Re: [PATCH v5 3/4] powerpc/lib: implement strlen() in assembly

From: Segher Boessenkool
Date: Fri Jun 08 2018 - 10:55:51 EST


Hi!

On Fri, Jun 08, 2018 at 01:27:39PM +0000, Christophe Leroy wrote:
> ---
> Not tested on PPC64.

> +#ifdef CPU_LITTLE_ENDIAN
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 0, 56
> + beq 20f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 56, 56
> + beq 21f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 48, 56
> + beq 22f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 40, 56
> + beq 23f
> + addi r10, r10, 4
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 32, 56
> + beq 20f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 24, 56
> + beq 21f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 16, 56
> + beq 22f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 8, 56
> +#else
> +#ifdef CONFIG_PPC64
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 8, 56
> + beq 20f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 16, 56
> + beq 21f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 24, 56
> + beq 22f
> + rldicl. r8, r9, 32, 56
> + beq 23f
> + addi r10, r10, 4
> +#endif
> + rlwinm. r8, r9, 0, 0xff000000
> + beq 20f
> + rlwinm. r8, r9, 0, 0x00ff0000
> + beq 21f
> + rlwinm. r8, r9, 0, 0x0000ff00
> + beq 22f
> +#endif /* CPU_LITTLE_ENDIAN */

That isn't going to perform well on processors that have more than two
or so cycles penalty on a branch mispredict (i.e. all modern processors).

ISA 2.05 and later cpus (Power6 and later) can use cmpb and a single
cntlz, on BE; on LE you can use the cnttz insn on ISA 3.0 (Power9) or
later, or do add/andc/popcntd (on ISA2.06, Power7 and later) or
neg/and/cntlz/sub.

Lots of options. You can also write branchless code for this without
using any new insns (less nice of course).


Segher