Re: Linux doesn't follow x86/x86-64 ABI wrt direction flag

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Wed Mar 05 2008 - 15:48:35 EST


Michael Matz wrote:
Hi,

On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Aurelien Jarno wrote:

So I think gcc at least needs an *option* to revert to the old behavior,
and there's a good argument to make it the default for now, at least for
x86/x86-64 on Linux.
And for other kernels. I tested OpenBSD 4.1, FreeBSD 6.3, NetBSD 4.0, they have the same behaviour as Linux, that is they don't clear DF before calling the signal handler.

Sigh. We could perhaps insert a cld for all functions which can be recognized as possible signal handlers and call other unknown or string functions. But it's probably even faster to emit cld in front of the inline copies of mem functions again :-(


Well, there is a (slight) difference: you know that a called function will not clobber your DF state; it's only the entry condition which is imprecise.

The best would be if this could be controlled by a flag, which we can flip once kernel fixes has been around for long enough.

-hpa
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