Re: [PATCH] arm64: fix unreachable code issue with cmpxchg

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 9:46 AM Will Deacon <will@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 09, 2019 at 10:21:35PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > On arm64 build with clang, sometimes the __cmpxchg_mb is not inlined
> > when CONFIG_OPTIMIZE_INLINING is set.
>
> Hmm. Given that CONFIG_OPTIMIZE_INLINING has also been shown to break
> assignment of local 'register' variables on GCC, perhaps we should just
> disable that option for arm64 (at least) since we don't have any toolchains
> that seem to like it very much! I'd certainly prefer that over playing
> whack-a-mole with __always_inline.

Right, but I can also see good reasons to keep going:

- In theory, CONFIG_OPTIMIZE_INLINING is the right thing to do -- the compilers
  also make some particularly bad decisions around inlining when each inline
  turns into an __always_inline, as has been the case in Linux for a long time.
  I think in most cases, we get better object code with CONFIG_OPTIMIZE_INLINING
  and in the cases where this is worse, it may be better to fix the compiler.
  The new "asm_inline"  macro should also help with that.

- The x86 folks have apparently whacked most of the moles already, see this
  commit from 2008

   commit 3f9b5cc018566ad9562df0648395649aebdbc5e0
   Author: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx>
   Date:   Fri Jul 18 16:30:05 2008 +0200

    x86: re-enable OPTIMIZE_INLINING

    re-enable OPTIMIZE_INLINING more widely. Jeff Dike fixed the remaining
    outstanding issue in this commit:

    | commit 4f81c5350b44bcc501ab6f8a089b16d064b4d2f6
    | Author: Jeff Dike <jdike@xxxxxxxxxxx>
    | Date:   Mon Jul 7 13:36:56 2008 -0400
    |
    |     [UML] fix gcc ICEs and unresolved externs
    [...]
    |    This patch reintroduces unit-at-a-time for gcc >= 4.0,
bringing back the
    |    possibility of Uli's crash.  If that happens, we'll debug it.

    it's still default-off and thus opt-in.

- The inlining decisions of gcc and clang are already very different, and
   the bugs we are finding around that are much more common than
   the difference between CONFIG_OPTIMIZE_INLINING=y/n on a
   given compiler.

             Arnd