[PATCH] lib: Fix possible incorrect result from rational fractions helper

[PATCH] lib: Fix possible incorrect result from rational fractions helper

[Trent Piepho]

In some cases the previous algorithm would not return the closest
approximation.  This would happen when a semi-convergent was the
closest, as the previous algorithm would only consider convergents.

As an example, consider an initial value of 5/4, and trying to find the
closest approximation with a maximum of 4 for numerator and denominator.
The previous algorithm would return 1/1 as the closest approximation,
while this version will return the correct answer of 4/3.

To do this, the main loop performs effectively the same operations as it
did before.  It must now keep track of the last three approximations,
n2/d2 .. n0/d0, while before it only needed the last two.

If an exact answer is not found, the algorithm will now calculate the
best semi-convergent term, t, which is a single expression with two
divisions:
    min((max_numerator - n0) / n1, (max_denominator - d0) / d1)

This will be used if it is better than previous convergent.  The test
for this is generally a simple comparison, 2*t > a.  But in an edge
case, where the convergent's final term is even and the best allowable
semi-convergent has a final term of exactly half the convergent's final
term, the more complex comparison (d0*dp > d1*d) is used.

I also wrote some comments explaining the code.  While one still needs
to look up the math elsewhere, they should help a lot to follow how the
code relates to that math.

Cc: Oskar Schirmer <oskar@scara.com>
Signed-off-by: Trent Piepho <tpiepho@gmail.com>
---
 lib/rational.c | 63 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
 1 file changed, 50 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/rational.c b/lib/rational.c
index ba7443677c90..31fb27db2deb 100644
--- a/lib/rational.c
+++ b/lib/rational.c
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
  * rational fractions
  *
  * Copyright (C) 2009 emlix GmbH, Oskar Schirmer <oskar@scara.com>
+ * Copyright (C) 2019 Trent Piepho <tpiepho@gmail.com>
  *
  * helper functions when coping with rational numbers
  */
@@ -10,6 +11,7 @@
 #include <linux/rational.h>
 #include <linux/compiler.h>
 #include <linux/export.h>
+#include <linux/kernel.h>
 
 /*
  * calculate best rational approximation for a given fraction
@@ -33,30 +35,65 @@ void rational_best_approximation(
 	unsigned long max_numerator, unsigned long max_denominator,
 	unsigned long *best_numerator, unsigned long *best_denominator)
 {
-	unsigned long n, d, n0, d0, n1, d1;
+	/* n/d is the starting rational, which is continually
+	 * decreased each iteration using the Euclidean algorithm.
+	 *
+	 * dp is the value of d from the prior iteration.
+	 *
+	 * n2/d2, n1/d1, and n0/d0 are our successively more accurate
+	 * approximations of the rational.  They are, respectively,
+	 * the current, previous, and two prior iterations of it.
+	 *
+	 * a is current term of the continued fraction.
+	 */
+	unsigned long n, d, n0, d0, n1, d1, n2, d2;
 	n = given_numerator;
 	d = given_denominator;
 	n0 = d1 = 0;
 	n1 = d0 = 1;
+
 	for (;;) {
-		unsigned long t, a;
-		if ((n1 > max_numerator) || (d1 > max_denominator)) {
-			n1 = n0;
-			d1 = d0;
-			break;
-		}
+		unsigned long dp, a;
+
 		if (d == 0)
 			break;
-		t = d;
+		/* Find next term in continued fraction, 'a', via
+		 * Euclidean algorithm.
+		 */
+		dp = d;
 		a = n / d;
 		d = n % d;
-		n = t;
-		t = n0 + a * n1;
+		n = dp;
+
+		/* Calculate the current rational approximation (aka
+		 * convergent), n2/d2, using the term just found and
+		 * the two prior approximations.
+		 */
+		n2 = n0 + a * n1;
+		d2 = d0 + a * d1;
+
+		/* If the current convergent exceeds the maxes, then
+		 * return either the previous convergent or the
+		 * largest semi-convergent, the final term of which is
+		 * found below as 't'.
+		 */
+		if ((n2 > max_numerator) || (d2 > max_denominator)) {
+			unsigned long t = min((max_numerator - n0) / n1,
+					      (max_denominator - d0) / d1);
+
+			/* This tests if the semi-convergent is closer
+			 * than the previous convergent.
+			 */
+			if (2u * t > a || (2u * t == a && d0 * dp > d1 * d)) {
+				n1 = n0 + t * n1;
+				d1 = d0 + t * d1;
+			}
+			break;
+		}
 		n0 = n1;
-		n1 = t;
-		t = d0 + a * d1;
+		n1 = n2;
 		d0 = d1;
-		d1 = t;
+		d1 = d2;
 	}
 	*best_numerator = n1;
 	*best_denominator = d1;
-- 
2.20.1

