IR, X86: Understand !absolute_symbol metadata on global variables.

Summary:
Attaching !absolute_symbol to a global variable does two things:
1) Marks it as an absolute symbol reference.
2) Specifies the value range of that symbol's address.
Teach the X86 backend to allow absolute symbols to appear in place of
immediates by extending the relocImm and mov64imm32 matchers. Start using
relocImm in more places where it is legal.

As previously proposed on llvm-dev:
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-October/105800.html

Differential Revision: https://reviews.llvm.org/D25878

llvm-svn: 289087

1 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/llvm/docs/LangRef.rst b/llvm/docs/LangRef.rst
index 33cf6adc4ee..4dd7157d04e 100644
--- a/llvm/docs/LangRef.rst
+++ b/llvm/docs/LangRef.rst
@@ -4589,6 +4589,25 @@ Examples:
     !2 = !{ i8 0, i8 2, i8 3, i8 6 }
     !3 = !{ i8 -2, i8 0, i8 3, i8 6 }
 
+'``absolute_symbol``' Metadata
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+``absolute_symbol`` metadata may be attached to a global variable
+declaration. It marks the declaration as a reference to an absolute symbol,
+which causes the backend to use absolute relocations for the symbol even
+in position independent code, and expresses the possible ranges that the
+global variable's *address* (not its value) is in, in the same format as
+``range`` metadata.
+
+Example:
+
+.. code-block:: llvm
+
+      @a = external global i8, !absolute_symbol !0 ; Absolute symbol in range [0,256)
+
+    ...
+    !0 = !{ i64 0, i64 256 }
+
 '``unpredictable``' Metadata
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^