[PATCH v4 6/8] tracing/histogram: Optimize division by a power of 2

From: Kalesh Singh
Date: Mon Oct 25 2021 - 16:24:02 EST


The division is a slow operation. If the divisor is a power of 2, use a
shift instead.

Results were obtained using Android's version of perf (simpleperf[1]) as
described below:

1. hist_field_div() is modified to call 2 test functions:
test_hist_field_div_[not]_optimized(); passing them the
same args. Use noinline and volatile to ensure these are
not optimized out by the compiler.
2. Create a hist event trigger that uses division:
events/kmem/rss_stat$ echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:x=size/<divisor>'
>> trigger
events/kmem/rss_stat$ echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:vals=$x'
>> trigger
3. Run Android's lmkd_test[2] to generate rss_stat events, and
record CPU samples with Android's simpleperf:
simpleperf record -a --exclude-perf --post-unwind=yes -m 16384 -g
-f 2000 -o perf.data

== Results ==

Divisor is a power of 2 (divisor == 32):

test_hist_field_div_not_optimized | 8,717,091 cpu-cycles
test_hist_field_div_optimized | 1,643,137 cpu-cycles

If the divisor is a power of 2, the optimized version is ~5.3x faster.

Divisor is not a power of 2 (divisor == 33):

test_hist_field_div_not_optimized | 4,444,324 cpu-cycles
test_hist_field_div_optimized | 5,497,958 cpu-cycles

If the divisor is not a power of 2, as expected, the optimized version is
slightly slower (~24% slower).

[1] https://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/extras/+/master/simpleperf/doc/README.md
[2] https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/master:system/memory/lmkd/tests/lmkd_test.cpp

Signed-off-by: Kalesh Singh <kaleshsingh@xxxxxxxxxx>
Suggested-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>

---
kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c | 4 ++++
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c b/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c
index db28bcf976f4..364cb3091789 100644
--- a/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c
+++ b/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c
@@ -304,6 +304,10 @@ static u64 hist_field_div(struct hist_field *hist_field,
if (!val2)
return -1;

+ /* Use shift if the divisor is a power of 2 */
+ if (!(val2 & (val2 - 1)))
+ return val1 >> __ffs64(val2);
+
return div64_u64(val1, val2);
}

--
2.33.0.1079.g6e70778dc9-goog