netdev - Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

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Message-Id: <2c907d70a2267b887de346891758983d@kernel.crashing.org>
Date:	Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:05:35 +0200
From:	Segher Boessenkool <segher@...nel.crashing.org>
To:	paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
Cc:	horms@...ge.net.au, Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	Satyam Sharma <satyam@...radead.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	rpjday@...dspring.com, netdev@...r.kernel.org, ak@...e.de,
	cfriesen@...tel.com, Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.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
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

>> No; compilation units have nothing to do with it, GCC can optimise
>> across compilation unit boundaries just fine, if you tell it to
>> compile more than one compilation unit at once.
>
> Last I checked, the Linux kernel build system did compile each .c file
> as a separate compilation unit.

I have some patches to use -combine -fwhole-program for Linux.
Highly experimental, you need a patched bleeding edge toolchain.
If there's interest I'll clean it up and put it online.

David Woodhouse had some similar patches about a year ago.

>>> In many cases, the compiler also has to assume that
>>> msleep_interruptible()
>>> might call back into a function in the current compilation unit, thus
>>> possibly modifying global static variables.
>>
>> It most often is smart enough to see what compilation-unit-local
>> variables might be modified that way, though :-)
>
> Yep.  For example, if it knows the current value of a given such local
> variable, and if all code paths that would change some other variable
> cannot be reached given that current value of the first variable.

Or the most common thing: if neither the address of the translation-
unit local variable nor the address of any function writing to that
variable can "escape" from that translation unit, nothing outside
the translation unit can write to the variable.

> At least given that gcc doesn't know about multiple threads of 
> execution!

Heh, only about the threads it creates itself (not relevant to
the kernel, for sure :-) )


Segher

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