hi,
i found the term "intrinsic" in some LLVM docs i am reading, and
nowhere explains what that means.
i did try to google, but nothing helpful came up. anybody please help?
many thanks,
Jun
Google a bit more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_function
2012/7/16 Jun Koi <junkoi2004@gmail.com>
i found the term "intrinsic" in some LLVM docs i am reading, and
nowhere explains what that means.
i did try to google, but nothing helpful came up. anybody please help?
Let's me give it a try. You can think the term "intrinsic" means something
that can be considered as part of LLVM, but not as first-class member. For
example, LLVM IR likes add, sub, ret, ... etc are all first-class member
[1]. But sometimes we want to extend LLVM but leave other part of LLVM
unchanged, here comes "intrinsic" [2]. If time proves some intrinsic functions
are important enough, they can be turned into LLVM IR.
HTH,
chenwj
[1] http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#instref
[2] http://llvm.org/docs/ExtendingLLVM.html