Re: Question about missing "cld" in x86 string assembly code

["nai.xia" <nai.xia@gmail.com>]

On 2011a1'12ae??18ae?JPY 01:08, Brian Gerst wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Nai Xia<nai.xia@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Hi Andi,
>>
>> Seems I used a stale email address of you from a related git commit log,
>> so this is a resend, sorry.
>>
>> =======
>> Hi,
>>
>> I notice that all x86 assembly code for string operations containing
>> "scasb, lodsb", etc does not have "cld" at the beginning.
>> Is this 100% safe?
>> Or in other words, how could we be sure that
>> there is no "std" generated by compiler somewhere just before
>> the string operations?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Nai
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>
> The i386 ELF ABI states "The direction flag must be set to the
> a??a??forwarda??a?? (that is, zero) direction before entry and upon exit from
> a function."  Therefore it can be assumed to be clear, unless
> explicitly set.

Hmm, I get those lines now. Thanks for reply.
Seems gcc started to strictly conform to this ABI since 4.3 . But glibc
seems still have some leading "cld" string code, maybe just prepared for
non-conforming kernels other than Linux.

>
> --
> Brian Gerst

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