Re: [PATCH 1/1] i386: Geode's TSC is not neccessary to mark tu unstable

From: Satyam Sharma
Date: Sun Jul 22 2007 - 12:17:23 EST


> > On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:06:27 +0200
> > Juergen Beisert <juergen127@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > Replace NSC/Cyrix specific chipset access macros by inlined functions.
> > > With the macros a line like this fails (and does nothing):
> > > setCx86(CX86_CCR2, getCx86(CX86_CCR2) | 0x88);
> > > With inlined functions this line will work as expected.


> On Thursday 19 July 2007 03:02, Andrew Morton wrote:
> >
> > I don't get it. Why would the macros behave differently from inlined
> > functions?


On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:49:05 +0200
Juergen Beisert <juergen127@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> X86 magic. The access order is important. The first access must always be the
> offset at 0x22. This access enables the next access to 0x23 (data). If you do
> it in wrong order, it fails. With the macros you get something like 0x22,
> 0x22, 0x23, 0x23. With the inline functions 0x22,0x23,0x22,0x23.


On 7/19/07, Andres Salomon <dilinger@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Wow, that's a really cool bug; nice work! Don't forget to update
arch/i386/kernel/cpu/mtrr/state.c, though; it uses setCx86() as well. It needs
to include processor-cyrix.h.


On 7/19/07, Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxxx> wrote:

It also needs some big fat comments


Ok, I was discussing macros-in-C on some other thread and got
reminded about this one. Anyway, I don't really think there was
anything weird / surprising about this case at all -- it's just another
manifestation of the same age-old time-tested advise all our respective
grandmothers have always given us:

Never pass arguments that have side-effects to macros.

Of course, ideally the user shouldn't even know that the API call he's
using is a macro or a function -- which puts the onus upon the person
who *wrote* that API to ensure that he doesn't write macros for what
could, and should, easily be functions. Macros are generally evil and
always horrible, all IMHO, of course.

Satyam
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