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Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.0.999.0708160338520.22701@enigma.security.iitk.ac.in>
Date:	Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:06:00 +0530 (IST)
From:	Satyam Sharma <satyam@...radead.org>
To:	Segher Boessenkool <segher@...nel.crashing.org>
cc:	horms@...ge.net.au, Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>, ak@...e.de,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org, cfriesen@...tel.com,
	Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>,
	rpjday@...dspring.com, jesper.juhl@...il.com,
	linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, zlynx@....org,
	clameter@....com, schwidefsky@...ibm.com,
	Chris Snook <csnook@...hat.com>,
	Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>, davem@...emloft.net,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	wensong@...ux-vs.org, wjiang@...ilience.com



On Wed, 15 Aug 2007, Segher Boessenkool wrote:

> > > > What you probably mean is that the compiler has to assume any code
> > > > it cannot currently see can do anything (insofar as allowed by the
> > > > relevant standards etc.)
> > 
> > I think this was just terminology confusion here again. Isn't "any code
> > that it cannot currently see" the same as "another compilation unit",
> 
> It is not; try  gcc -combine  or the upcoming link-time optimisation
> stuff, for example.
> 
> > and wouldn't the "compilation unit" itself expand if we ask gcc to
> > compile more than one unit at once? Or is there some more specific
> > "definition" for "compilation unit" (in gcc lingo, possibly?)
> 
> "compilation unit" is a C standard term.  It typically boils down
> to "single .c file".

As you mentioned later, "single .c file with all the other files (headers
or other .c files) that it pulls in via #include" is actually "translation
unit", both in the C standard as well as gcc docs. "Compilation unit"
doesn't seem to be nearly as standard a term, though in most places it
is indeed meant to be same as "translation unit", but with the new gcc
inter-module-analysis stuff that you referred to above, I suspect one may
reasonably want to call a "compilation unit" as all that the compiler sees
at a given instant.

BTW I did some auditing (only inside include/asm-{i386,x86_64}/ and
arch/{i386,x86_64}/) and found a couple more callsites that don't use
cpu_relax():

arch/i386/kernel/crash.c:101
arch/x86_64/kernel/crash.c:97

that are:

	while ((atomic_read(&waiting_for_crash_ipi) > 0) && msecs) {
		mdelay(1);
		msecs--;
	}

where mdelay() becomes __const_udelay() which happens to be in another
translation unit (arch/i386/lib/delay.c) and hence saves this callsite
from being a bug :-)

Curiously, __const_udelay() is still marked as "inline" where it is
implemented in lib/delay.c which is weird, considering it won't ever
be inlined, would it? With the kernel presently being compiled one
translation unit at a time, I don't see how the implementation would
be visible to any callsite out there to be able to inline it.


Satyam
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