default memory manager (specifically SectionMemoryManager)
+will be created when the MCJIT engine is instantiated.
+
+Once the options have been set, a client calls EngineBuilder::create to
+create an instance of the MCJIT engine.  If the client does not use the
+form of this function that takes a TargetMachine as a parameter, a new
+TargetMachine will be created based on the target triple associated with
+the Module that was used to create the EngineBuilder.
+
+.. image:: MCJIT-engine-builder.png
+ 
+EngineBuilder::create will call the static MCJIT::createJIT function,
+passing in its pointers to the module, memory manager and target machine
+objects, all of which will subsequently be owned by the MCJIT object.
+
+The MCJIT class has a member variable, Dyld, which contains an instance of
+the RuntimeDyld wrapper class.  This member will be used for
+communications between MCJIT and the actual RuntimeDyldImpl object that
+gets created when an object is loaded.
+
+.. image:: MCJIT-creation.png
+ 
+Upon creation, MCJIT holds a pointer to the Module object that it received
+from EngineBuilder but it does not immediately generate code for this
+module.  Code generation is deferred until either the
+MCJIT::finalizeObject method is called explicitly or a function such as
+MCJIT::getPointerToFunction is called which requires the code to have been
+generated.
+
+Code Generation
+===============
+
+When code generation is triggered, as described above, MCJIT will first
+attempt to retrieve an object image from its ObjectCache member, if one
+has been set.  If a cached object image cannot be retrieved, MCJIT will
+call its emitObject method.  MCJIT::emitObject uses a local PassManager
+instance and creates a new ObjectBufferStream instance, both of which it
+passes to TargetManager::addPassesToEmitMC before calling PassManager::run
+on the Module with which it was created.
+
+.. image:: MCJIT-load.png
+ 
+The PassManager::run call causes the MC code generation mechanisms to emit
+a complete relocatable binary object image (either in either ELF or MachO
+format, depending on the target) into the ObjectBufferStream object, which
+is flushed to complete the process.  If an ObjectCache is being used, the
+image will be passed to the ObjectCache here.
+
+At this point, the ObjectBufferStream contains the raw object image.
+Before the code can be executed, the code and data sections from this
+image must be loaded into suitable memory, relocations must be applied and
+memory permission and code cache invalidation (if required) must be completed.
+
+Object Loading
+==============
+
+Once an object image has been obtained, either through code generation or
+having been retrieved from an ObjectCache, it is passed to RuntimeDyld to
+be loaded.  The RuntimeDyld wrapper class examines the object to determine
+its file format and creates an instance of either RuntimeDyldELF or
+RuntimeDyldMachO (both of which derive from the RuntimeDyldImpl base
+class) and calls the RuntimeDyldImpl::loadObject method to perform that
+actual loading.
+
+.. image:: MCJIT-dyld-load.png
+ 
+RuntimeDyldImpl::loadObject begins by creating an ObjectImage instance
+from the ObjectBuffer it received.  ObjectImage, which wraps the
+ObjectFile class, is a helper class which parses the binary object image
+and provides access to the information contained in the format-specific
+headers, including section, symbol and relocation information.
+
+RuntimeDyldImpl::loadObject then iterates through the symbols in the
+image.  Information about common symbols is collected for later use.  For
+each function or data symbol, the associated section is loaded into memory
+and the symbol is stored in a symbol table map data structure.  When the
+iteration is complete, a section is emitted for the common symbols.
+
+Next, RuntimeDyldImpl::loadObject iterates through the sections in the
+object image and for each section iterates through the relocations for
+that sections.  For each relocation, it calls the format-specific
+processRelocationRef method, which will examine the relocation and store
+it in one of two data structures, a section-based relocation list map and
+an external symbol relocation map.
+
+.. image:: MCJIT-load-object.png
+ 
+When RuntimeDyldImpl::loadObject returns, all of the code and data
+sections for the object will have been loaded into memory allocated by the
+memory manager and relocation information will have been prepared, but the
+relocations have not yet been applied and the generated code is still not
+ready to be executed.
+
+[Currently (as of August 2013) the MCJIT engine will immediately apply
+relocations when loadObject completes.  However, this shouldn't be
+happening.  Because the code may have been generated for a remote target,
+the client should be given a chance to re-map the section addresses before
+relocations are applied.  It is possible to apply relocations multiple
+times, but in the case where addresses are to be re-mapped, this first
+application is wasted effort.]
+
+Address Remapping
+=================
+
+At any time after initial code has been generated and before
+finalizeObject is called, the client can remap the address of sections in
+the object.  Typically this is done because the code was generated for an
+external process and is being mapped into that process' address space.
+The client remaps the section address by calling MCJIT::mapSectionAddress.
+This should happen before the section memory is copied to its new
+location.
+
+When MCJIT::mapSectionAddress is called, MCJIT passes the call on to
+RuntimeDyldImpl (via its Dyld member).  RuntimeDyldImpl stores the new
+address in an internal data structure but does not update the code at this
+time, since other sections are likely to change.
+
+When the client is finished remapping section addresses, it will call
+MCJIT::finalizeObject to complete the remapping process.
+
+Final Preparations
+==================
+
+When MCJIT::finalizeObject is called, MCJIT calls
+RuntimeDyld::resolveRelocations.  This function will attempt to locate any
+external symbols and then apply all relocations for the object.
+
+External symbols are resolved by calling the memory manager's
+getPointerToNamedFunction method.  The memory manager will return the
+address of the requested symbol in the target address space.  (Note, this
+may not be a valid pointer in the host process.)  RuntimeDyld will then
+iterate through the list of relocations it has stored which are associated
+with this symbol and invoke the resolveRelocation method which, through an
+format-specific implementation, will apply the relocation to the loaded
+section memory.
+
+Next, RuntimeDyld::resolveRelocations iterates through the list of
+sections and for each section iterates through a list of relocations that
+have been saved which reference that symbol and call resolveRelocation for
+each entry in this list.  The relocation list here is a list of
+relocations for which the symbol associated with the relocation is located
+in the section associated with the list.  Each of these locations will
+have a target location at which the relocation will be applied that is
+likely located in a different section.
+
+.. image:: MCJIT-resolve-relocations.png
+ 
+Once relocations have been applied as described above, MCJIT calls
+RuntimeDyld::getEHFrameSection, and if a non-zero result is returned
+passes the section data to the memory manager's registerEHFrames method.
+This allows the memory manager to call any desired target-specific
+functions, such as registering the EH frame information with a debugger.
+
+Finally, MCJIT calls the memory manager's finalizeMemory method.  In this
+method, the memory manager will invalidate the target code cache, if
+necessary, and apply final permissions to the memory pages it has
+allocated for code and data memory.
+

docs/index.rst

@@ -285,6 +285,9 @@ For API clients and LLVM developers.
 :doc:`DebuggingJITedCode`
    How to debug JITed code with GDB.
 
+:doc:`MCJITDesignAndImplementation`
+   Describes the inner workings of MCJIT execution engine.
+
 :doc:`BranchWeightMetadata`
    Provides information about Branch Prediction Information.