FILECHECK(1)

📦
version 15.0.7 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu jammy

💖 FILECHECK(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the LLVM FileCheck manual — the flexible pattern matching file verifier that's literally carrying your whole test suite on its back. ✨ We're keeping every single detail, no cap. 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

FileCheck — flexible pattern matching file verifier. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

FileCheck match-filename [–check-prefix=XXX] [–strict-whitespace]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

FileCheck reads two files — one from standard input, and one specified on the command line — and uses one to verify the other. 🎀 This behavior is particularly useful for the testsuite, which wants to verify that the output of some tool (e.g. llc) contains the expected information (for example, a movsd from esp or whatever is interesting). It's similar to using grep, but it's optimized for matching multiple different inputs in one file in a specific order. 💫

The match-filename file specifies the file that contains the patterns to match. The file to verify is read from standard input unless the --input-file option is used. 🦋

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

Options are parsed from the environment variable FILECHECK_OPTS and from the command line. slay. ✨

  • -help — Print a summary of command line options. 💖
  • --check-prefix prefix — FileCheck searches the contents of match-filename for patterns to match. By default, these patterns are prefixed with CHECK:. If you'd like to use a different prefix (e.g. because the same input file is checking multiple different tool or options), the --check-prefix argument allows you to specify (without the trailing :) one or more prefixes to match. Multiple prefixes are useful for tests which might change for different run options, but most lines remain the same. 👑

FileCheck does not permit duplicate prefixes, even if one is a check prefix and one is a comment prefix (see --comment-prefixes below). 🚫

  • --check-prefixes prefix1,prefix2,... — An alias of --check-prefix that allows multiple prefixes to be specified as a comma separated list. 💅
  • --comment-prefixes prefix1,prefix2,... — By default, FileCheck ignores any occurrence in match-filename of any check prefix if it is preceded on the same line by COM: or RUN:. See the section The COM: directive for usage details. 👀

These default comment prefixes can be overridden by --comment-prefixes if they are not appropriate for your testing environment. However, doing so is not recommended in LLVM's LIT-based test suites, which should be easier to maintain if they all follow a consistent comment style. In that case, consider proposing a change to the default comment prefixes instead. 🫶

  • --allow-unused-prefixes — This option controls the behavior when using more than one prefix as specified by --check-prefix or --check-prefixes, and some of these prefixes are missing in the test file. If true, this is allowed, if false, FileCheck will report an error, listing the missing prefixes. The default value is false. 😭
  • --input-file filename — File to check (defaults to stdin). 🍓
  • --match-full-lines — By default, FileCheck allows matches of anywhere on a line. This option will require all positive matches to cover an entire line. Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored, unless --strict-whitespace is also specified. (Note: negative matches from CHECK-NOT are not affected by this option!) 💀

Passing this option is equivalent to inserting {{^ *}} or {{^}} before, and {{ *$}} or {{$}} after every positive check pattern. 🌈

  • --strict-whitespace — By default, FileCheck canonicalizes input horizontal whitespace (spaces and tabs) which causes it to ignore these differences (a space will match a tab). The --strict-whitespace argument disables this behavior. End-of-line sequences are canonicalized to UNIX-style \n in all modes. 🧚
  • --ignore-case — By default, FileCheck uses case-sensitive matching. This option causes FileCheck to use case-insensitive matching. 🔥
  • --implicit-check-not check-pattern — Adds implicit negative checks for the specified patterns between positive checks. The option allows writing stricter tests without stuffing them with CHECK-NOTs. 💖

For example, --implicit-check-not warning: can be useful when testing diagnostic messages from tools that don't have an option similar to clang -verify. With this option FileCheck will verify that input does not contain warnings not covered by any CHECK: patterns. ✨

