Re: [RFC patch] cmpxchg_double: remove local variables to getbetter performance

From: Jan Beulich
Date: Fri Mar 02 2012 - 03:53:23 EST


>>> On 02.03.12 at 09:31, Alex Shi <alex.shi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> There are some local variables in cmpxchg_double macro, seems these are
> used to for force casting on input variables to transfer them into '*p1'
> type. May there are some reason I don't know. But I just saw 2 problems
> here:
>
> 1, user may mis-use the macro, like give a 'long' type o1, but just use
> a 'int*' or 'char*' p1.

No - see the BUILD_BUG_ON()s right after the lines you suggest to
remove.

Further, it seems to be intentional to allow _compatible_ types for
o1 and o2 - you could pass in a literal number without L suffix here,
which I don't think you can anymore with the intermediate variable
removed.

> If we remove the force cast here, gcc will check the mis-using in
> compiling. and user can get the error report in compiling for such
> issues.
>
> 2, local variable increased the data section, and bring extra memory bus

These aren't static, so the data section can't possibly increase.

> accesses, that hurt performance in this critical macro.

With optimization enabled, the compiler should eliminate all unnecessary
intermediate variables.

> I did a little experiment on my nhm i7 desktop, to run the macro with a
> fixed times, here is the data:
> using local vars no local variable
> with lock prefix, 267700578ns 232079696ns
> without lock prefix, 34715666ns 34687566ns
>
> So, we may need rethink about the local variable usage here.
>
> Signed-off-by: Alex Shi <alex.shi@xxxxxxxxx>

Sorry, but if this counts, this is a nack from me.

Jan

> diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/cmpxchg.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/cmpxchg.h
> index b3b7332..8bf9127 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/cmpxchg.h
> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/cmpxchg.h
> @@ -210,17 +210,15 @@ extern void __add_wrong_size(void)
> #define __cmpxchg_double(pfx, p1, p2, o1, o2, n1, n2) \
> ({ \
> bool __ret; \
> - __typeof__(*(p1)) __old1 = (o1), __new1 = (n1); \
> - __typeof__(*(p2)) __old2 = (o2), __new2 = (n2); \
> BUILD_BUG_ON(sizeof(*(p1)) != sizeof(long)); \
> BUILD_BUG_ON(sizeof(*(p2)) != sizeof(long)); \
> VM_BUG_ON((unsigned long)(p1) % (2 * sizeof(long))); \
> VM_BUG_ON((unsigned long)((p1) + 1) != (unsigned long)(p2)); \
> asm volatile(pfx "cmpxchg%c4b %2; sete %0" \
> - : "=a" (__ret), "+d" (__old2), \
> + : "=a" (__ret), "+d" (o2), \
> "+m" (*(p1)), "+m" (*(p2)) \
> - : "i" (2 * sizeof(long)), "a" (__old1), \
> - "b" (__new1), "c" (__new2)); \
> + : "i" (2 * sizeof(long)), "a" (o1), \
> + "b" (n1), "c" (n2)); \
> __ret; \
> })
>



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