Re: [PATCH] math-emu: correct test for downshifting fraction in _FP_FROM_INT()

From: Mikael Pettersson
Date: Tue Jul 20 2010 - 09:35:30 EST


Mikael Pettersson writes:
> The kernel's math-emu code contains a macro _FP_FROM_INT() which is
> used to convert an integer to a raw normalized floating-point value.
> It does this basically in three steps:
>
> 1. Compute the exponent from the number of leading zero bits.
> 2. Downshift large fractions to put the MSB in the right position
> for normalized fractions.
> 3. Upshift small fractions to put the MSB in the right position.
>
> There is an boundary error in step 2, causing a fraction with its
> MSB exactly one bit above the normalized MSB position to not be
> downshifted. This results in a non-normalized raw float, which when
> packed becomes a massively inaccurate representation for that input.
>
> The impact of this depends on a number of arch-specific factors,
> but it is known to have broken emulation of FXTOD instructions
> on UltraSPARC III, which was originally reported as GCC bug 44631
> <http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=44631>.
>
> Any arch which uses math-emu to emulate conversions from integers to
> same-size floats may be affected.
>
> The fix is simple: the exponent comparison used to determine if the
> fraction should be downshifted must be "<=" not "<".
>
> I'm sending a kernel module to test this as a reply to this message.
> There are also SPARC user-space test cases in the GCC bug entry.
>
> Signed-off-by: Mikael Pettersson <mikpe@xxxxxxxx>

I forgot to mention that this needs to be backported to older kernels,
so can the maintainer who picks this up please add

Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxx

Thanks,

/Mikael

> ---
> include/math-emu/op-common.h | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff -rupN linux-2.6.35-rc5/include/math-emu/op-common.h linux-2.6.35-rc5.mathemu-FP_FROM_INT-fraction-downshift-condition/include/math-emu/op-common.h
> --- linux-2.6.35-rc5/include/math-emu/op-common.h 2010-05-17 19:51:32.000000000 +0200
> +++ linux-2.6.35-rc5.mathemu-FP_FROM_INT-fraction-downshift-condition/include/math-emu/op-common.h 2010-07-18 22:33:46.000000000 +0200
> @@ -799,7 +799,7 @@ do { \
> X##_e -= (_FP_W_TYPE_SIZE - rsize); \
> X##_e = rsize - X##_e - 1; \
> \
> - if (_FP_FRACBITS_##fs < rsize && _FP_WFRACBITS_##fs < X##_e) \
> + if (_FP_FRACBITS_##fs < rsize && _FP_WFRACBITS_##fs <= X##_e) \
> __FP_FRAC_SRS_1(ur_, (X##_e - _FP_WFRACBITS_##fs + 1), rsize);\
> _FP_FRAC_DISASSEMBLE_##wc(X, ur_, rsize); \
> if ((_FP_WFRACBITS_##fs - X##_e - 1) > 0) \
> --
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