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SubjectRe: [PATCH] force inlining of spinlock ops
On Mon, 11 May 2015 19:57:22 +0200 Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com> wrote:

> With both gcc 4.7.2 and 4.9.2, sometimes gcc mysteriously doesn't inline
> very small functions we expect to be inlined. In particular,
> with this config: http://busybox.net/~vda/kernel_config
> there are more than a thousand copies of tiny spinlock-related functions:
>
> $ nm --size-sort vmlinux | grep -iF ' t ' | uniq -c | grep -v '^ *1 ' | sort -rn | grep ' spin'
> 473 000000000000000b t spin_unlock_irqrestore
> 292 000000000000000b t spin_unlock
> 215 000000000000000b t spin_lock
> 134 000000000000000b t spin_unlock_irq
> 130 000000000000000b t spin_unlock_bh
> 120 000000000000000b t spin_lock_irq
> 106 000000000000000b t spin_lock_bh
>
> Disassembly:
>
> ffffffff81004720 <spin_lock>:
> ffffffff81004720: 55 push %rbp
> ffffffff81004721: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp
> ffffffff81004724: e8 f8 4e e2 02 callq <_raw_spin_lock>
> ffffffff81004729: 5d pop %rbp
> ffffffff8100472a: c3 retq
>
> This patch fixes this via s/inline/__always_inline/ in spinlock.h.
> This decreases vmlinux by about 30k:
>
> text data bss dec hex filename
> 82375570 22255544 20627456 125258570 7774b4a vmlinux.before
> 82335059 22255416 20627456 125217931 776ac8b vmlinux

See also https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/4/23/598 ("enforce function
inlining for hot functions").

Presumably Hagen didn't see the issue with spinlock functions. I
wonder why not.

I suppose we should get both these consolidated into a coherent whole.

It's a bit irritating to have to do this: presumably gcc will get fixed
and the huge sprinkling of __always_inline will become less and less
relevant over time and people will have trouble distinguishing "real
__always_inline which was put here for a purpose" from "dopey
__always_inline to work around a short-term gcc glitch".

__always_inline is one of those things where a usage site should always
be commented, because it's near impossible to work out why someone
chose to use it. Quick, tell me what's happening in include/linux/slab.h.




Perhaps we should do

/*
* Comment goes here. It is very specific about gcc versions.
*/
#define inline_for_broken_gcc __always_inline

and then use inline_for_broken_gcc everywhere. That way, the reason
for the marker is self-explanatory and we can later hunt all these
things down and remvoe them.

Also, the inline_for_broken_gcc definition can be made dependent on
particular gcc versions, which will allow us to easily keep an eye on
the behaviour of later gcc versions.



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