Re: [PATCH v2] sched/psi: use __ffs() to walk task-count bitmasks in psi_group_change()

From: Usama Arif

Date: Fri Aug 07 2026 - 05:58:30 EST


On Fri, 17 Jul 2026 03:59:39 -0700 Usama Arif <usama.arif@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> psi_group_change() walks the @clear and @set bitmasks to
> decrement/increment groupc->tasks[t]. Both masks are at most
> NR_PSI_TASK_COUNTS (=4) wide and typically have one or two bits
> set. Today's form visits every position up to the highest set bit:
>
> for (t = 0, m = clear; m; m &= ~(1 << t), t++) {
> if (!(m & (1 << t)))
> continue;
> ...
> }
>
> so a mask with only bit 3 set still spins four times through the
> skip path. Switch both walks to __ffs() + m &= m-1 form:
>
> while (clear) {
> t = __ffs(clear);
> clear &= clear - 1;
> ...
> }
>
> which iterates only over the set bits and terminates naturally on
> m == 0. m & (m - 1) clears the lowest set bit. This code is easier
> to read as well.
>
> An in-kernel microbench (noinline, same body, IRQs off, pinned CPU
> on Zen4c, min-of-10 cyc/call) over mask distributions produced by
> common scheduler PSI paths:
>
> mask pattern old new delta
> empty (clear=0x0, set=0x0) 3.68 3.68 +0%
> sleep (clear=0x4, set=0x0) 9.60 3.74 -61%
> iowait-sleep (clear=0x4, set=0x1) 12.32 4.45 -63%
> memstall-sleep (clear=0xc, set=0x0) 11.87 5.54 -53%
> wake (clear=0x0, set=0x4) 7.10 3.70 -47%
> iowait-wake (clear=0x1, set=0x4) 10.83 4.48 -58%
>
> Every non-empty case wins 47-63%: old cost tracks the highest set bit
> (linear walk), new cost tracks the count of set bits (skip zeros via
> TZCNT). Single-bit patterns run at the empty-case floor.
>
> The generated psi_group_change() text also shrinks by 67 bytes under
> -O2 -march=x86-64 (756 -> 689): no scratch register for a "constant 1"
> (only __ffs's operand is needed), simpler bit-clear (LEA+AND vs
> SHL+NOT+AND after the test), and no skip-if-unset check per position.
>
> Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Usama Arif <usama.arif@xxxxxxxxx>


Hello Peter!

Just wanted to check if there were any comments or feedback on this patch?

I checked sched/core branch and didn't see the patch there.

Thanks!
Usama