  • --dump-input <value> — Dump input to stderr, adding annotations representing currently enabled diagnostics. When there are multiple occurrences of this option, the <value> that appears earliest in the list below has precedence. The default is fail. 💅
    • help — Explain input dump and quit
    • always — Always dump input
    • fail — Dump input on failure
    • never — Never dump input
  • --dump-input-context <N> — In the dump requested by --dump-input, print <N> input lines before and <N> input lines after any lines specified by --dump-input-filter. When there are multiple occurrences of this option, the largest specified <N> has precedence. The default is 5. 🎀
  • --dump-input-filter <value> — In the dump requested by --dump-input, print only input lines of kind <value> plus any context specified by --dump-input-context. When there are multiple occurrences of this option, the <value> that appears earliest in the list below has precedence. The default is error when --dump-input=fail, and it's all when --dump-input=always. 🦋
    • all — All input lines
    • annotation-full — Input lines with annotations
    • annotation — Input lines with starting points of annotations
    • error — Input lines with starting points of error annotations
  • --enable-var-scope — Enables scope for regex variables. 🌸

Variables with names that start with $ are considered global and remain set throughout the file. 👑

All other variables get undefined after each encountered CHECK-LABEL. 😭

  • -D<VAR=VALUE> — Sets a filecheck pattern variable VAR with value VALUE that can be used in CHECK: lines. 💜
  • -D#<FMT>,<NUMVAR>=<NUMERIC EXPRESSION> — Sets a filecheck numeric variable NUMVAR of matching format FMT to the result of evaluating <NUMERIC EXPRESSION> that can be used in CHECK: lines. See section FileCheck Numeric Variables and Expressions for details on supported numeric expressions. 🧮
  • -version — Show the version number of this program. ⭐
  • -v — Print good directive pattern matches. However, if -dump-input=fail or -dump-input=always, add those matches as input annotations instead. 👀
  • -vv — Print information helpful in diagnosing internal FileCheck issues, such as discarded overlapping CHECK-DAG: matches, implicit EOF pattern matches, and CHECK-NOT: patterns that do not have matches. Implies -v. However, if -dump-input=fail or -dump-input=always, just add that information as input annotations instead. 🔍
  • --allow-deprecated-dag-overlap — Enable overlapping among matches in a group of consecutive CHECK-DAG: directives. This option is deprecated and is only provided for convenience as old tests are migrated to the new non-overlapping CHECK-DAG: implementation. ⚠️
  • --allow-empty — Allow checking empty input. By default, empty input is rejected. 🙈
  • --color — Use colors in output (autodetected by default). 🌈

🦋 EXIT STATUS 🦋

If FileCheck verifies that the file matches the expected contents, it exits with 0. Otherwise, if not, or if an error occurs, it will exit with a non-zero value. 💯

🌈 TUTORIAL 🌈

FileCheck is typically used from LLVM regression tests, being invoked on the RUN line of the test. A simple example of using FileCheck from a RUN line looks like this:

; RUN: llvm-as < %s | llc -march=x86-64 | FileCheck %s

This syntax says to pipe the current file (%s) into llvm-as, pipe that into llc, then pipe the output of llc into FileCheck. This means that FileCheck will be verifying its standard input (the llc output) against the filename argument specified (the original .ll file specified by %s). To see how this works, let's look at the rest of the .ll file (after the RUN line):

define void @sub1(i32* %p, i32 %v) {
entry:
; CHECK: sub1:
; CHECK: subl
        %0 = tail call i32 @llvm.atomic.load.sub.i32.p0i32(i32* %p, i32 %v)
        ret void
}

define void @inc4(i64* %p) {
entry:
; CHECK: inc4:
; CHECK: incq
        %0 = tail call i64 @llvm.atomic.load.add.i64.p0i64(i64* %p, i64 1)
        ret void
}

Here you can see some CHECK: lines specified in comments. Now you can see how the file is piped into llvm-as, then llc, and the machine code output is what we are verifying. FileCheck checks the machine code output to verify that it matches what the CHECK: lines specify. ✨

The syntax of the CHECK: lines is very simple: they are fixed strings that must occur in order. FileCheck defaults to ignoring horizontal whitespace differences (e.g. a space is allowed to match a tab) but otherwise, the contents of the CHECK: line is required to match something in the test file exactly. 💅

One nice thing about FileCheck (compared to grep) is that it allows merging test cases together into logical groups. For example, because the test above is checking for the sub1: and inc4: labels, it will not match unless there is a subl in between those labels. If it existed somewhere else in the file, that would not count: grep subl matches if subl exists anywhere in the file. 👑

