testing.md

Testing Cranelift

Cranelift is tested at multiple levels of abstraction and integration. When possible, Rust unit tests are used to verify single functions and types. When testing the interaction between compiler passes, file-level tests are appropriate.

Rust tests

Rust and Cargo have good support for testing. Cranelift uses unit tests, doc tests, and integration tests where appropriate. The Rust By Example page on Testing is a great illustration on how to write each of these forms of test.

File tests

Compilers work with large data structures representing programs, and it quickly gets unwieldy to generate test data programmatically. File-level tests make it easier to provide substantial input functions for the compiler tests.

File tests are *.clif files in the filetests/ directory hierarchy. Each file has a header describing what to test followed by a number of input functions in the :doc:Cranelift textual intermediate representation <ir>:

.. productionlist:: test_file : test_header function_list test_header : test_commands (isa_specs | settings) test_commands : test_command { test_command } test_command : "test" test_name { option } "\n"

The available test commands are described below.

Many test commands only make sense in the context of a target instruction set architecture. These tests require one or more ISA specifications in the test header:

.. productionlist:: isa_specs : { [settings] isa_spec } isa_spec : "isa" isa_name { option } "\n"

The options given on the isa line modify the ISA-specific settings defined in cranelift-codegen/meta-python/isa/*/settings.py.

All types of tests allow shared Cranelift settings to be modified:

.. productionlist:: settings : { setting } setting : "set" { option } "\n" option : flag | setting "=" value

The shared settings available for all target ISAs are defined in cranelift-codegen/meta-python/base/settings.py.

The set lines apply settings cumulatively:

    test legalizer
    set opt_level=best
    set is_pic=1
    target riscv64
    set is_pic=0
    target riscv32 supports_m=false

    function %foo() {}

This example will run the legalizer test twice. Both runs will have opt_level=best, but they will have different is_pic settings. The 32-bit run will also have the RISC-V specific flag supports_m disabled.

The filetests are run automatically as part of cargo test, and they can also be run manually with the clif-util test command.

By default, the test runner will spawn a thread pool with as many threads as there are logical CPUs. You can explicitly control how many threads are spawned via the CRANELIFT_FILETESTS_THREADS environment variable. For example, to limit the test runner to a single thread, use:

$ CRANELIFT_FILETESTS_THREADS=1 clif-util test path/to/file.clif

Filecheck

Many of the test commands described below use filecheck to verify their output. Filecheck is a Rust implementation of the LLVM tool of the same name. See the documentation <https://docs.rs/filecheck/>_ for details of its syntax.

Comments in .clif files are associated with the entity they follow. This typically means an instruction or the whole function. Those tests that use filecheck will extract comments associated with each function (or its entities) and scan them for filecheck directives. The test output for each function is then matched against the filecheck directives for that function.

Comments appearing before the first function in a file apply to every function. This is useful for defining common regular expression variables with the regex: directive, for example.

Note that LLVM's file tests don't separate filecheck directives by their associated function. It verifies the concatenated output against all filecheck directives in the test file. LLVM's :command:FileCheck command has a CHECK-LABEL: directive to help separate the output from different functions. Cranelift's tests don't need this.

test cat

This is one of the simplest file tests, used for testing the conversion to and from textual IR. The test cat command simply parses each function and converts it back to text again. The text of each function is then matched against the associated filecheck directives.

Example:

    function %r1() -> i32, f32 {
    block1:
        v10 = iconst.i32 3
        v20 = f32const 0.0
        return v10, v20
    }
    ; sameln: function %r1() -> i32, f32 {
    ; nextln: block0:
    ; nextln:     v10 = iconst.i32 3
    ; nextln:     v20 = f32const 0.0
    ; nextln:     return v10, v20
    ; nextln: }

test verifier

Run each function through the IR verifier and check that it produces the expected error messages.

Expected error messages are indicated with an error: directive on the instruction that produces the verifier error. Both the error message and reported location of the error is verified:

    test verifier

    function %test(i32) {
        block0(v0: i32):
            jump block1       ; error: terminator
            return
    }

This example test passes if the verifier fails with an error message containing the sub-string "terminator" and the error is reported for the jump instruction.

