Re: [PATCH 2/3] vc04_services: mmal-vchiq: Use bool for vchiq_mmal_component.in_use

From: Dan Carpenter
Date: Fri Nov 18 2022 - 04:01:46 EST


On Fri, Nov 18, 2022 at 01:23:36AM +0100, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> > struct vchiq_mmal_component {
> > - u32 in_use:1;
> > + bool in_use:1;
> > bool enabled:1;
>
> The patch you referenced says:
>
> +If a structure has many true/false values, consider consolidating them into a
> +bitfield with 1 bit members, or using an appropriate fixed width type, such as
> +u8.
>
> The code did exactly this, using two bits fields, in one u32. A bool
> probably takes up 4 bytes, maybe 8 bytes, so this change probably
> doubles the storage size for these two fields.

In GCC and Clang bools take a byte, but the C language is vague and
other compilers are free to do it differently.

> Are these fields on the
> hot path, where an extra AND instruction would make a difference?

This patch takes the first u32 for "in_use" and squeezes it into the
same byte as "enabled" so it makes the struct four bytes smaller. There
is still a 3 byte struct hole between "enabled" and "handle" so we could
add more 62 bool bitfields if we wanted.

In the v2 patch these become:

bool in_use;
bool enabled;

One byte each and there is a two byte gap before "handle".

regards,
dan carpenter