💖 The FileCheck -check-prefix option 💖

The FileCheck -check-prefix option allows multiple test configurations to be driven from one .ll file. This is useful in many circumstances, for example, testing different architectural variants with llc. Here's a simple example:

; RUN: llvm-as < %s | llc -mtriple=i686-apple-darwin9 -mattr=sse41 \
; RUN:              | FileCheck %s -check-prefix=X32
; RUN: llvm-as < %s | llc -mtriple=x86_64-apple-darwin9 -mattr=sse41 \
; RUN:              | FileCheck %s -check-prefix=X64

define <4 x i32> @pinsrd_1(i32 %s, <4 x i32> %tmp) nounwind {
        %tmp1 = insertelement <4 x i32>; %tmp, i32 %s, i32 1
        ret <4 x i32> %tmp1
; X32: pinsrd_1:
; X32:    pinsrd $1, 4(%esp), %xmm0
          ; X64: pinsrd_1:
          ; X64:    pinsrd $1, %edi, %xmm0
          }

Okay so in this case, we’re testing that we get the expected code generation with both 32-bit and 64-bit code generation. Slay. ✨

💬 The “COM:” directive 💬

Sometimes you want to disable a FileCheck directive without removing it entirely, or you want to write comments that mention a directive by name. The COM: directive makes it easy to do this. For example, you might have:

          ; X32: pinsrd_1:
          ; X32:    pinsrd $1, 4(%esp), %xmm0

          ; COM: FIXME: X64 isn't working correctly yet for this part of codegen, but
          ; COM: X64 will have something similar to X32:
          ; COM:
          ; COM:   X64: pinsrd_1:
          ; COM:   X64:    pinsrd $1, %edi, %xmm0

Without COM:, you would need to use some combination of rewording and directive syntax mangling to prevent FileCheck from recognizing the commented occurrences of X32: and X64: above as directives. Moreover, FileCheck diagnostics have been proposed that might complain about the above occurrences of X64 that don’t have the trailing : because they look like directive typos. Dodging all these problems can be tedious for a test author, and directive syntax mangling can make the purpose of test code unclear. COM: avoids all these problems. No cap. 💅

A few important usage notes, bestie:

  • COM: within another directive’s pattern does not comment out the remainder of the pattern. For example: ; X32: pinsrd $1, 4(%esp), %xmm0 COM: This is part of the X32 pattern! If you need to temporarily comment out part of a directive’s pattern, move it to another line. The reason is that FileCheck parses COM: in the same manner as any other directive: only the first directive on the line is recognized as a directive.
  • For the sake of LIT, FileCheck treats RUN: just like COM:. If this is not suitable for your test environment, see --comment-prefixes.
  • FileCheck does not recognize COM, RUN, or any user-defined comment prefix as a comment directive if it’s combined with one of the usual check directive suffixes, such as -NEXT: or -NOT:, discussed below. FileCheck treats such a combination as plain text instead. If it needs to act as a comment directive for your test environment, define it as such with --comment-prefixes.

🎯 The “CHECK-NEXT:” directive 🎯

Sometimes you want to match lines and would like to verify that matches happen on exactly consecutive lines with no other lines in between them. In this case, you can use CHECK: and CHECK-NEXT: directives to specify this. If you specified a custom check prefix, just use <PREFIX>-NEXT:. For example, something like this works as you’d expect:

          define void @t2(<2 x double>* %r, <2 x double>* %A, double %B) {
               %tmp3 = load <2 x double>* %A, align 16
               %tmp7 = insertelement <2 x double> undef, double %B, i32 0
               %tmp9 = shufflevector <2 x double> %tmp3,
                                      <2 x double> %tmp7,
                                      <2 x i32> < i32 0, i32 2 >
               store <2 x double> %tmp9, <2 x double>* %r, align 16
               ret void

          ; CHECK:          t2:
          ; CHECK:             movl    8(%esp), %eax
          ; CHECK-NEXT:        movapd  (%eax), %xmm0
          ; CHECK-NEXT:        movhpd  12(%esp), %xmm0
          ; CHECK-NEXT:        movl    4(%esp), %eax
          ; CHECK-NEXT:        movapd  %xmm0, (%eax)
          ; CHECK-NEXT:        ret
          }

CHECK-NEXT: directives reject the input unless there is exactly one newline between it and the previous directive. A CHECK-NEXT: cannot be the first directive in a file. Periodt. 🛑

🌸 The “CHECK-SAME:” directive 🌸

Sometimes you want to match lines and would like to verify that matches happen on the same line as the previous match. In this case, you can use CHECK: and CHECK-SAME: directives to specify this. If you specified a custom check prefix, just use <PREFIX>-SAME:.

