Re: [PATCH V2 2/3] powerpc, ptrace: Enable support for transactional memory register sets

From: Pedro Alves
Date: Wed May 14 2014 - 07:15:35 EST


On 05/14/14 06:46, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> On 05/13/2014 10:43 PM, Pedro Alves wrote:
>> On 05/05/14 08:54, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
>>> This patch enables get and set of transactional memory related register
>>> sets through PTRACE_GETREGSET/PTRACE_SETREGSET interface by implementing
>>> four new powerpc specific register sets i.e REGSET_TM_SPR, REGSET_TM_CGPR,
>>> REGSET_TM_CFPR, REGSET_CVMX support corresponding to these following new
>>> ELF core note types added previously in this regard.
>>>
>>> (1) NT_PPC_TM_SPR
>>> (2) NT_PPC_TM_CGPR
>>> (3) NT_PPC_TM_CFPR
>>> (4) NT_PPC_TM_CVMX
>>
>> Sorry that I couldn't tell this from the code, but, what does the
>> kernel return when the ptracer requests these registers and the
>> program is not in a transaction? Specifically I'm wondering whether
>> this follows the same semantics as the s390 port.
>>
>
> Right now, it still returns the saved state of the registers from thread
> struct. I had assumed that the user must know the state of the transaction
> before initiating the ptrace request. I guess its better to check for
> the transaction status before processing the request. In case if TM is not
> active on that thread, we should return -EINVAL.

I think s390 returns ENODATA in that case.

https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2013-06/msg00273.html

We'll want some way to tell whether the system actually
supports this. That could be ENODATA vs something-else (EINVAL
or perhaps better EIO for "request is invalid").

s390 actually screwed that, though it got away because
there's a bit in HWCAP to signal transactions support. See:

https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2013-11/msg00080.html

Are you adding something to HWCAP too?

>
> I am not familiar with the s390 side of code. But if we look at the
> s390_tdb_get function it checks for (regs->int_code & 0x200) before
> processing the request. Not sure what 0x200 signifies though.

--
Pedro Alves

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