xref: /llvm-project/offload/liboffload/API/README.md (revision fd3907ccb583df99e9c19d2fe84e4e7c52d75de9)

# Offload API definitions

**Note**: This is a work-in-progress. It is loosely based on equivalent
tooling in Unified Runtime.

The Tablegen files in this directory are used to define the Offload API. They
are used with the `offload-tblgen` tool to generate API headers, print headers,
and other implementation details.

The root file is `OffloadAPI.td` - additional `.td` files can be included in
this file to add them to the API.

## API Objects
The API consists of a number of objects, which always have a *name* field and
*description* field, and are one of the following types:

### Function
Represents an API entry point function. Has a list of returns and parameters.
Also has fields for details (representing a bullet-point list of
information about the function that would otherwise be too detailed for the
description), and analogues (equivalent functions in other APIs).

#### Parameter
Represents a parameter to a function, has *type*, *name*, and *desc* fields.
Also has a *flags* field containing flags representing whether the parameter is
in, out, or optional.

The *type* field is used to infer if the parameter is a pointer or handle type.
A *handle* type is a pointer to an opaque struct, used to abstract over
plugin-specific implementation details.

There are two special variants of a *parameter*:
* **RangedParameter** - Represents a parameter that has a range described by other parameters. Generally these are pointers to an arbitrary number of objects. The range is used for generating validation and printing code. E.g, a range might be between `(0, NumDevices)`
* **TypeTaggedParameter** - Represents a parameter (usually of `void*` type) that has the type and size of its pointee data described by other function parameters. The type is usually described by a type-tagged enum. This allows functions (e.g. `olGetDeviceInfo`) to return data of an arbitrary type.

#### Return
A return represents a possible return code from the function, and optionally a
list of conditions in which this value may be returned. The conditions list is
not expected to be exhaustive. A condition is considered free-form text, but
if it is wrapped in \`backticks\` then it is treated as literal code
representing an error condition (e.g. `someParam < 1`). These conditions are
used to automatically create validation checks by the `offload-tblgen`
validation generator.

Returns are automatically generated for functions with pointer or handle
parameters, so API authors do not need to exhaustively add null checks for
these types of parameters. All functions also get a number of default return
values automatically.


### Struct
Represents a struct. Contains a list of members, which each have a *type*,
*name*, and *desc*.

Also optionally takes a *base_class* field. If this is either of the special
`offload_base_properties_t` or `offload_base_desc_t` structs, then the struct
will inherit members from those structs. The generated struct does **not** use
actual C++ inheritance, but instead explicitly has those members copied in,
which preserves ABI compatibility with C.

### Enum
Represents a C-style enum. Contains a list of `etor` values, which have a name
and description.

A `TaggedEtor` record type also exists which addtionally takes a type. This type
is used when the enum is used as a parameter to a function with a type-tagged
function parameter (e.g. `olGetDeviceInfo`).

All enums automatically get a `<enum_name>_FORCE_UINT32 = 0x7fffffff` value,
which forces the underlying type to be uint32.

### Handle
Represents a pointer to an opaque struct, as described in the Parameter section.
It does not take any extra fields.

### Typedef
Represents a typedef, contains only a *value* field.

### Macro
Represents a C preprocessor `#define`. Contains a *value* field. Optionally
takes a *condition* field, which allows the macro to be conditionally defined,
and an *alt_value* field, which represents the value if the condition is false.

Macro arguments are presented in the *name* field (e.g. name = `mymacro(arg)`).

While there may seem little point generating a macro from tablegen, doing this
allows the entire source of the header file to be generated from the tablegen
files, rather than requiring a mix of C source and tablegen.

## Generation

### API header
```
./offload-tblgen -I <path-to-llvm>/offload/API  <path-to-llvm>/offload/API/OffloadAPI.td --gen-api
```
The comments in the generated header are in Doxygen format, although
generating documentation from them hasn't been implemented yet.

The entirety of this header is generated by Tablegen, rather than having a predefined header file that includes one or more `.inc` files. This is because this header is expected to be part of the installation and distributed to end-users, so should be self-contained.

### Entry Points
```
./offload-tblgen -I <path-to-llvm>/offload/API  <path-to-llvm>/offload/API/OffloadAPI.td --gen-entry-points
```
These functions form the actual Offload interface, and are wrappers over the
functions that contain the actual implementation (see
'Adding a new entry point').

They implement automatically generated validation checks, and tracing of
function calls with arguments and results. The tracing can be enabled with the
`OFFLOAD_TRACE` environment variable.

### Implementation function declarations
```
./offload-tblgen -I <path-to-llvm>/offload/API  <path-to-llvm>/offload/API/OffloadAPI.td --gen-impl-func-decls
```
Generates declarations of the implementation of functions of every entry point
in the API, e.g. `offloadDeviceFoo_impl` for `offloadDeviceFoo`.

### Print header
```
./offload-tblgen -I <path-to-llvm>/offload/API  <path-to-llvm>/offload/API/OffloadAPI.td --gen-print-header
```
This header contains `std::ostream &operator<<(std::ostream&)` definitions for
various API objects, including function parameters.

As with the API header, it is expected that this header is part of the installed
package, so it is entirely generated by Tablegen.

For ease of implementation, and since it is not strictly part of the API, this
is a C++ header file. If a C version is desirable it could be added.

### Future Tablegen backends
`RecordTypes.hpp` contains wrappers for all of the API object types, which will
allow more backends to be easily added in future.

## Adding to the API

A new object can be added to the API by adding to one of the existing `.td`
files. It is also possible to add a new tablegen file to the API by adding it
to the includes in `OffloadAPI.td`. When the offload target is rebuilt, the
new definition will be included in the generated files.

### Adding a new entry point

When a new entry point is added (e.g. `offloadDeviceFoo`), the actual entry
point is automatically generated, which contains validation and tracing code.
It expects an implementation function (`offloadDeviceFoo_impl`) to be defined,
which it will call into. The definition of this implementation function should
be added to `src/offload_impl.cpp`