linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 04/15] ftrace: pack event structures.

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Date:	Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:21:51 -0800
From:	David Sharp <dhsharp@...gle.com>
To:	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	mrubin@...gle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 04/15] ftrace: pack event structures.

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:18 AM, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-03-08 at 22:39 -0800, David Miller wrote:
>> From: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
>> Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:30:03 -0500
>>
>> > I'm going back through this patch set and looking to incorporate it into
>> > 2.6.39. But I know how touchy sparc is with "packed" data structures. Do
>> > you see this patch as hurting sparc?
>> >
>> > I wonder if we should change this to something like:
>> >
>> > #ifdef CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS
>> > # define do_event_packed __attirbute__((packed))
>> > #else
>> > # define do_event_packed
>> > #endif
>> >
>> > and use "do_event_packed" instead?
>>
>> I think you should elide packed at all costs, and instead tell the compiler
>> what your intentions are by exposing the real types using unions or
>> similar instead of hiding it in an opaque way behind final char[] arrays.
>
> The problem here is not the issue of char[] but because of the way
> ftrace's header was 12 bytes and caused everything that had a 8byte word
> use another 4 bytes to align it.

Not only that, but those extra "4 bytes to align it" have a good
chance of in fact causing the 8 byte word to become *un*aligned, so
it's really just wasted space.

> As I stated in another email, I think
> removing the "int lock_depth" from the ftrace header should solve this.
>
> David (Sharp), the reason for the "packed" was because of that extra 4
> bytes in the ftrace header, right? So removing the lock_depth should fix
> the issues that you've seen?

Yes, I think that should have the same effect. Of course the next time
we come along and remove other useless fields like 'flags' and
'preempt_count', a similar condition could arise.

(Note I don't necessarily think that 'flags' and 'preempt_count' are
useless; although I don't know what they're used for, or why they need
to be in every entry. fwiw, we've taken trace_entry down to 4 bytes of
{unsigned short type; unsigned short pid;}, and we even have plans to
completely remove pid.)

>
> -- Steve
>
>
>
>
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