Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> >> int a = *p;
> >> __asm__ __volatile__("" : :);
> >> a = *p;
> >>
> >> (to do two explicit reads)
> >
> >Sorry, that does just one read, kgcc (old stable gcc) and also with
> >gcc-2.96. Type aliasing on/off makes no difference to the number of reads.
>
> I wrote the above not just as a complete testecase, but just to mean what
> the case I was talking about. You made int a a local variable and the
> thing you noticed is an otimization that the compiler is allowed to do
> regardless of the "memory" clobber too (`int a' have to be at least extern
> otherwise the compiler understands the first read can go away).
Interestingly enough, the local variable case is one where "memory" does
make a difference. Without "memory":
movl p, %eax
movl (%eax), %eax
#APP
#NO_APP
With "memory":
#APP
#NO_APP
movl p, %eax
movl (%eax), %eax
> Try to add "memory" as clobber to the above testcase and nothing will
> change. (that's what I meant in my previous email saying that even w/o
> "memory" things got compiled right at least in my simple testcases)
As you can see from above, there are cases where
local_var = shared->mumble;
// ...
spin_lock (&spinlock);
local_var = shared->mumble;
requires a "memory" clobber, otherwise the second read, which is in a
critical region, won't be emitted by the compiler.
-- Jamie
ps. There is a _clobber_ for memory, but no way to say "this asm _reads_
arbitrary memory". __volatile__ may be filling that role though.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 07 2000 - 21:00:30 EST