The primary advantage is that loop optimizations will be applied in a
stable order. This helps debugging and unit test creation. It is also
a better overall implementation without pathologically bad performance
on deep functions.
On large functions (llvm-stress --size=200000 | opt -loops)
Before: 0.1263s
After: 0.0225s
On deep functions (after tweaking llvm-stress, thanks Nadav):
Before: 0.2281s
After: 0.0227s
See r158790 for more comments.
The loop tree is now consistently generated in forward order, but loop
passes are applied in reverse order over the program. If we have a
loop optimization that prefers forward order, that can easily be
achieved by adding a different type of LoopPassManager.
llvm-svn: 159183
