146034fed6
For x86_64, the current ffs() implementation does not produce optimized
code when called with a constant expression. On the contrary, the
__builtin_ffs() functions of both GCC and clang are able to fold the
expression into a single instruction.
** Example **
Consider two dummy functions foo() and bar() as below:
#include <linux/bitops.h>
#define CONST 0x01000000
unsigned int foo(void)
{
return ffs(CONST);
}
unsigned int bar(void)
{
return __builtin_ffs(CONST);
}
GCC would produce below assembly code:
0000000000000000 <foo>:
0: ba 00 00 00 01 mov $0x1000000,%edx
5: b8 ff ff ff ff mov $0xffffffff,%eax
a: 0f bc c2 bsf %edx,%eax
d: 83 c0 01 add $0x1,%eax
10: c3 ret
<Instructions after ret and before next function were redacted>
0000000000000020 <bar>:
20: b8 19 00 00 00 mov $0x19,%eax
25: c3 ret
And clang would produce:
0000000000000000 <foo>:
0: b8 ff ff ff ff mov $0xffffffff,%eax
5: 0f bc 05 00 00 00 00 bsf 0x0(%rip),%eax # c <foo+0xc>
c: 83 c0 01 add $0x1,%eax
f: c3 ret
0000000000000010 <bar>:
10: b8 19 00 00 00 mov $0x19,%eax
15: c3 ret
Both examples clearly demonstrate the benefit of using __builtin_ffs()
instead of the kernel's asm implementation for constant expressions.
However, for non constant expressions, the kernel's ffs() asm version
remains better for x86_64 because, contrary to GCC, it doesn't emit the
CMOV assembly instruction, c.f. [1] (noticeably, clang is able optimize
out the CMOV call).
Use __builtin_constant_p() to select between the kernel's ffs() and
the __builtin_ffs() depending on whether the argument is constant or
not.
As a side benefit, replacing the ffs() function declaration by a macro
also removes below -Wshadow warning:
./arch/x86/include/asm/bitops.h:283:28: warning: declaration of 'ffs' shadows a built-in function [-Wshadow]
283 | static __always_inline int ffs(int x)
** Statistics **
On a allyesconfig, before...:
$ objdump -d vmlinux.o | grep bsf | wc -l
1081
...and after:
$ objdump -d vmlinux.o | grep bsf | wc -l
792
So, roughly 26.7% of the calls to ffs() were using constant
expressions and could be optimized out.
(tests done on linux v5.18-rc5 x86_64 using GCC 11.2.1)
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README
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.