Re: [RFC 5/8] x86: refcount: prevent gcc distortions

From: Nadav Amit
Date: Wed May 16 2018 - 12:11:28 EST


Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>>> On 15.05.18 at 16:11, <namit@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/refcount.h
>> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/refcount.h
>> @@ -14,34 +14,43 @@
>> * central refcount exception. The fixup address for the exception points
>> * back to the regular execution flow in .text.
>> */
>> -#define _REFCOUNT_EXCEPTION \
>> - ".pushsection .text..refcount\n" \
>> - "111:\tlea %[counter], %%" _ASM_CX "\n" \
>> - "112:\t" ASM_UD2 "\n" \
>> - ASM_UNREACHABLE \
>> - ".popsection\n" \
>> - "113:\n" \
>> +
>> +asm ("\n"
>> + ".macro __REFCOUNT_EXCEPTION counter:vararg\n\t"
>> + ".pushsection .text..refcount\n"
>> + "111:\tlea \\counter, %" _ASM_CX "\n"
>> + "112:\t" ASM_UD2 "\n\t"
>> + ASM_UNREACHABLE
>> + ".popsection\n\t"
>> + "113:\n"
>> _ASM_EXTABLE_REFCOUNT(112b, 113b)
>> + ".endm");
>
> A few comments on assembly code formatting - while gas at present is
> relatively lax in this regard, I wouldn't exclude that there might be a
> more strict mode in the future, and that such a mode might eventually
> become the default. Furthermore these formatting aspects affect
> readability of the assembly produced, should anyone ever find a need
> to look at it (perhaps because of some breakage) - I certainly do every
> once in a while.
>
> Labels should be placed without any indentation (but of course there
> may be more than one on a line, in which case subsequent ones may
> of course be arbitrarily indented). Instructions and directives, otoh,
> should be placed with at least a single tab or space of indentation
> (unless preceded by a label, in which case the extra white space still
> helps readability).

Writing these patches, I looked at the generated assembly, and there did not
appear to be a standard. IIRC, .pushsection directives were not always
inlined. I will fix it according to your comments.

> I'm also not sure about the purpose of the leading plain newline here.
> gcc annotates code resulting from inline assembly anyway iirc, so
> proper visual separation should already be available.

Right. It was only to get the macro directive not tabulated, but as you
said, it should be tabulated, so I will remove it.

>
> If I was the maintainer of this code, I would also object to the
> mis-alignment your file scope asm()-s have ("asm (" is 5 characters,
> which doesn't equal a tab's width).

I tried many formats (including the one you propose), and eventually went
with the one that made checkpatch not yell at me. I will revert to the one
you propose, which makes most sense, and ignore checkpatch warnings.

Thanks,
Nadav