LLVM 21.1.8 Release Notes — LLVM 21.1.8 documentation

# LLVM 21.1.8 Release Notes

# Introduction

This document contains the release notes for the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure, release 21.1.8. Here we describe the status of LLVM, including major improvements from the previous release, improvements in various subprojects of LLVM, and some of the current users of the code. All LLVM releases may be downloaded from the LLVM releases web site.

For more information about LLVM, including information about the latest release, please check out the main LLVM web site. If you have questions or comments, the Discourse forums is a good place to ask them.

Note that if you are reading this file from a Git checkout or the main LLVM web page, this document applies to the next release, not the current one. To see the release notes for a specific release, please see the releases page.

# Non-comprehensive list of changes in this release

- …

## Changes to the LLVM IR

- It is no longer permitted to inspect the uses of ConstantData. Use count APIs will behave as if they have no uses (i.e. use_empty() is always true).

- The `nocapture` attribute has been replaced by `captures(none)`.

- The constant expression variants of the following instructions have been removed:

  - `mul`

- Updated semantics of `llvm.type.checked.load.relative` to match that of `llvm.load.relative`.

- Inline asm calls no longer accept `label` arguments. Use `callbr` instead.

- Updated semantics of the `callbr` instruction to clarify that its ‘indirect labels’ are not expected to be reached by indirect (as in register-controlled) branch instructions, and therefore are not guaranteed to start with a `bti` or `endbr64` instruction, where those exist.

## Changes to LLVM infrastructure

- Removed support for target intrinsics being defined in the target directories themselves (i.e., the `TargetIntrinsicInfo` class).

- Fix Microsoft demangling of string literals to be stricter (#GH129970))

- Added the support for `fmaximum` and `fminimum` in `atomicrmw` instruction. The comparison is expected to match the behavior of `llvm.maximum.*` and `llvm.minimum.*` respectively.

## Changes to building LLVM

## Changes to TableGen

## Changes to Interprocedural Optimizations

## Changes to the AArch64 Backend

- Added the `execute-only` target feature, which indicates that the generated program code doesn’t contain any inline data, and there are no data accesses to code sections. On ELF targets this property is indicated by the `SHF_AARCH64_PURECODE` section flag. (#125687, #132196, #133084)

## Changes to the AMDGPU Backend

- Enabled the FWD_PROGRESS bit for all GFX ISAs greater or equal to 10, for the AMDHSA OS.

- Bump the default `.amdhsa_code_object_version` to 6. ROCm 6.3 is required to run any program compiled with COV6.

- Add a new `amdgcn.load.to.lds` intrinsic that wraps the existing global.load.lds intrinsic and has the same semantics. This intrinsic allows using buffer fat pointers (`ptr addrspace(7)`) as arguments, allowing loads to LDS from these pointers to be represented in the IR without needing to use buffer resource intrinsics directly. This intrinsic is exposed to Clang as `__builtin_amdgcn_load_to_lds`, though buffer fat pointers are not yet enabled in Clang. Migration to this intrinsic is optional, and there are no plans to deprecate `amdgcn.global.load.lds`.

## Changes to the ARM Backend

## Changes to the AVR Backend

## Changes to the DirectX Backend

## Changes to the Hexagon Backend

- The default Hexagon architecture version in ELF object files produced by the tools such as llvm-mc is changed to v68. This version will be set if the user does not provide the CPU version in the command line.

## Changes to the LoongArch Backend

- Changing the default code model from `small` to `medium` for 64-bit.

- Added inline asm support for the `q` constraint.

- Added the `32s` target feature for LA32S ISA extensions.

- Added codegen support for atomic-ops (`cmpxchg`, `max`, `min`, `umax`, `umin`) on LA32.

- Added codegen support for the ILP32D calling convention.

- Added several codegen and vectorization optimizations.

## Changes to the MIPS Backend

- `-mcpu=i6400` and `-mcpu=i6500` were added.

- Added support for `mipsel-windows-gnu` and `mipsel-windows-msvc` targets.

## Changes to the PowerPC Backend

- Add spill and restore for DMR and DMRp registers.

- Prototype various Dense Math Facility instructions, and intrinsics for basic enablement, insert/extract, integer and FP calculations.

- Add prototype for Dense Math Facility cryptography instructions.

- Implement load/stores prototype for v1024i1, v2048i1.

- Support conversion between f16 and f128.

