Re: [PATCH] err.h: use __always_inline on all error pointer helpers

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Wed, May 27, 2026, at 16:06, Alexander Lobakin wrote:
> From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
> Date: Tue, 26 May 2026 23:03:50 +0200
>> 
>> Without CONFIG_PROFILE_ANNOTATED_BRANCHES, the changes are
>> very small, with around 100 functions growing or shrinking
>> by a few bytes.
>> 
>> I don't think we care much about the size increase when that
>> option is enabled, but I do wonder what behavior makes more
>
> Yup, and even without this option, __always_inline is better here
> regardless of how it affects the size. Such oneliners must be
> transparent to the compiler

In general I would trust the compiler to make the right
choices here, but as I have shown it makes very little difference.

I think one case where an out-of-line copy may legitimately
be generated by the compiler would be when optimizing known
cold code for size and the compiler can show that the
out of line version is indeed shorter.

>> sense regarding the annotation for every single IS_ERR(). 
>> Does it make sense to have every instance get its own counter,
>> or would it make sense to actually try to reduce these
>> when profiling the annotations?
>
> I'm not familiar with branch annotations, but from the stats above, it
> really looks like it adds a lot of code bloat. Plenty of branches in
> the kernel are sorta pointless to track (the ones which trigger once
> in a thousand years, the unlikely() ones etc.), I guess.

Yes, the CONFIG_PROFILE_ANNOTATED_BRANCHES option definitely
adds a huge amount of bloat. The point here is to find
incorrect annotations, either a branch that is marked unlikely()
but taken most of the time or the reverse. I think
Steven Rosted enables the option occasionally to
see if there are any outliers, but nobody should use
this in production environments.

For IS_ERR(), it is fairly clear that unlikely() is the
correct annotation in almost all cases, and it's helpful to
mark all of the error handling as unlikely so the compiuler
can move it away from hot code paths. With 35000 instances
of IS_ERR() there are likely a few exceptions to this
rule, but I don't know if any of them are important enough
to require a code change. Steven might remember if he's
ever seen one here.

     Arnd