CHECK-SAME: is particularly powerful in conjunction with CHECK-NOT: (described below).

For example, the following works like you’d expect:

          !0 = !DILocation(line: 5, scope: !1, inlinedAt: !2)

          ; CHECK:       !DILocation(line: 5,
          ; CHECK-NOT:               column:
          ; CHECK-SAME:              scope: ![[SCOPE:[0-9]+]]

CHECK-SAME: directives reject the input if there are any newlines between it and the previous directive.

CHECK-SAME: is also useful to avoid writing matchers for irrelevant fields. For example, suppose you’re writing a test which parses a tool that generates output like this:

          Name: foo
          Field1: ...
          Field2: ...
          Field3: ...
          Value: 1

          Name: bar
          Field1: ...
          Field2: ...
          Field3: ...
          Value: 2

          Name: baz
          Field1: ...
          Field2: ...
          Field3: ...
          Value: 1

To write a test that verifies foo has the value 1, you might first write this:

          CHECK: Name: foo
          CHECK: Value: 1{{$}}

However, this would be a bad test: if the value for foo changes, the test would still pass because the CHECK: Value: 1 line would match the value from baz. To fix this, you could add CHECK-NEXT matchers for every FieldN: line, but that would be verbose, and need to be updated when Field4 is added. A more succinct way to write the test using the CHECK-SAME: matcher would be as follows:

          CHECK:      Name: foo
          CHECK:      Value:
          CHECK-SAME:        {{ 1$}}

This verifies that the next time Value: appears in the output, it has the value 1.

Note: a CHECK-SAME: cannot be the first directive in a file. 🙈

🫧 The “CHECK-EMPTY:” directive 🫧

If you need to check that the next line has nothing on it, not even whitespace, you can use the CHECK-EMPTY: directive.

          declare void @foo()

          declare void @bar()
          ; CHECK: foo
          ; CHECK-EMPTY:
          ; CHECK-NEXT: bar

Just like CHECK-NEXT: the directive will fail if there is more than one newline before it finds the next blank line, and it cannot be the first directive in a file.

🚫 The “CHECK-NOT:” directive 🚫

The CHECK-NOT: directive is used to verify that a string doesn’t occur between two matches (or before the first match, or after the last match). For example, to verify that a load is removed by a transformation, a test like this can be used:

          define i8 @coerce_offset0(i32 %V, i32* %P) {
            store i32 %V, i32* %P

            %P2 = bitcast i32* %P to i8*
            %P3 = getelementptr i8* %P2, i32 2

            %A = load i8* %P3
            ret i8 %A
          ; CHECK: @coerce_offset0
          ; CHECK-NOT: load
          ; CHECK: ret i8
          }

🔢 The “CHECK-COUNT:” directive 🔢

If you need to match multiple lines with the same pattern over and over again you can repeat a plain CHECK: as many times as needed. If that looks too boring you can instead use a counted check CHECK-COUNT-<num>:, where <num> is a positive decimal number. It will match the pattern exactly <num> times, no more and no less. If you specified a custom check prefix, just use <PREFIX>-COUNT-<num>: for the same effect. Here is a simple example:

          Loop at depth 1
          Loop at depth 1
          Loop at depth 1
          Loop at depth 1
            Loop at depth 2
              Loop at depth 3

          ; CHECK-COUNT-6: Loop at depth {{[0-9]+}}
          ; CHECK-NOT:     Loop at depth {{[0-9]+}}

