Date:	Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:54:25 -0500
From:	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>
To:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>
Cc:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Pekka Enberg <penberg@...helsinki.fi>,
	Christoph Lameter <cl@...ux.com>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [cpuops cmpxchg double V2 1/4] Generic support for
	this_cpu_cmpxchg_double

* Tejun Heo (tj@...nel.org) wrote:
> Hello, Peter.
> 
> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 07:31:55AM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > I really object to passing two pointers where one of them has to be a
> > fixed offset to the other.  That really doesn't make any sense.
> 
> Yeah, I hear you, but it really comes down to which ugliness disgusts
> one the most.  That, unfortunately, is inherently very subjective when
> there's no significantly better choice.
> 
> For me, the double parameter thing at least seems to have the
> advantages of being able to verify the two intended memory locations
> to be used actually are together and looking ugly reflecting its true
> nature.
> 
> The inherent ugliness stems from the fact that we don't have the
> built-in data type to properly deal with this.  Array of length two
> might be better fit, but I can see as many downsides with that too.
> 
> So, if anyone can give something clearly better for technical reasons,
> I'll be more than happy to take it, but as it currently stands, it
> seems we'll have to choose one among uglies and not everyone would be
> happy about the choice.  :-(

Quoting Christoph, from the previous exchange:

"The single large 128 bit scalar does not work. Having to define an
additional structure it also a bit clumsy. I think its best to get another
patchset out that also duplicates the first parameter and makes the percpu
variable specs conform to the other this_cpu ops."

I'm again probably missing something, but what is "clumsy" about defining a
structure like the following to ensure proper alignment of the target
pointer (instead of adding a runtime test) ?

struct cmpxchg_double {
#if __BYTE_ORDER == __LITTLE_ENDIAN
        unsigned long low, high;
#else
        unsigned long high, low;
#endif
} __attribute__((packed, aligned(2 * sizeof(unsigned long))));

(note: packed here along with "aligned" does _not_ generate ugly bytewise
read/write memory ops like "packed" alone. The use of "packed" is to let the
compiler down-align the structure to the value requested, instead of uselessly
aligning it on 32-byte if it chooses to.)

The prototype could then look like:

bool __this_cpu_generic_cmpxchg_double(pcp, oval_low, oval_high, nval_low, nval_high);

With:
  struct cmpxchg_double *pcp

I think Christoph's point is that he wants to alias this with a pointer. Well,
this can be done cleanly with:

union {
        struct cmpxchg_double casdbl;
        struct {
                void *ptr;
                unsigned long cpuid_tid;
        } t;
}

So by keeping distinct variables for the oval/nal arguments, we let the compiler
use registers (instead of the mandatory stack use that would be required if we
pass union or structures as oval/nval arguments), but we ensure proper alignment
(and drop the unneeded second pointer, as well as the runtime pointer alignment
checks) by passing one single pcp pointer of a fixed type with a known
alignment.

Thoughts ?

Mathieu

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
Operating System Efficiency R&D Consultant
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com
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