On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 04:16:56PM -0700, Nick Desaulniers wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 4:04 PM Arvind Sankar <nivedita@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 02:37:48AM +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> > > On Thu, Aug 20 2020 at 09:06, Arvind Sankar wrote:
> > > > I don't think that's an issue, or at least, not one where force_order
> > > > helps.
> > > >
> > > > If the source for foo() is not visible to the compiler, the only reason
> > > > force_order prevents the reordering is because foo() might have
> > > > references to it, but equally foo() might have volatile asm, so the
> > > > reordering isn't possible anyway.
> > > >
> > > > If the source is visible, force_order won't prevent any reordering
> > > > except across references to force_order, but the only references are
> > > > from the volatile asm's which already prevent reordering.
> > > >
> > > > I think force_order can only help with buggy compilers, and for those it
> > > > should really have been an input-output operand -- it wouldn't currently
> > > > do anything to prevent cr writes from being reordered.
> 
> I agree 100%.  From the link to GCC docs, the code in question doesn't
> even follow the pattern from the doc from informing the compiler of
> any dependency, it just looks like !@#$.
> 
> > >
> > > Fair enough. Care to provide a patch which has the collected wisdom of
> > > this thread in the changelog?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > >         tglx
> >
> > The gcc bug I linked to earlier is only fixed in gcc-6 onwards. Is that
> 
> (based on https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82602#c14)

I actually checked gcc's git repo too. The fix is not there in gcc-4.9
and gcc-5.

> 
> > good enough to remove force_order? I can test gcc-4.9 and gcc-5 to check
> > if it would currently have any impact.
> 
> I think checking the disassemblies with a pre-gcc-6 would be good
> enough then; that bug isn't specific to this particular case.
> 
> > CBL guys, can you confirm that clang also will not reorder volatile asm?
> 
> Full disassemblies of vmlinux pre vs post __force_order removal are
> the same.  That's pretty good actually; I was worried for a code base
> of this size whether two compiles would produce the exact same
> disassemblies; I know the version strings are timestamped, for
> instance, but I didn't compare data, just .text.  I should triple
> check i386, and some of the ko's that use modified functions.  I'd be
> happy to help provide a tested by tag for numerous configurations with
> Clang.
> 
> Attaching the diff I was testing, feel free to add a commit message.
> --
> Thanks,
> ~Nick Desaulniers

Thanks, will write it up over the weekend.