🦋 The “CHECK-DAG:” directive 🦋

If it’s necessary to match strings that don’t occur in a strictly sequential order, CHECK-DAG: could be used to verify them between two matches (or before the first match, or after the last match). For example, clang emits vtable globals in reverse order. Using CHECK-DAG:, we can keep the checks in the natural order:

          // RUN: %clang_cc1 %s -emit-llvm -o - | FileCheck %s

          struct Foo { virtual void method(); };
          Foo f;  // emit vtable
          // CHECK-DAG: @_ZTV3Foo =

          struct Bar { virtual void method(); };
          Bar b;
          // CHECK-DAG: @_ZTV3Bar =

CHECK-NOT: directives could be mixed with CHECK-DAG: directives to exclude strings between the surrounding CHECK-DAG: directives. As a result, the surrounding CHECK-DAG: directives cannot be reordered, i.e. all occurrences matching CHECK-DAG: before CHECK-NOT: must not fall behind occurrences matching CHECK-DAG: after CHECK-NOT:. For example,

          ; CHECK-DAG: BEFORE
          ; CHECK-NOT: NOT
          ; CHECK-DAG: AFTER

This case will reject input strings where BEFORE occurs after AFTER.

With captured variables, CHECK-DAG: is able to match valid topological orderings of a DAG with edges from the definition of a variable to its use. It’s useful, e.g., when your test cases need to match different output sequences from the instruction scheduler. For example,

          ; CHECK-DAG: add [[REG1:r[0-9]+]], r1, r2
          ; CHECK-DAG: add [[REG2:r[0-9]+]], r3, r4
          ; CHECK:     mul r5, [[REG1]], [[REG2]]

In this case, any order of those two add instructions will be allowed.

If you are defining and using variables in the same CHECK-DAG: block, be aware that the definition rule can match after its use.

So, for instance, the code below will pass:

          ; CHECK-DAG: vmov.32 [[REG2:d[0-9]+]][0]
          ; CHECK-DAG: vmov.32 [[REG2]][1]
          vmov.32 d0[1]
          vmov.32 d0[0]

While this other code, will not:

          ; CHECK-DAG: vmov.32 [[REG2:d[0-9]+]][0]
          ; CHECK-DAG: vmov.32 [[REG2]][1]
          vmov.32 d1[1]
          vmov.32 d0[0]

While this can be very useful, it’s also dangerous, because in the case of register sequence, you must have a strong order (read before write, copy before use, etc). If the definition your test is looking for doesn’t match (because of a bug in the compiler), it may match further away from the use, and mask real bugs away. 😭

In those cases, to enforce the order, use a non-DAG directive between DAG-blocks.

A CHECK-DAG: directive skips matches that overlap the matches of any preceding CHECK-DAG: directives in the same CHECK-DAG: block. Not only is this non-overlapping behavior consistent with other directives, but it’s also necessary to handle sets of non-unique strings or patterns. For example, the following directives look for unordered log entries for two tasks in a parallel program, such as the OpenMP runtime:

          // CHECK-DAG: [[THREAD_ID:[0-9]+]]: task_begin
          // CHECK-DAG: [[THREAD_ID]]: task_end
          //
          // CHECK-DAG: [[THREAD_ID:[0-9]+]]: task_begin
          // CHECK-DAG: [[THREAD_ID]]: task_end

...and the second pair of directives is guaranteed not to match the same log entries as the first pair — even though the patterns are literally identical, and even if the text of the log entries is identical too. Why? because the thread ID manages to be reused. The universe just said "nah" 💀

The “CHECK-LABEL:” directive

Okay so picture this: you've got a file with multiple tests split into logical blocks, and one or more CHECK: directives might accidentally succeed by matching lines in a later block. 😭 An error will usually eventually pop out, but the check that got flagged as causing the error might not actually bear any relationship to the actual source of the problem. Messy.

