Re: [RFC] Documentation about unaligned memory access

Ben Dooks
2007-11-26T17:12:56Z

On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 01:43:29PM +0200, Heikki Orsila wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 12:15:53AM +0000, Daniel Drake wrote:
> > Why unaligned access is bad
> > ===========================
> >
> > Most architectures are unable to perform unaligned memory accesses. Any
> > unaligned access causes a processor exception.
>
> "Some architectures are unable to perform unaligned memory accesses,
> either an exception is generated, or the data
> access is silently invalid. In architectures that allow unaligned
> access, natural aligned accesses are usually faster than non-aligned."
>
> > In summary: if your code causes unaligned memory accesses to happen, your code
> > will not work on some platforms, and will perform *very* badly on others.
>
> *very* -> *slower*
>
> > Natural alignment
> > =================
>
> Please move this definition before "Why unaligned access is bad".
>
> Also, it would be nice to have a table of ISAs:
>
> ISA Need Need
> natural alignment
> alignment by x
> --------------------------------------------
> m68k No 2
> powerpc/ppc Yes Word size
> x86 No No
> x86_64 No No
arm32 Yes 2 for 16bit data, 4 for 32bit

Note, if the unaligned handler is running, the alignment will be fixed
by the fault handler (at the cost of taking a fault). If the unaligned
handler is turned off, you get a "free" shift of the data instead.

--
Ben (ben@fluff.org, http://www.fluff.org/)

'a smiley only costs 4 bytes'