Re: [PATCH 1/2] arm64: jump_label: mark arguments as const to satisfy asm constraints

From: Mark Rutland
Date: Thu Oct 06 2022 - 06:14:58 EST


On Thu, Oct 06, 2022 at 03:55:41PM +0800, Jisheng Zhang wrote:
> Inspired by x86 commit 864b435514b2("x86/jump_label: Mark arguments as
> const to satisfy asm constraints"), mark arch_static_branch()'s and
> arch_static_branch_jump()'s arguments as const to satisfy asm
> constraints. And Steven in [1] also pointed out that "The "i"
> constraint needs to be a constant."

It needs to be a *compile-time constant*, but `const` on a function argument
only ensures that the function can't modify the argument, not that it's a
constant in the caller.

I think this is a quirk of the optimizer rather than anything else.

> Tested with building a simple external kernel module with "O0".

Is building with `-O0` supported? I thought we required using `-O2` or above
for a bunch of code that requires constant propagation, etc.

I don't really have a problem with making this const, but I don't particularly
want to try to "fix" all the other code that depends on constant propagation to
assemble, and I'm worried this is the canary in the coal mine.

Thanks,
Mark.

>
> [1]https://lore.kernel.org/all/20210212094059.5f8d05e8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
>
> Signed-off-by: Jisheng Zhang <jszhang@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> arch/arm64/include/asm/jump_label.h | 8 ++++----
> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/jump_label.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/jump_label.h
> index cea441b6aa5d..48ddc0f45d22 100644
> --- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/jump_label.h
> +++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/jump_label.h
> @@ -15,8 +15,8 @@
>
> #define JUMP_LABEL_NOP_SIZE AARCH64_INSN_SIZE
>
> -static __always_inline bool arch_static_branch(struct static_key *key,
> - bool branch)
> +static __always_inline bool arch_static_branch(struct static_key * const key,
> + const bool branch)
> {
> asm_volatile_goto(
> "1: nop \n\t"
> @@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ static __always_inline bool arch_static_branch(struct static_key *key,
> return true;
> }
>
> -static __always_inline bool arch_static_branch_jump(struct static_key *key,
> - bool branch)
> +static __always_inline bool arch_static_branch_jump(struct static_key * const key,
> + const bool branch)
> {
> asm_volatile_goto(
> "1: b %l[l_yes] \n\t"
> --
> 2.37.2
>