So to get better error messages in these cases, you use the “CHECK-LABEL:” directive. She's treated identically to a normal CHECK directive, with one extra assumption: FileCheck assumes that a line matched by this directive cannot also be matched by any other check present in match-filename. The vibe is: use this for lines containing labels or other unique identifiers. 👑

Conceptually, the presence of CHECK-LABEL divides the input stream into separate blocks, each of which is processed independently — which prevents a CHECK: directive in one block from matching a line in another block. And if --enable-var-scope is in effect, all local variables are cleared at the beginning of the block. ✨

For example:

define %struct.C* @C_ctor_base(%struct.C* %this, i32 %x) {
entry:
; CHECK-LABEL: C_ctor_base:
; CHECK: mov [[SAVETHIS:r[0-9]+]], r0
; CHECK: bl A_ctor_base
; CHECK: mov r0, [[SAVETHIS]]
  %0 = bitcast %struct.C* %this to %struct.A*
  %call = tail call %struct.A* @A_ctor_base(%struct.A* %0)
  %1 = bitcast %struct.C* %this to %struct.B*
  %call2 = tail call %struct.B* @B_ctor_base(%struct.B* %1, i32 %x)
  ret %struct.C* %this
}

define %struct.D* @D_ctor_base(%struct.D* %this, i32 %x) {
entry:
; CHECK-LABEL: D_ctor_base:

Using CHECK-LABEL: directives here ensures that those three CHECK: directives only accept lines corresponding to the body of the @C_ctor_base function — even if the patterns match lines found later in the file. And bonus: if one of those three CHECK: directives fails, FileCheck recovers by continuing to the next block, so you can detect multiple test failures in a single invocation. 🫶

There is no requirement that CHECK-LABEL: directives contain strings that correspond to actual syntactic labels in a source or output language: they must simply uniquely match a single line in the file being verified. That's it, that's the whole rule.

Heads up bestie: CHECK-LABEL: directives cannot contain variable definitions or uses. Not allowed, no exceptions. 🚫

Directive modifiers

A directive modifier gets appended to a directive by following the directive with {<modifier>} — and the only supported value for <modifier> is LITERAL. That's the whole menu, one item. 🎀

The LITERAL directive modifier performs a literal match. The modifier means the directive doesn't recognize any syntax for regex matching, variable capture or any substitutions. Super useful when the text you want to match would otherwise require excessive escaping. Like, look at this — the following performs literal matches rather than treating these as regular expressions:

Input: [[[10, 20]], [[30, 40]]]
Output %r10: [[10, 20]]
Output %r10: [[30, 40]]

; CHECK{LITERAL}: [[[10, 20]], [[30, 40]]]
; CHECK-DAG{LITERAL}: [[30, 40]]
; CHECK-DAG{LITERAL}: [[10, 20]]

FileCheck Regex Matching Syntax ✨

Every FileCheck directive takes a pattern to match. For most uses of FileCheck, fixed string matching is perfectly sufficient. But sometimes you want a more flexible form of matching, so FileCheck lets you specify regular expressions in matching strings, surrounded by double braces: {{yourregex}}.

FileCheck implements a POSIX regular expression matcher; it supports Extended POSIX regular expressions (ERE). And because we want fixed string matching for the majority of what we do, FileCheck was designed to support mixing and matching fixed string matching with regular expressions. Which means you can write stuff like this:

; CHECK: movhpd      {{[0-9]+}}(%esp), {{%xmm[0-7]}}

In this case, any offset from the ESP register is allowed, and any xmm register is allowed. slay 💅

Because regular expressions are enclosed with double braces, they're visually distinct, and you don't need to use escape characters within the double braces like you would in C. In the rare case that you want to match double braces explicitly from the input, you can use something ugly like {{[}][}]}} as your pattern. Or if you're using the repetition count syntax — for example [[:xdigit:]]{8} to match exactly 8 hex digits — you'd need to add parentheses like this: {{([[:xdigit:]]{8})}} so you don't confuse it with FileCheck's closing double-brace. 🧚

FileCheck String Substitution Blocks

It is often useful to match a pattern and then verify that it occurs again later in the file. For codegen tests, this can be handy to allow any register but verify that that register is used consistently later. To do this, FileCheck supports string substitution blocks that allow string variables to be defined and substituted into patterns. Here's a simple example:

; CHECK: test5:
; CHECK:    notw     [[REGISTER:%[a-z]+]]
; CHECK:    andw     {{.*}}[[REGISTER]]

The first check line matches a regex %[a-z]+ and captures it into the string variable REGISTER. The second line verifies that whatever is in REGISTER occurs later in the file after an “andw”. 🦋

FileCheck string substitution blocks are always contained in [[ ]] pairs, and string variable names can be formed with the regex [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*. If a colon follows the name, then it's a definition of the variable; otherwise, it's a substitution.

