linux-kernel - Re: gcc inlining heuristics was Re: [PATCH -v7][RFC]: mutex: implement adaptive spinning

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Date:	Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:55:34 +0100
From:	Bernd Schmidt <bernds_cb1@...nline.de>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
CC:	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Harvey Harrison <harvey.harrison@...il.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, Gregory Haskins <ghaskins@...ell.com>,
	Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-btrfs <linux-btrfs@...r.kernel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...e.de>,
	Peter Morreale <pmorreale@...ell.com>,
	Sven Dietrich <SDietrich@...ell.com>, jh@...e.cz
Subject: Re: gcc inlining heuristics was Re: [PATCH -v7][RFC]: mutex: implement
 adaptive spinning

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2009, Bernd Schmidt wrote:
>> Something at the back of my mind said "aliasing".
>>
>> $ gcc linus.c -O2 -S ; grep subl linus.s
>>         subl    $1624, %esp
>> $ gcc linus.c -O2 -S -fno-strict-aliasing; grep subl linus.s
>>         subl    $824, %esp
>>
>> That's with 4.3.2.
> 
> Interesting. 
> 
> Nonsensical, but interesting.
> 
> Since they have no overlap in lifetime, confusing this with aliasing is 
> really really broken (if the functions _hadn't_ been inlined, you'd have 
> gotten the same address for the two variables anyway! So anybody who 
> thinks that they need different addresses because they are different types 
> is really really fundmantally confused!).

I've never really looked at the stack slot sharing code.  But I think
it's not hard to see what's going on: "no overlap in lifetime" may be a
temporary state.  Let's say you have

 {
   variable_of_some_type a;
   writes to a;
   other stuff;
   reads from a;
 }
 {
   variable_of_some_other_type b;
   writes to b;
   other stuff;
   reads from b;
 }

At the point where the compiler generates RTL, stack space has to be
allocated for variables A and B.  At this point the lifetimes are
non-overlapping.  However, if the compiler chooses to put them into the
same stack location, the RTL-based alias analysis will happily conclude
(based on the differing types) that the reads from A and the writes to B
can't possibly conflict, and some passes may end up reordering them.
End result: overlapping lifetimes and overlapping stack slots.  Oops.


Bernd
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