Re: [PATCH 2/2] cpuidle: Add a repeating pattern detector to the menu governor

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Sun, 9 May 2010 16:04:44 -0700
Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> wrote:

> +static void detect_repeating_patterns(struct menu_device *data)
> +{
> +	int i;
> +	uint64_t avg = 0;
> +	uint64_t stddev = 0; /* contains the square of the std deviation */
> +
> +	/* first calculate average and standard deviation of the past */
> +	for (i = 0; i < INTERVALS; i++)
> +		avg += data->intervals[i];
> +
> +	/* if the avg is beyond the known next tick, it's worthless */
> +	if (avg > data->expected_us)
> +		return;
> +
> +	avg = avg / INTERVALS;
> +	for (i = 0; i < INTERVALS; i++)
> +		stddev += (data->intervals[i] - avg) *
> +			  (data->intervals[i] - avg);
> +
> +	stddev = stddev / INTERVALS;
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * now.. if stddev is small.. then assume we have a
> +	 * repeating pattern and predict we keep doing this.
> +	 */
> +
> +	if (avg && stddev < STDDEV_THRESH)
> +		data->predicted_us = avg;
> +}

You got lucky there, because INTERVALS is a power of two.  If someone
changes INTERVALS to 7, this code will ask for __udivdi3 and won't link
on i364.