perf events ring buffer memory barrier on powerpc
Paul E. McKenney
paulmck at linux.vnet.ibm.com
Fri Nov 1 02:07:56 EST 2013
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 10:04:57AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 09:32:58PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > Before C/C++11, the closest thing to such a prohibition is use of
> > volatile, for example, ACCESS_ONCE(). Even in C/C++11, you have to
> > use atomics to get anything resembing this prohibition.
> >
> > If you just use normal variables, the compiler is within its rights
> > to transform something like the following:
> >
> > if (a)
> > b = 1;
> > else
> > b = 42;
> >
> > Into:
> >
> > b = 42;
> > if (a)
> > b = 1;
> >
> > Many other similar transformations are permitted. Some are used to all
> > vector instructions to be used -- the compiler can do a write with an
> > overly wide vector instruction, then clean up the clobbered variables
> > later, if it wishes. Again, if the variables are not marked volatile,
> > or, in C/C++11, atomic.
>
> While I've heard you tell this story before, my mind keeps boggling how
> we've been able to use shared memory at all, all these years.
>
> It seems to me stuff should have broken left, right and center if
> compilers were really aggressive about this.
Sometimes having stupid compilers is a good thing. But they really are
getting more aggressive.
Thanx, Paul
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