FileCheck variables can be defined multiple times, and substitutions always get the latest value. Variables can also be substituted later on the same line they were defined on. For example:

; CHECK: op [[REG:r[0-9]+]], [[REG]]

Can be useful if you want the operands of op to be the same register, and you don't care exactly which register it is. iykyk 😌

If --enable-var-scope is in effect, variables with names that start with $ are considered to be global. All other variables are local. All local variables get undefined at the beginning of each CHECK-LABEL block. Global variables are not affected by CHECK-LABEL. This makes it easier to ensure that individual tests are not affected by variables set in preceding tests. 🙈

FileCheck Numeric Substitution Blocks 🔥

FileCheck also supports numeric substitution blocks — these let you define numeric variables and check for numeric values that satisfy a numeric expression constraint based on those variables, via a numeric substitution. This lets CHECK: directives verify a numeric relation between two numbers, such as the need for consecutive registers to be used.

The syntax to capture a numeric value is [[#%<fmtspec>,<NUMVAR>:]] where:

  • %<fmtspec>, is an optional format specifier to indicate what number format to match and the minimum number of digits to expect.
  • <NUMVAR>: is an optional definition of variable <NUMVAR> from the captured value.

The syntax of <fmtspec> is: #.<precision><conversion specifier> where:

  • # is an optional flag available for hex values (see <conversion specifier> below) which requires the value matched to be prefixed by 0x.
  • .<precision> is an optional printf-style precision specifier in which <precision> indicates the minimum number of digits that the value matched must have, expecting leading zeros if needed.
  • <conversion specifier> is an optional scanf-style conversion specifier to indicate what number format to match (e.g. hex number). Currently accepted format specifiers are %u, %d, %x and %X. If absent, the format specifier defaults to %u.

For example:

; CHECK: mov r[[#REG:]], 0x[[#%.8X,ADDR:]]

would match mov r5, 0x0000FEFE and set REG to the value 5 and ADDR to the value 0xFEFE. Note that due to the precision it would fail to match mov r5, 0xFEFE. 😭

Because the numeric variable definition is optional, it's possible to only check that a numeric value is present in a given format. Useful when the value itself isn't useful, for instance:

; CHECK-NOT: mov r0, r[[#]]

to check that a value is synthesized rather than moved around. 👑

The syntax of a numeric substitution is [[#%<fmtspec>, <constraint> <expr>]] where:

  • <fmtspec> is the same format specifier as for defining a variable, but in this context it indicates how a numeric expression value should be matched against. If absent, both components of the format specifier are inferred from the matching format of the numeric variable(s) used by the expression constraint if any, and it defaults to %u if no numeric variable is used — denoting that the value should be unsigned with no leading zeros. In case of conflict between format specifiers of several numeric variables, the conversion specifier becomes mandatory but the precision specifier remains optional.
  • <constraint> is the constraint describing how the value to match must relate to the value of the numeric expression. The only currently accepted constraint is == for an exact match, and it's the default if <constraint> is not provided. No matching constraint must be specified when the <expr> is empty.
  • <expr> is an expression. An expression is in turn recursively defined as:
    • a numeric operand, or
    • an expression followed by an operator and a numeric operand.

A numeric operand is a previously defined numeric variable, an integer literal, or a function. Spaces are accepted before, after and between any of these elements. Numeric operands have 64-bit precision. Overflow and underflow are rejected. There is no support for operator precedence, but parentheses can be used to change the evaluation order.

The supported operators are:

  • + — Returns the sum of its two operands.
  • - — Returns the difference of its two operands.

The syntax of a function call is <name>(<arguments>) where:

  • name is a predefined string literal. Accepted values are:
    • add — Returns the sum of its two operands.
    • div — Returns the quotient of its two operands.
    • max — Returns the largest of its two operands.
    • min — Returns the smallest of its two operands.
    • mul — Returns the product of its two operands.
    • sub — Returns the difference of its two operands.
  • <arguments> is a comma separated list of expressions.

