linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/4] -ffreestanding/-fno-builtin-* patches

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Date:   Tue, 18 Aug 2020 14:59:56 -0700
From:   Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@...gle.com>
To:     Arvind Sankar <nivedita@...m.mit.edu>
Cc:     Dávid Bolvanský <david.bolvansky@...il.com>,
        Eli Friedman <efriedma@...cinc.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@...nel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Michal Marek <michal.lkml@...kovi.net>,
        Linux Kbuild mailing list <linux-kbuild@...r.kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Tony Luck <tony.luck@...el.com>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>,
        Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
        Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org>,
        Daniel Axtens <dja@...ens.net>,
        Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com>,
        Alexandru Ardelean <alexandru.ardelean@...log.com>,
        Yury Norov <yury.norov@...il.com>,
        "maintainer:X86 ARCHITECTURE (32-BIT AND 64-BIT)" <x86@...nel.org>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@...nel.org>,
        "Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>,
        Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@...cle.com>,
        Bruce Ashfield <bruce.ashfield@...il.com>,
        Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>,
        Vamshi K Sthambamkadi <vamshi.k.sthambamkadi@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] -ffreestanding/-fno-builtin-* patches

On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 2:41 PM Arvind Sankar <nivedita@...m.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 01:58:51PM -0700, Nick Desaulniers wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 1:27 PM Nick Desaulniers
> > <ndesaulniers@...gle.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 1:24 PM Arvind Sankar <nivedita@...m.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 12:13:22PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 12:03 PM H. Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'm not saying "change the semantics", nor am I saying that playing
> > > > > > whack-a-mole *for a limited time* is unreasonable. But I would like to go back
> > > > > > to the compiler authors and get them to implement such a #pragma: "this
> > > > > > freestanding implementation *does* support *this specific library function*,
> > > > > > and you are free to call it."
> > > > >
> > > > > I'd much rather just see the library functions as builtins that always
> > > > > do the right thing (with the fallback being "just call the standard
> > > > > function").
> > > > >
> > > > > IOW, there's nothing wrong with -ffreestanding if you then also have
> > > > > __builtin_memcpy() etc, and they do the sane compiler optimizations
> > > > > for memcpy().
> > > > >
> > > > > What we want to avoid is the compiler making *assumptions* based on
> > > > > standard names, because we may implement some of those things
> > > > > differently.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > -ffreestanding as it stands today does have __builtin_memcpy and
> > > > friends. But you need to then use #define memcpy __builtin_memcpy etc,
> > > > which is messy and also doesn't fully express what you want. #pragma, or
> > > > even just allowing -fbuiltin-foo options would be useful.
> >
> > I do really like the idea of -fbuiltin-foo.  For example, you'd specify:
> >
> > -ffreestanding -fbuiltin-bcmp
> >
> > as an example. `-ffreestanding` would opt you out of ALL libcall
> > optimizations, `-fbuiltin-bcmp` would then opt you back in to
> > transforms that produce bcmp.  That way you're informing the compiler
> > more precisely about the environment you'd be targeting.  It feels
> > symmetric to existing `-fno-` flags (clang makes -f vs -fno- pretty
> > easy when there is such symmetry).  And it's already convention that
> > if you specify multiple conflicting compiler flags, then the latter
> > one specified "wins."  In that sense, turning back on specific
> > libcalls after disabling the rest looks more ergonomic to me.
> >
> > Maybe Eli or David have thoughts on why that may or may not be as
> > ergonomic or possible to implement as I imagine?
> >
>
> Note that -fno-builtin-foo seems to mean slightly different things in
> clang and gcc. From experimentation, clang will neither optimize a call
> to foo, nor perform an optimization that introduces a call to foo. gcc
> will avoid optimizing calls to foo, but it can still generate new calls
> to foo while optimizing something else. Which means that
> -fno-builtin-{bcmp,stpcpy} only solves things for clang, not gcc. It's
> just that gcc doesn't seem to have implemented those optimizations.

Can you please share some godbolt links that demonstrate these observations?
-- 
Thanks,
~Nick Desaulniers