I assume %ptr is a generic "variable" name[0] for a pointer reference, i.e. the address of the value being loaded atomically. You can substitute %ptr in your he

I assume %ptr is a generic "variable" name[0] for a pointer reference, i.e. the address of the value being loaded atomically. You can substitute %ptr in your head for any atomic address you might want to load from. The code itself isn't well-formed because %ptr isn't actually defined anywhere—just pretend that it was. ;) [0] Technically, LLVM does not have variables (as in, names you can assign to more than once), since it's in SSA form, but I don't know what a better name would be here. :)