MIPS Relocation Principles In LLVM, there are several elements of the llvm::ISD::NodeType enum that deal with addresses and/or relocations. These are defined in include/llvm/Target/TargetSelectionDAG.td, namely: GlobalAddress, GlobalTLSAddress, JumpTable, ConstantPool, ExternalSymbol, BlockAddress The MIPS backend uses several principles to handle these. 1. Code for lowering addresses references to machine dependent code is factored into common code for generating different address forms and is called by the relocation model specific lowering function, using templated functions. For example: // lib/Target/Mips/MipsISelLowering.cpp SDValue MipsTargetLowering:: lowerJumpTable(SDValue Op, SelectionDAG &DAG) const calls template // lib/Target/Mips/MipsISelLowering.h SDValue getAddrLocal(NodeTy *N, const SDLoc &DL, EVT Ty, SelectionDAG &DAG, bool IsN32OrN64) const which calls the overloaded function: // lib/Target/Mips/MipsISelLowering.h SDValue getTargetNode(JumpTableSDNode *N, EVT Ty, SelectionDAG &DAG, unsigned Flag) const; 2. Generic address nodes are lowered to some combination of target independent and machine specific SDNodes (for example: MipsISD::{Highest, Higher, Hi, Lo}) depending upon relocation model, ABI, and compilation options. The choice of specific instructions that are to be used is delegated to ISel which in turn relies on TableGen patterns to choose subtarget specific instructions. For example, in getAddrLocal, the pseudo-code generated is: (add (load (wrapper $gp, %got(sym)), %lo(sym)) where "%lo" represents an instance of an SDNode with opcode "MipsISD::Lo", "wrapper" indicates one with opcode "MipsISD::Wrapper", and "%got" the global table pointer "getGlobalReg(...)". The "add" is "ISD::ADD", not a target dependent one. 3. A TableGen multiclass pattern "MipsHiLoRelocs" is used to define a template pattern parameterized over the load upper immediate instruction, add operation, the zero register, and register class. Here the instantiation of MipsHiLoRelocs in MipsInstrInfo.td is used to MIPS32 to compute addresses for the static relocation model. // lib/Target/Mips/MipsInstrInfo.td multiclass MipsHiLoRelocs { def : MipsPat<(MipsHi tglobaladdr:$in), (Lui tglobaladdr:$in)>; ... def : MipsPat<(MipsLo tglobaladdr:$in), (Addiu ZeroReg, tglobaladdr:$in)>; ... def : MipsPat<(add GPROpnd:$hi, (MipsLo tglobaladdr:$lo)), (Addiu GPROpnd:$hi, tglobaladdr:$lo)>; ... } defm : MipsHiLoRelocs; // lib/Target/Mips/Mips64InstrInfo.td defm : MipsHiLoRelocs, SYM_32; The instantiation in Mips64InstrInfo.td is used for MIPS64 in ILP32 mode, as guarded by the predicate "SYM_32" and also for a submode of LP64 where symbols are assumed to be 32 bits wide. More details on how multiclasses in TableGen work can be found in the section "Multiclass definitions and instances" in the document "TableGen Language Introduction" 4. Instruction definitions are multiply defined to cover the different register classes. In some cases, such as LW/LW64, this also accounts for the difference in the results of instruction execution. On MIPS32, "lw" loads a 32 bit value from memory. On MIPS64, "lw" loads a 32 bit value from memory and sign extends the value to 64 bits. // lib/Target/Mips/MipsInstrInfo.td def LUi : MMRel, LoadUpper<"lui", GPR32Opnd, uimm16_relaxed>, LUI_FM; // lib/Target/Mips/Mips64InstrInfo.td def LUi64 : LoadUpper<"lui", GPR64Opnd, uimm16_64_relaxed>, LUI_FM; defines two names "LUi" and "LUi64" with two different register classes, but with the same encoding---"LUI_FM". These instructions load a 16-bit immediate into bits 31-16 and clear the lower 15 bits. On MIPS64, the result is sign-extended to 64 bits.