jdoerfert added a comment.

In D79744#2040380 <https://reviews.llvm.org/D79744#2040380>, @rjmccall wrote:

> In D79744#2040348 <https://reviews.llvm.org/D79744#2040348>, @jdoerfert wrote:
>
> > Drive by, I haven't read the entire history.
> >
> > In D79744#2040208 <https://reviews.llvm.org/D79744#2040208>, @rjmccall 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I don't understand why `noalias` is even a concern if the whole buffer 
> > > passed to the kernel is read-only.  `noalias` is primarily about proving 
> > > non-interference, but if you can tell IR that the buffer is read-only, 
> > > that's a much more powerful statement.
> >
> >
> > The problem is that it is a "per-pointer" attribute and not "per-object". 
> > Given two argument pointers, where one is marked `readonly`, may still 
> > alias. Similarly, an access to a global, indirect accesses, ... can write 
> > the "readonly" memory.
>
>
> Oh, do we really not have a way to mark that memory is known to be truly 
> immutable for a time?  That seems like a really bad limitation.  It should be 
> doable with a custom alias analysis at least.


`noalias` + `readone` on an argument basically implies immutable for the 
function scope. I think we have invariant intrinsics that could do the trick as 
well, though I'm not too familiar with those. I was eventually hoping for 
paired/scoped `llvm.assumes` which would allow `noalias` + `readnone` again. 
Then there is `invariant` which can be placed on a load instruction. Finally, 
TBAA has a "constant memory" tag (or something like that), but again it is a 
per-access thing. That are all the in-tree ways I can think of right now.

Custom alias analysis can probably be used to some degree but except address 
spaces I'm unsure we have much that you can attach to a pointer and that 
"really sticks".

>>> Regardless, if you do need `noalias`, you should be able to emit the same 
>>> IR that we'd emit if pointers to all the fields were assigned into 
>>> `restrict` local variables and then only those variables were subsequently 
>>> used.
>> 
>> We are still debating the local restrict pointer support. Once we merge that 
>> in it should be usable here.
> 
> I thought that was finished a few years ago; is it really not considered 
> usable yet?  Or does "we" not just mean LLVM here?

Yes, I meant "we" = LLVM here. Maybe we talk about different things. I was 
referring to local restrict qualified variables, e.g., `double * __restrict Ptr 
= ...`. The proposal to not just ignore the restrict (see 
https://godbolt.org/z/jLzjR3) came last year, it was a big one and progress 
unfortunately stalled (partly my fault). Now we are just about to see a second 
push to get it done.
Is that what you meant too?


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