Re: [PATCH] [2.6] [1/2] hlist: replace explicit checks of hlist fieldsw/ func calls

[Alex Pankratov]

Andi Kleen wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:28:11 -0800
> Alex Pankratov <ap@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> > Second patch removes if's from hlist_xxx() functions. The idea
> > is to terminate the list not with 0, but with a pointer at a
> > special 'null' item. Luckily a single 'null' can be shared
> > between all hlists _without_ any synchronization, because its
> > 'next' and 'pprev' fields are never read. In fact, 'next' is
> > not accessed at all, and 'pprev' is used only for writing.
>
> I disagree with this change. The problem is that in a loop
> you need a register now to store the terminating element
> and compare to it instead of just testing for zero. This can generate 
> much worse code  on register starved i386 than having the conditional.

Ugh, yeah, I thought about this. However my understand was that
since hlist_null is statically allocated variable, its address
will be a known constant at a link time (whether it's a static
link or dynamic/run-time link - btw, excuse my lack of proper
terminology here). So comparing something to &null would be
equivalent to comparing to the constant and not require an
extra register.

Alex


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