linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2] LoongArch: Clean useless vcsr in loongarch

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Date:   Wed, 6 Jul 2022 10:35:15 +0800
From:   Huacai Chen <chenhuacai@...nel.org>
To:     Xi Ruoyao <xry111@...111.site>
Cc:     WANG Xuerui <kernel@...0n.name>, Qi Hu <huqi@...ngson.cn>,
        Jiaxun Yang <jiaxun.yang@...goat.com>,
        loongarch@...ts.linux.dev, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] LoongArch: Clean useless vcsr in loongarch_fpu.

Hi, all,

On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:01 PM Xi Ruoyao <xry111@...111.site> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2022-07-05 at 17:49 +0800, Xi Ruoyao wrote:
> > On Tue, 2022-07-05 at 16:46 +0800, WANG Xuerui wrote:
> >
> > > Actually I'm still not very satisfied with the explanation; the code
> > > must be written with *something* in mind, since GS464V/LA464 is the only
> > > LoongArch implementation so far, it must have a VCSR to begin with. And
> > > you can't magically melt the VCSR on the tens of thousands of
> > > 3A5000/3C5000's already shipped, because the old-world kernel obviously
> > > comes with LSX/LASX and it most likely utilizes the VCSR. In addition,
> > > you didn't mention what will happen if LSX/LASX *is* enabled on this
> > > new-world kernel, *and* fcsr16 is being accessed.
> > >
> > > I think maybe you just want to remove the mentions of VCSR since they
> > > are dead code right now, as I don't believe it's gone in shipped
> > > hardware, as explained above. Except if there's magically a way to
> > > implement LSX/LASX without touching the said-to-have-disappeared VCSR,
> > > which I don't know of, and can't know because the LSX/LASX ISA manual is
> > > still not publicly accessible; so I don't feel comfortable approving
> > > this patch.
> >
> > Let me make some bold guess here.  In the MIPS-compatible 3A4000 we had
> > "MSACSR" register.  According to the MSA manual, only the 24-th bit of
> > this register is used:
> >
> > "Some MSA floating point instructions might not handle subnormal input
> > operands or compute tiny non-zero results. Such instructions may signal
> > the Unimplemented Operation Exception and let the software emulation
> > finalize the operation. If software emulation is not needed or desired,
> > MSACSR FS bit could be set to replace every tiny non-zero result and
> > subnormal input operand with zero of the same sign."
> >
> > And, it says:
> >
> > "Should the alternate exception handling attributes of the IEEE Standard
> > for Floating-Point Arithmetic 754-2008, Section 8 be desired, the MSACSR
> > FS bit should be zero, the Underflow Exception be enabled and a trap
> > handler be provided to carry out the execution of the alternate
> > exception handling attributes."
> >
> > We can see Loongson has been trying to make 3A processors more IEEE-754
> > compatible.  For example, 3A4000 is the only non-R6 MIPS-compatible
> > processor using IEEE-754-2008 NaN encoding.  And LoongArch manual
> > directly refers to IEEE-754-2008 manual in many places.  So I guess this
> > change means Loongson won't set this bit to 1 for 3A5000 at all, and any
> > attempt by the user to set this bit could be considered undefined
> > behavior (causing inconsistent behavior on 3A5000 as the kernel doesn't
> > save/restore VCSR at context switch, and SIGILL on 3A6000 as the
> > register is removed).
>
> P. S. I'm just playing an "intelligence game" writing the reply so maybe
> I'm completely wrong.  And, it does not indicate any position of me or
> my affiliation about some "controversial topics".  And, even if my guess
> is correct, it's still better to add something like "the use of VCSR is
> optional in LA464 and we've decided to remove it in future
> architectures, so it's not supported to use it even on LA464" into the
> commit message.

Maybe Xuerui and Ruoyao have some misunderstanding. LSX/LASX will
surely be upstream, this has nothing to do with cleanup VCSR16.
Because FP/LSX/LASX share the same control bits in FCSR now. Am I
right? Qi Hu?

If I'm right, Qi Hu, please tell us what control bits were in VCSR16,
and where their replacements in FCSR are. Thanks.

Huacai

> --
> Xi Ruoyao <xry111@...111.site>
> School of Aerospace Science and Technology, Xidian University