Re: [PATCH] lib: Fix possible incorrect result from rational fractions helper

[Andrew Morton]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:58:55 -0700 Trent Piepho <tpiepho@gmail.com> wrote:

> In some cases the previous algorithm would not return the closest
> approximation.  This would happen when a semi-convergent was the
> closest, as the previous algorithm would only consider convergents.
> 
> As an example, consider an initial value of 5/4, and trying to find the
> closest approximation with a maximum of 4 for numerator and denominator.
> The previous algorithm would return 1/1 as the closest approximation,
> while this version will return the correct answer of 4/3.
> 
> To do this, the main loop performs effectively the same operations as it
> did before.  It must now keep track of the last three approximations,
> n2/d2 .. n0/d0, while before it only needed the last two.
> 
> If an exact answer is not found, the algorithm will now calculate the
> best semi-convergent term, t, which is a single expression with two
> divisions:
>     min((max_numerator - n0) / n1, (max_denominator - d0) / d1)
> 
> This will be used if it is better than previous convergent.  The test
> for this is generally a simple comparison, 2*t > a.  But in an edge
> case, where the convergent's final term is even and the best allowable
> semi-convergent has a final term of exactly half the convergent's final
> term, the more complex comparison (d0*dp > d1*d) is used.
> 
> I also wrote some comments explaining the code.  While one still needs
> to look up the math elsewhere, they should help a lot to follow how the
> code relates to that math.

What are the userspace-visible runtime effects of this change?

Re: [PATCH] lib: Fix possible incorrect result from rational fractions helper

[tpiepho]

On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 10:22 PM Andrew Morton <
akpm@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:58:55 -0700 Trent Piepho <tpiepho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > In some cases the previous algorithm would not return the closest
> > approximation.  This would happen when a semi-convergent was the
> > closest, as the previous algorithm would only consider convergents.
> > 
> > As an example, consider an initial value of 5/4, and trying to find
> > the
> > closest approximation with a maximum of 4 for numerator and
> > denominator.
> > The previous algorithm would return 1/1 as the closest
> > approximation,
> > while this version will return the correct answer of 4/3.
> 
> What are the userspace-visible runtime effects of this change?

Ok, I looked into this in some detail.

This routine is used in two places in the video4linux code, but in
those cases it is only used to reduce a fraction to lowest terms, which
the existing code will do correctly.  This could be done more
efficiently with a different library routine but it would still be the
Euclidean alogrithm at its heart.  So no change.

The remain users are places where a fractional PLL divider is
programmed.  What would happen is something asked for a clock of X MHz
but instead gets Y MHz, where Y is close to X but not exactly due to
the hardware limitations.  After this change they might, in some cases,
get Y' MHz, where Y' is a little closer to X then Y was.

Users like this are: Three UARTs, in 8250_mid, 8250_lpss, and
imx.  One GPU in vp4_hdmi.  And three clock drivers, clk-cdce706, clk-si5351, and clk-fractional-divider.  The last is a generic clock driver and so would have more users referenced via device tree entries.

I think there's a bug in that one, it's limiting an N bit field that is
offset-by-1 to the range 0 .. (1<<N)-2, when it should be (1<<N)-1 as
the upper limit.

I have an IMX system, one of the UARTs using this, so I can provide a
real example.  If I request a custom baud rate of 1499978, the driver
will program the PLL to produce a baud rate of 1500000.  After this
change, the fractional divider in the UART is programmed to a ratio of
65535/65536, which produces a baud rate of 1499977.0625.  Closer to the
requested value.