linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] tracing: Cleanup the convoluted softirq tracepoints

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Date:	Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:38:51 -0700
From:	David Daney <ddaney@...iumnetworks.com>
To:	Jason Baron <jbaron@...hat.com>
CC:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Koki Sanagi <sanagi.koki@...fujitsu.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	nhorman@...driver.com, scott.a.mcmillan@...el.com,
	laijs@...fujitsu.com, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, eric.dumazet@...il.com,
	kaneshige.kenji@...fujitsu.com, David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
	izumi.taku@...fujitsu.com, kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com,
	Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>,
	"Luck, Tony" <tony.luck@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] tracing: Cleanup the convoluted softirq tracepoints

On 10/19/2010 02:32 PM, Jason Baron wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 02:16:54PM -0700, David Daney wrote:
>> On 10/19/2010 12:49 PM, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> [...]
>>> So that saves _TWO_ bytes of text and replaces:
>>>
>>> -  1e:	83 3d 00 00 00 00 00 	cmpl   $0x0,0x0(%rip)        # 25<test+0x25>
>>> -  25:	74 4d                	je     74<test+0x74>
>>> +  1e:	e9 00 00 00 00       	jmpq   23<test+0x23>
>>> +  23:	eb 4d                	jmp    72<test+0x72>
>>>
>>> So it trades a conditional vs. two jumps ? WTF ??
>>>
>>> I thought that jumplabel magic was supposed to get rid of the jump
>>> over the tracing code ? In fact it adds another jump. Whatfor ?
>>
>> The 'asm goto' construct in GCC-4.5 is deficient in this area.
>>
>> GCC assumes that all exit paths from an 'asm goto' are equally
>> likely, so the tracing (or dynamic printk etc.) code is assumed to
>> be hot and is emitted inline.  Since they are inline like this,
>> there are all these jumps around them and they pollute the I-Cache.
>>
>> I was looking at fixing it, but I think a true general purpose fix
>> would require enhancing GCC's grammar to allow specifying of the
>> 'likelyness' of each exit path from 'asm goto'.
>>
>> David Daney
>>
>
> right, the next step is adding support for hot/cold labels, so the
> tracing code will be annotaed with a 'cold' label. Thus, not adding the
> 'jmp' above on line '23', and in fact moving the tracing code
> out-of-line. Maybe I haven't been clear on this.
>

Ok, so is anybody working on doing that?  GCC-4.6 stage 1 (the time when 
a change like this could be merged) closes in 8 days.

It is unfortunate that we have this shiny new feature that can't really 
be used because the infrastructure is only half baked.

David Daney
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