[PATCH] rust_binder: move BC_FREE_BUFFER drop inside if statement

From: Alice Ryhl

Date: Wed Oct 29 2025 - 07:51:11 EST


When looking at flamegraphs, there is a pretty large entry for the
function call drop_in_place::<Option<Allocation>> which in turn calls
drop_in_place::<Allocation>. Combined with the looper_need_return
condition, this means that the generated code looks like this:

if let Some(buffer) = buffer {
if buffer.looper_need_return_on_free() {
self.inner.lock().looper_need_return = true;
}
}
drop_in_place::<Option<Allocation>>() { // not inlined
if let Some(buffer) = buffer {
drop_in_place::<Allocation>(buffer);
}
}

This kind of situation where you check X and then check X again is
normally optimized into a single condition, but in this case due to the
non-inlined function call to drop_in_place::<Option<Allocation>>, that
optimization does not happen.

Furthermore, the drop_in_place::<Allocation> call is only two-thirds of
the drop_in_place::<Option<Allocation>> call in the flamegraph. This
indicates that this double condition is not performing well. Also, last
time I looked at Binder perf, I remember finding that the destructor of
Allocation was involved with many branch mispredictions.

Thus, change this code to look like this:

if let Some(buffer) = buffer {
if buffer.looper_need_return_on_free() {
self.inner.lock().looper_need_return = true;
}
drop_in_place::<Allocation>(buffer);
}

by dropping the Allocation directly. Flamegraphs confirm that the
drop_in_place::<Option<Allocation>> call disappears from this change.

Signed-off-by: Alice Ryhl <aliceryhl@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/android/binder/thread.rs | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/android/binder/thread.rs b/drivers/android/binder/thread.rs
index 7e34ccd394f8049bab88562ffb4601739aea670a..1a8e6fdc0dc42369ee078e720aa02b2554fb7332 100644
--- a/drivers/android/binder/thread.rs
+++ b/drivers/android/binder/thread.rs
@@ -1323,12 +1323,12 @@ fn write(self: &Arc<Self>, req: &mut BinderWriteRead) -> Result {
}
BC_FREE_BUFFER => {
let buffer = self.process.buffer_get(reader.read()?);
- if let Some(buffer) = &buffer {
+ if let Some(buffer) = buffer {
if buffer.looper_need_return_on_free() {
self.inner.lock().looper_need_return = true;
}
+ drop(buffer);
}
- drop(buffer);
}
BC_INCREFS => {
self.process

---
base-commit: 211ddde0823f1442e4ad052a2f30f050145ccada
change-id: 20251029-binder-bcfreebuf-option-35276027ce11

Best regards,
--
Alice Ryhl <aliceryhl@xxxxxxxxxx>