Re: [PATCH v1 2/5] Teach git to optionally utilize a file system monitor to speed up detecting new or changed files.

["brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>]

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On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 03:13:44PM -0400, Ben Peart wrote:
> +	istate->last_update = (time_t)ntohll(*(uint64_t *)index);
> +	index += sizeof(uint64_t);
> +
> +	ewah_size = ntohl(*(uint32_t *)index);
> +	index += sizeof(uint32_t);

To answer the question you asked in your cover letter, you cannot write
this unless you can guarantee (((uintptr_t)index & 7) == 0) is true.
Otherwise, this will produce a SIGBUS on SPARC, Alpha, MIPS, and some
ARM systems, and it will perform poorly on PowerPC and other ARM
systems[0].

If you got that pointer from malloc and have only indexed multiples of 8
on it, you're good.  But if you're not sure, you probably want to use
memcpy.  If the compiler can determine that it's not necessary, it will
omit the copy and perform a direct load.

[0] To be technically correct, all of those systems except SPARC can
have unaligned access fixed up automatically, depending on the kernel
settings.  But such a fixup involves taking a trap into the kernel,
performing two aligned loads and bit shifting, and returning to
userspace, which performs about as well as you'd expect.  For that
reason, Debian build machines have such fixups turned off and will just
SIGBUS.
-- 
brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
+1 832 623 2791 | https://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

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