Initial optimization is to convert (i64 (zext (i32 X))) to
(i64 (sext (i32 X))) if the dominating condition for the basic block
guaranteed the sign bit of X is zero.
This frequently occurs in loop preheaders where a signed induction
variable that can never be negative has been widened. There will be
a dominating check that the 32-bit trip count isn't negative or zero.
The check here is not restricted to that specific case though.
A i32->i64 sext is cheaper than zext on RV64 without the Zba
extension. Later optimizations can often remove the sext from the
preheader basic block because the dominating block also needs a sext to
evaluate the greater than 0 check.
Perhaps worth defining and updating a statistic. e.g. STATISTIC(NumZExtToSExt, "Number of SExt instructions converted to ZExt")