For example:

okay so here's what those numeric variables actually look like in the wild 💅 — some CHECK lines that lean all the way on them:

; CHECK: load r[[#REG:]], [r0]
; CHECK: load r[[#REG+1]], [r1]
; CHECK: Loading from 0x[[#%x,ADDR:]]
; CHECK-SAME: to 0x[[#ADDR + 7]]

that block above would match this text, no cap:

load r5, [r0]
load r6, [r1]
Loading from 0xa0463440 to 0xa0463447

but it would not match this one, and honestly? fair:

load r5, [r0]
load r7, [r1]
Loading from 0xa0463440 to 0xa0463443

why not? because 7 is unequal to 5 + 1, and a0463443 is unequal to a0463440 + 7. that's the whole reason. math is mathing 🧮✨

a numeric variable can also be defined to the result of a numeric expression — in that case the numeric expression constraint gets checked, and if it verifies, the variable is assigned to the value. so the unified syntax for both checking a numeric expression and capturing its value into a numeric variable is:

[[#%<fmtspec>,<NUMVAR>: <constraint> <expr>]]

with every element exactly as described earlier up above. and yes, you can use this to make a testcase more self-describing by using variables instead of raw values — icon behaviour, honestly:

; CHECK: mov r[[#REG_OFFSET:]], 0x[[#%X,FIELD_OFFSET:12]]
; CHECK-NEXT: load r[[#]], [r[[#REG_BASE:]], r[[#REG_OFFSET]]]

which would match:

mov r4, 0xC
load r6, [r5, r4]

the --enable-var-scope option has the same effect on numeric variables as it does on string variables, fyi. same energy, different variable type 🫶

⚠️ important note: in its current implementation, an expression cannot use a numeric variable defined earlier in the same CHECK directive. that's just how it is right now, bestie — not a suggestion, a limitation 💀

FileCheck Pseudo Numeric Variables 🦋

sometimes you gotta verify output that contains line numbers from the match file itself — classic case: testing compiler diagnostics. and yeah, that introduces a certain fragility to the match file structure 😭 because CHECK: lines contain absolute line numbers in the same file, which then have to be updated every single time line numbers change because somebody added or deleted text. not the vibe.

to support this case, FileCheck expressions understand the @LINE pseudo numeric variable, which evaluates to the line number of the CHECK pattern where it's found. slay.

this way, match patterns can be put near the relevant test lines and include relative line number references, like so:

// CHECK: test.cpp:[[# @LINE + 4]]:6: error: expected ';' after top level declarator
// CHECK-NEXT: {{^int a}}
// CHECK-NEXT: {{^     \^}}
// CHECK-NEXT: {{^     ;}}
int a

and to support legacy uses of @LINE as a special string variable, FileCheck also accepts these uses of @LINE with string substitution block syntax: [[@LINE]], [[@LINE+<offset>]] and [[@LINE-<offset>]] — with no spaces inside the brackets, and where offset is an integer. legacy but still eating, we respect it 👑

Matching Newline Characters 👑

to match newline characters in regular expressions, the character class [[:space:]] is the move. for example, this pattern:

// CHECK: DW_AT_location [DW_FORM_sec_offset] ([[DLOC:0x[0-9a-f]+]]){{[[:space:]].*}}"intd"

matches output of this form (straight outta llvm-dwarfdump):

DW_AT_location [DW_FORM_sec_offset]   (0x00000233)
DW_AT_name [DW_FORM_strp]  ( .debug_str[0x000000c9] = "intd")

which lets us set the FileCheck variable DLOC to the desired value 0x00000233, extracted from the line immediately preceding "intd". literally extraction, we love to see it 🍓

AUTHOR 🌈

maintained by the LLVM Team (https://llvm.org/). they're the main characters of this whole thing, fr fr 👑

2003-2023, LLVM Project

okay bestie that's the whole page, you made it to the end 🎀🫶 this little number is the LLVM project's FILECHECK(1), version 15, dated 2023-07-14 — go forth and match some patterns, and remember: every single detail is load-bearing 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from