- Change default for auto gen stxvp for cpu=future.

- Setup initial JITLink build support for XCOFF.

- Add an API to derive the default feature set from a CPU name within the TargetParser (e.g. `pwr10` -> `+vsx`,`+isa3_1`,`+mma`). Clang now uses this to populate the `target-feature` list when `-mcpu` is provided for PowerPC.

- Various bug fixes and codegen improvements.

## Changes to the RISC-V Backend

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcilb` (Long Branch) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcili` (Load Large Immediate) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcilia` (Large Immediate Arithmetic) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcibm` (Bit Manipulation) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcibi` (Branch Immediate) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler and code generation support for the Qualcomm ‘Xqccmp’ extension, which is a frame-pointer convention compatible version of Zcmp.

- Added non-quadratic `log-vrgather` cost model for `vrgather.vv` instruction

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcisim` (Simulation Hint) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqcisync` (Sync Delay) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the Qualcomm uC ‘Xqciio` (External Input Output) extension.

- Adds assembler support for the ‘Zilsd` (Load/Store Pair Instructions) extension.

- Adds assembler support for the ‘Zclsd` (Compressed Load/Store Pair Instructions) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for Zvqdotq.

- Adds Support for Qualcomm’s `qci-nest` and `qci-nonest` interrupt types, which use instructions from `Xqciint` to save and restore some GPRs during interrupt handlers.

- When the experimental extension `Xqcili` is enabled, `qc.e.li` and `qc.li` may now be used to materialize immediates.

- Adds assembler support for `.option exact`, which disables automatic compression, and branch and linker relaxation. This can be disabled with `.option noexact`, which is also the default.

- `-mcpu=xiangshan-kunminghu` was added.

- `-mcpu=andes-n45` and `-mcpu=andes-nx45` were added.

- `-mcpu=andes-a45` and `-mcpu=andes-ax45` were added.

- Adds support for the ‘Ziccamoc` (Main Memory Supports Atomics in Zacas) extension, which was introduced as an optional extension of the RISC-V Profiles specification.

- Adds experimental assembler support for SiFive CLIC CSRs, under the names `Zsfmclic` for the M-mode registers and `Zsfsclic` for the S-mode registers.

- Adds Support for SiFive CLIC interrupt attributes, which automate writing CLIC interrupt handlers without using inline assembly.

- Adds assembler support for the Andes `XAndesperf` (Andes Performance extension).

- `-mcpu=sifive-p870` was added.

- Adds assembler support for the Andes `XAndesvpackfph` (Andes Vector Packed FP16 extension).

- Adds assembler support for the Andes `XAndesvdot` (Andes Vector Dot Product extension).

- Adds assembler support for the standard `Q` (Quad-Precision Floating Point) extension.

- Adds experimental assembler support for the SiFive Xsfmm* Attached Matrix Extensions.

- `-mcpu=andes-a25` and `-mcpu=andes-ax25` were added.

- The `Shlcofideleg` extension was added.

- `-mcpu=sifive-x390` was added.

- `-mtune=andes-45-series` was added.

- Adds assembler support for the Andes `XAndesvbfhcvt` (Andes Vector BFLOAT16 Conversion extension).

- `-mcpu=andes-ax45mpv` was added.

- Removed -mattr=+no-rvc-hints that could be used to disable parsing and generation of RVC hints.

- Adds assembler support for the Andes `XAndesvsintload` (Andes Vector INT4 Load extension).

- Adds assembler support for the Andes `XAndesbfhcvt` (Andes Scalar BFLOAT16 Conversion extension).

- Add combine for shadd family of instructions.

## Changes to the WebAssembly Backend

## Changes to the Windows Target

- `fp128` is now passed indirectly, meaning it uses the same calling convention as `i128`.

- Added support for `mipsel-windows-gnu` and `mipsel-windows-msvc` targets.

## Changes to the X86 Backend

- `fp128` will now use `*f128` libcalls on 32-bit GNU targets as well.

- On x86-32, `fp128` and `i128` are now passed with the expected 16-byte stack alignment.

