Re: [PATCH 11/20] Inline get_page_from_freelist() in the fast-path

Mel Gorman
2009-02-23T11:42:32Z

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 09:21:09AM +0200, Pekka Enberg wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 1:17 AM, Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie> wrote:
> > In the best-case scenario, use an inlined version of
> > get_page_from_freelist(). This increases the size of the text but avoids
> > time spent pushing arguments onto the stack.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
>
> It's not obvious to me why this would be a huge win so I suppose this
> patch description could use numbers.

I don't have the exact numbers from the profiles any more but the
function entry and exit was about 1/20th of the cost of the path when
zeroing pages is not taken into account.

> Note: we used to do tricks like
> these in slab.c but got rid of most of them to reduce kernel text size
> which is probably why the patch seems bit backwards to me.
>

I'll be rechecking this patch in particular because it's likely the
biggest text bloat in the entire series.

--
Mel Gorman
Part-time Phd Student Linux Technology Center
University of Limerick IBM Dublin Software Lab