Re: MIPS atomic memory operations (A.K.A PR 33479).

[Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de>]

David Daney wrote:
> Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Sep 2007, David Daney wrote:
>>> Currently, I (and thus GCC 4.3) am assuming that Linux emulates 'll', 
>>> 'sc' and
>>> 'sync', If sync is not emulated, we would need to adjust the code 
>>> generation
>>> so that it is not emitted on ISAs that don't support it.
>>  While adding "sync" is trivial enough I may have a patch ready by 
>> tomorrow, that will not change the existing userbase and I am not entirely 
>> sure forcing such a hasty upgrade on people would be reasonable; likely 
>> not.
>>>> A workaround for a CPU erratum fits within the "-mfix-*" option family 
>>>> quite
>>>> well though.
>>> Do we know which CPUs require branch-likely?
>>  The R10000; there is a note about it in <asm-mips/war.h> at 
>> R10000_LLSC_WAR.
>>> I would be inclined to agree with adding a "-mfix-??" option.
>>>
>>> The only place where GCC's __sync_* primitives are generated without
>>> explicitly writing them into your program is in GCJ compiled java code 
>>> that
>>> uses volatile fields.
>>>
>>> If we expect the use of the __sync_* primitives on CPUs that require
>>> branch-likely to be rare, we shouldn't penalize those trying to rid 
>>> themselves
>>> of the beasts.
>>  Another option is to depend on the setting of -mbranch-likely.  By 
>> default it is on only for the processors which implement it and do not 
>> discourage it, i.e. these of the MIPS II, MIPS III and MIPS IV ISAs.
>
> This seems to be the most sensible option.
>
> I will try to work up the GCC patch tonight.

This means generic MIPS code (MIPS I) wil have broken atomic
intrinsics when run on modern MIPS machines.


Thiemo