Add support for the GNU C style attribute((error(""))) and
attribute((warning(""))). These attributes are meant to be put on
declarations of functions whom should not be called.
They are frequently used to provide compile time diagnostics similar to
_Static_assert, but which may rely on non-ICE conditions (ie. relying on
compiler optimizations). This is also similar to diagnose_if function
attribute, but can diagnose after optimizations have been run.
While users may instead simply call undefined functions in such cases to
get a linkage failure from the linker, these provide a much more
ergonomic and actionable diagnostic to users and do so at compile time
rather than at link time. Users instead may be able use inline asm .err
directives.
These are used throughout the Linux kernel in its implementation of
BUILD_BUG and BUILD_BUG_ON macros. These macros generally cannot be
converted to use _Static_assert because many of the parameters are not
ICEs. The Linux kernel still needs to be modified to make use of these
when building with Clang; I have a patch that does so I will send once
this feature is landed.
To do so, we create a new IR level Function attribute, "dontcall" (both
error and warning boil down to one IR Fn Attr). Then, similar to calls
to inline asm, we attach a !srcloc Metadata node to call sites of such
attributed callees.
The backend diagnoses these during instruction selection, while we still
know that a call is a call (vs say a JMP that's a tail call) in an arch
agnostic manner.
The frontend then reconstructs the SourceLocation from that Metadata,
and determines whether to emit an error or warning based on the callee's
attribute.
Link: https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16428
Link: https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/1173
I think this should be an inheritable attribute (same below) so that redeclarations get the marking as well.
However, this does make for a bit of a novel situation with regards to other attributes. The typical behavior for function attributes is:
but because all of the interesting work is happening in the backend, I believe the unmarked use will still act as though the attribute was marked.