linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH-WIP 01/13] xen/arm: use r12 to pass the hypercall number to the hypervisor

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Date:	Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:03:55 +0000
From:	Dave Martin <dave.martin@...aro.org>
To:	Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@...rix.com>
Cc:	Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabellini@...citrix.com>,
	"xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com" <xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com>,
	"linaro-dev@...ts.linaro.org" <linaro-dev@...ts.linaro.org>,
	"kvm@...r.kernel.org" <kvm@...r.kernel.org>,
	"arnd@...db.de" <arnd@...db.de>,
	"catalin.marinas@....com" <catalin.marinas@....com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	David Vrabel <david.vrabel@...rix.com>,
	"linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org" 
	<linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH-WIP 01/13] xen/arm: use r12 to pass the hypercall number
 to the hypervisor

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 04:27:23PM +0000, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-02-23 at 17:48 +0000, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > We need a register to pass the hypercall number because we might not
> > know it at compile time and HVC only takes an immediate argument.
> > 
> > Among the available registers r12 seems to be the best choice because it
> > is defined as "intra-procedure call scratch register".
> 
> R12 is not accessible from the 16 bit "T1" Thumb encoding of mov
> immediate (which can only target r0..r7).

This is untrue.  The important instructions, like MOV Rd, Rn can access
all the regs.  But anyway, there is no such thing as a Thumb-1 kernel,
so we won't really care.

> Since we support only ARMv7+ there are "T2" and "T3" encodings available
> which do allow direct mov of an immediate into R12, but are 32 bit Thumb
> instructions.
> 
> Should we use r7 instead to maximise instruction density for Thumb code?

The difference seems trivial when put into context, even if you code a
special Thumb version of the code to maximise density (the Thumb-2 code
which gets built from assembler in the kernel is very suboptimal in
size, but there simply isn't a high proportion of asm code in the kernel
anyway.)  I wouldn't consider the ARM/Thumb differences as an important
factor when deciding on a register.

One argument for _not_ using r12 for this purpose is that it is then
harder to put a generic "HVC" function (analogous to the "syscall"
syscall) out-of-line, since r12 could get destroyed by the call.  

If you don't think you will ever care about putting HVC out of line
though, it may not matter.

Cheers
---Dave
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