## Changes to the OCaml bindings

## Changes to the Python bindings

## Changes to the C API

- The following functions for creating constant expressions have been removed, because the underlying constant expressions are no longer supported. Instead, an instruction should be created using the `LLVMBuildXYZ` APIs, which will constant fold the operands if possible and create an instruction otherwise:

  - `LLVMConstMul`

  - `LLVMConstNUWMul`

  - `LLVMConstNSWMul`

- Added `LLVMConstDataArray` and `LLVMGetRawDataValues` to allow creating and reading `ConstantDataArray` values without needing extra `LLVMValueRef`s for individual elements.

- Added `LLVMDIBuilderCreateEnumeratorOfArbitraryPrecision` for creating debugging metadata of enumerators larger than 64 bits.

- Added `LLVMGetICmpSameSign` and `LLVMSetICmpSameSign` for the `samesign` flag on `icmp` instructions.

## Changes to the CodeGen infrastructure

## Changes to the Metadata Info

## Changes to the Debug Info

## Changes to the LLVM tools

- llvm-objcopy now supports the `--update-section` flag for intermediate Mach-O object files.

- llvm-strip now supports continuing to process files on encountering an error.

- In llvm-objcopy/llvm-strip’s ELF port, `--discard-locals` and `--discard-all` now allow and preserve symbols referenced by relocations. (#47468)

- llvm-addr2line now supports a `+` prefix when specifying an address.

- Support for `SHT_LLVM_BB_ADDR_MAP` versions 0 and 1 has been dropped.

## Changes to LLDB

- When building LLDB with Python support, the minimum version of Python is now 3.8.

- LLDB now supports hardware watchpoints for AArch64 Windows targets. Windows does not provide API to query the number of supported hardware watchpoints. Therefore current implementation allows only 1 watchpoint, as tested with Windows 11 on the Microsoft SQ2 and Snapdragon Elite X platforms.

- LLDB now steps through C++ thunks. This fixes an issue where previously, it wouldn’t step into multiple inheritance virtual functions.

- A statusline was added to command-line LLDB to show progress events and information about the current state of the debugger at the bottom of the terminal. This is on by default and can be configured using the `show-statusline` and `statusline-format` settings. It is not currently supported on Windows.

- The `min-gdbserver-port` and `max-gdbserver-port` options have been removed from `lldb-server`’s platform mode. Since the changes to `lldb-server`’s port handling in LLDB 20, these options have had no effect.

- LLDB now supports `process continue --reverse` when used with debug servers supporting reverse execution, such as rr. When using reverse execution, `process continue --forward` returns to the forward execution.

- LLDB now supports RISC-V 32-bit ELF core files.

- LLDB now supports siginfo descriptions for Linux user-space signals. User space signals will now have descriptions describing the method and sender.

        stop reason = SIGSEGV: sent by tkill system call (sender pid=649752, uid=2667987)

- ELF Cores can now have their siginfo structures inspected using `thread siginfo`.

- LLDB now uses DIL as the default implementation for ‘frame variable’. This should not change the behavior of ‘frame variable’ at all, at this time. To revert to using the old implementation use: `settings set target.experimental.use-DIL false`.

- Disassembly of unknown instructions now produces `<unknown>` instead of nothing at all

- Changed the format of opcode bytes to match llvm-objdump when disassembling RISC-V code with `disassemble`’s `--byte` option.

- LLDB added native support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). An MCP server can be started with the `protocol-server start MCP` command.

- On AArch64 Linux, LLDB will now show the state of the `STORE_ONLY` field of `mte_ctrl`. This will only be shown on hardware that has the `FEAT_MTE_STORE_ONLY` architecture feature.

### Changes to lldb-dap

- Breakpoints can now be set for specific columns within a line.

- Function return value is now displayed on step-out.

## Changes to BOLT

## Changes to Sanitizers

## Other Changes

- A new ThinLTO backend has been added to implement the Integrated Distributed ThinLTO (DTLTO) feature. This new backend delegates the ThinLTO backend compilation jobs to an external process (the distributor), which in turn coordinates distribution through a system such as Incredibuild. A JSON interface is used for communication with the distributor. (#47468).

## Changes to the Profile Runtime

- On AIX, avoid using mmap when reading profile files from a non-local filesystem.

# External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 21.1.8

- A project…

# Additional Information

A wide variety of additional information is available on the LLVM web page, in particular in the documentation section. The web page also contains versions of the API documentation which is up-to-date with the Git version of the source code. You can access versions of these documents specific to this release by going into the `llvm/docs/` directory in the LLVM tree.

If you have any questions or comments about LLVM, please feel free to contact us via the Discourse forums.