Re: [PATCH] be2net: fix adapter->big_page_size miscaculation

From: Bill Wendling <morbo@google.com>
To: Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
Cc: Qian Cai <cai@lca.pw>, James Y Knight <jyknight@google.com>,
	David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>,
	sathya.perla@broadcom.com, ajit.khaparde@broadcom.com,
	sriharsha.basavapatna@broadcom.com, somnath.kotur@broadcom.com,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
	David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
	netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-arch <linux-arch@vger.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Nathan Chancellor <natechancellor@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] be2net: fix adapter->big_page_size miscaculation
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2019 14:21:29 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAGG=3QUvdwJs1wW1w+5Mord-qFLa=_WkjTsiZuwGfcjkoEJGNQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKwvOdkCfqfpJYYX+iu2nLCUUkeDorDdVP3e7koB9NYsRwgCNw@mail.gmail.com>

[My previous response was marked as spam...]

Top-of-tree clang says that it's const:

$ gcc a.c -O2 && ./a.out
a is a const.

$ clang a.c -O2 && ./a.out
a is a const.

On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 2:10 PM Nick Desaulniers
<ndesaulniers@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 2:01 PM Qian Cai <cai@lca.pw> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Jul 12, 2019, at 8:50 PM, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > From: Qian Cai <cai@lca.pw>
> > > Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2019 20:27:09 -0400
> > >
> > >> Actually, GCC would consider it a const with -O2 optimized level because it found that it was never modified and it does not understand it is a module parameter. Considering the following code.
> > >>
> > >> # cat const.c
> > >> #include <stdio.h>
> > >>
> > >> static int a = 1;
> > >>
> > >> int main(void)
> > >> {
> > >>      if (__builtin_constant_p(a))
> > >>              printf("a is a const.\n");
> > >>
> > >>      return 0;
> > >> }
> > >>
> > >> # gcc -O2 const.c -o const
> > >
> > > That's not a complete test case, and with a proper test case that
> > > shows the externalization of the address of &a done by the module
> > > parameter macros, gcc should not make this optimization or we should
> > > define the module parameter macros in a way that makes this properly
> > > clear to the compiler.
> > >
> > > It makes no sense to hack around this locally in drivers and other
> > > modules.
> >
> > If you see the warning in the original patch,
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/1562959401-19815-1-git-send-email-cai@lca.pw/
> >
> > GCC definitely optimize rx_frag_size  to be a constant while I just confirmed clang
> > -O2 does not. The problem is that I have no clue about how to let GCC not to
> > optimize a module parameter.
> >
> > Though, I have added a few people who might know more of compilers than myself.
>
> + Bill and James, who probably knows more than they'd like to about
> __builtin_constant_p and more than other LLVM folks at this point.
>
> --
> Thanks,
> ~Nick Desaulniers