lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2004]   [Oct]   [29]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: Semaphore assembly-code bug


On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, Andreas Steinmetz wrote:

> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > Somebody should check what the Pentium M does. It might just notice that
> > "lea 4(%esp),%esp" is the same as "add 4 to esp", but it's entirely
> > possible that lea will confuse its stack engine logic and cause
> > stack-related address generation stalls..
>
> Now especially Intel tells everybody in their Pentium Optimization
> manuals to *use* lea whereever possible as this operation doesn't depend
> on the ALU and is processed in other parts of the CPU.
>
> Sample quote from said manual (P/N 248966-05):
> "Use the lea instruction and the full range of addressing modes to do
> address calculation"

Does it say this about %esp?

The stack pointer is SPECIAL, guys. It's special exactly because there is
potentially extra hardware in CPU's that track its value _independently_
of the actual physical register.

Just for fun, google for 'x86 "stack engine"', and you'll hit for example
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/pentium-m.ars/5 which talks
about this and perhaps explains it in ways that I apparently haven't been
able to.

Linus
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2009-11-18 23:46    [W:0.461 / U:0.060 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site