Re: * 4 converted to << 2 for networking code

From: H. Peter Anvin (hpa@zytor.com)
Date: Wed Jan 10 2001 - 19:29:27 EST


Followup to: <20010110161146.A3252@unthought.net>
By author: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jakob_=D8stergaard?= <jakob@unthought.net>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On most processors <<2 is slower than *4.
>

That's a funny statement. Which processors do you include in "most"?
That has not been my experience.

> It's outright stupid to write <<2 when we mean *4 in order to optimize for one out of a
> gazillion supported architectures - even more so when the compiler
> for the one CPU where <<2 is faster, will actually generate a shift
> instead of a multiply as a part of the standard optimization.
>
> One question for the GCC people: Will gcc change <<2 to *4 on other
> architectures ? If so, then my case is not quite as strong of course.
>

gcc should consider the statements equivalent, and generate whichever
pattern is preferred. On an i386 that may mean take a pattern such as

        foo = (bar << 2) + quux;

... and generate ...

        lea ecx,[esi*4+ebx]

        -hpa

-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt
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