From: Neven Sajko <nsajko@gmail.com>
To: gcc@gcc.gnu.org
Subject: Doc fix request: C/C++ extended asm empty input constraint
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2021 00:40:38 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAL+bK4Nyd3cFhYFoixyT3LvObXV7xawT5eUaEq+SrPhmRCB+Ew@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
Hello all,
There is a long-standing, but undocumented GCC inline assembly feature
that's part of the extended asm GCC extension to C and C++: extended
asm empty input constraints.
As far as I understand the semantics, this is a feature that
effectively creates a "fake" load and a "fake" ordering dependency.
The distinguishing feature of the empty constraint is that it's
possible for the compiler to optimize it (and this seems to work fine
with gcc -O3) so that no unnecessary additional code generation
happens. Thus this feature is something that is useful for testing
C/C++ code, or benchmarking it, or fuzzing it, etc. Note that this
feature would then almost always be used without actual assembly
instructions in the asm declaration/statement.
The feature was luckily mentioned on the GCC mailing lists in the
past, here's a quote from
https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc-help/2015-June/124410.html by David
Brown.
> But the extra "asm volatile" here with a fake input tells the compiler
> that "val" is an input to the (empty) assembly, and must therefore be
> calculated before the statement is executed. The empty input constraint
> (no "r" or "m") gives the compiler complete freedom about where it wants
> to put this fake input - all we are saying is that the value "val" must
> be calculated before executing
> asm volatile("" :: "" (val))
> Generating assembly from this (using gcc-4.5.1, which is the latest
> avr-gcc I have installed at the moment) shows the division being done
> before the cli() - the code is optimal and correct, with no unnecessary
> memory operations (as you would need by making "val" volatile).
There is also a Stack Overflow question where somebody is confused
with the lack of documentation:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63305223/gcc-asm-with-empty-input-operand-constraint
This is why I am asking for this feature to be documented. It seems
like this would be the most appropriate place:
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Extended-Asm.html#InputOperands
I would have tried to contribute a doc fix myself, but I couldn't find
the sources for the online docs in the GCC Git repository.
Lastly, in case it's helpful, here's a short C++ program which
demonstrates the behavior in more concrete terms:
> #include <vector>
>
> int
> main() {
> // Greater than or equal to zero.
> constexpr int asmV = ASM_V;
>
> std::vector<char> v{7, 6, 9, 3, 2, 0};
> for (int i{0}; i < (1 << 28); i++) {
> for (int j{0}; j < 6; j++) {
> v[j]++;
>
> if constexpr (1 <= asmV) {
> asm volatile ("" :: ""(v.size()));
> for (auto x: v) {
> asm volatile ("" :: ""(x));
> }
> }
> if constexpr (2 <= asmV) {
> asm volatile ("" :: ""(v.size()));
> for (auto x: v) {
> asm volatile ("" :: ""(x));
> }
> }
> if constexpr (3 <= asmV) {
> asm volatile ("" :: ""(v.size()));
> for (auto x: v) {
> asm volatile ("" :: ""(x));
> }
> }
> }
> }
>
> return 0;
> }
So compile it with, e.g.
g++ -std=c++20 -O3 -flto -march=native -D ASM_V=XXX -o XXX asm.cc
Where XXX will be 0, 1, 2 and 3.
For ASM_V=0 the loop gets optimized out, while for greater values the
loop stays. For ASM_V=1, ASM_V=2 and ASM_V=3 the generated code is
exactly the same.
Thanks,
Neven Sajko
next reply other threads:[~2021-02-15 0:40 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-02-15 0:40 Neven Sajko [this message]
2021-02-15 8:11 ` Jonathan Wakely
2021-02-22 2:16 ` Neven Sajko
2021-02-22 14:27 ` Jonathan Wakely
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