If a function contains no error: annotations, the test passes if the function verifies correctly.

test print-cfg

Print the control flow graph of each function as a Graphviz graph, and run filecheck over the result. See also the :command:clif-util print-cfg command:

    ; For testing cfg generation. This code is nonsense.
    test print-cfg
    test verifier

    function %nonsense(i32, i32) -> f32 {
    ; check: digraph %nonsense {
    ; regex: I=\binst\d+\b
    ; check: label="{block0 | <$(BRIF=$I)>brif v1, block1(v2), block2 }"]

    block0(v0: i32, v1: i32):
        v2 = iconst.i32 0
        brif v1, block1(v2), block2  ; unordered: block0:$BRIF -> block1
                                     ; unordered: block0:$BRIF -> block2

    block1(v5: i32):
        return v0

    block2:
        v100 = f32const 0.0
        return v100
    }

test domtree

Compute the dominator tree of each function and validate it against the dominates: annotations::

    test domtree

    function %test(i32) {
        block0(v0: i32):
            jump block1              ; dominates: block1
        block1:
            brif v0, block2, block3  ; dominates: block2, block3
        block2:
            jump block3
        block3:
            return
    }

Every reachable basic block except for the entry block has an immediate dominator which is a jump or branch instruction. This test passes if the dominates: annotations on the immediate dominator instructions are both correct and complete.

This test also sends the computed CFG post-order through filecheck.

test legalizer

Legalize each function for the specified target ISA and run the resulting function through filecheck. This test command can be used to validate the encodings selected for legal instructions as well as the instruction transformations performed by the legalizer.

test regalloc

Test the register allocator.

First, each function is legalized for the specified target ISA. This is required for register allocation since the instruction encodings provide register class constraints to the register allocator.

Second, the register allocator is run on the function, inserting spill code and assigning registers and stack slots to all values.

The resulting function is then run through filecheck.

test simple-gvn

Test the simple GVN pass.

The simple GVN pass is run on each function, and then results are run through filecheck.

test licm

Test the LICM pass.

The LICM pass is run on each function, and then results are run through filecheck.

test dce

Test the DCE pass.

The DCE pass is run on each function, and then results are run through filecheck.

test shrink

Test the instruction shrinking pass.

The shrink pass is run on each function, and then results are run through filecheck.

test simple_preopt

Test the preopt pass.

The preopt pass is run on each function, and then results are run through filecheck.

test compile

Test the whole code generation pipeline.

Each function is passed through the full Context::compile() function which is normally used to compile code. This type of test often depends on assertions or verifier errors, but it is also possible to use filecheck directives which will be matched against the final form of the Cranelift IR right before binary machine code emission.

test run

Compile and execute a function.

This test command allows several directives:

• to print the result of running a function to stdout, add a print directive and call the preceding function with arguments (see %foo in the example below); remember to enable --nocapture if running these tests through Cargo

• to check the result of a function, add a run directive and call the preceding function with a comparison (== or !=) (see %bar below)

• for backwards compatibility, to check the result of a function with a () -> i* signature, only the run directive is required, with no invocation or comparison (see %baz below); a non zero value is interpreted as a successful test execution, whereas a zero value is interpreted as a failed test.

Currently a target is required but is only used to indicate whether the host platform can run the test and currently only the architecture is filtered. The host platform's native target will be used to actually compile the test.

Example:

    test run
    target x86_64

    ; how to print the results of a function
    function %foo() -> i32 {
    block0:
        v0 = iconst.i32 42
        return v0
    }
    ; print: %foo()

    ; how to check the results of a function
    function %bar(i32) -> i32 {
    block0(v0:i32):
        v1 = iadd_imm v0, 1
        return v1
    }
    ; run: %bar(1) == 2

    ; legacy method of checking the results of a function
    function %baz() -> i8 {
    block0:
        v0 = iconst.i8 1
        return v0
    }
    ; run