diff --git a/llvm/include/llvm/Analysis/AliasAnalysis.h b/llvm/include/llvm/Analysis/AliasAnalysis.h index 12840b33a8ff..f363f42541e1 100644 --- a/llvm/include/llvm/Analysis/AliasAnalysis.h +++ b/llvm/include/llvm/Analysis/AliasAnalysis.h @@ -16,11 +16,21 @@ // which automatically provides functionality for the entire suite of client // APIs. // -// This API represents memory as a (Pointer, Size) pair. The Pointer component -// specifies the base memory address of the region, the Size specifies how large -// of an area is being queried, or UnknownSize if the size is not known. -// Pointers that point to two completely different objects in memory never -// alias, regardless of the value of the Size component. +// This API identifies memory regions with the Location class. The pointer +// component specifies the base memory address of the region. The Size specifies +// the maximum size (in address units) of the memory region, or UnknownSize if +// the size is not known. The TBAA tag identifies the "type" of the memory +// reference; see the TypeBasedAliasAnalysis class for details. +// +// Some non-obvious details include: +// - Pointers that point to two completely different objects in memory never +// alias, regardless of the value of the Size component. +// - NoAlias doesn't imply inequal pointers. The most obvious example of this +// is two pointers to constant memory. Even if they are equal, constant +// memory is never stored to, so there will never be any dependencies. +// In this and other situations, the pointers may be both NoAlias and +// MustAlias at the same time. The current API can only return one result, +// though this is rarely a problem in practice. // //===----------------------------------------------------------------------===//