[PATCH v3] lib/string.c: implement a basic bcmp

Nick Desaulniers
2019-03-13T20:37:52Z

A recent optimization in Clang (r355672) lowers comparisons of the
return value of memcmp against zero to comparisons of the return value
of bcmp against zero. This helps some platforms that implement bcmp
more efficiently than memcmp. glibc simply aliases bcmp to memcmp, but
an optimized implementation is in the works.

This results in linkage failures for all targets with Clang due to the
undefined symbol. For now, just implement bcmp as a tailcail to memcmp
to unbreak the build. This routine can be further optimized in the
future.

Other ideas discussed:
* A weak alias was discussed, but breaks for architectures that define
their own implementations of memcmp since aliases to declarations are
not permitted (only definitions). Arch-specific memcmp implementations
typically declare memcmp in C headers, but implement them in assembly.
* -ffreestanding also is used sporadically throughout the kernel.
* -fno-builtin-bcmp doesn't work when doing LTO.

Link: https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41035
Link: https://code.woboq.org/userspace/glibc/string/memcmp.c.html#bcmp
Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/8e16d73346f8091461319a7dfc4ddd18eedcff13
Link: https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/416
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reported-by: Nathan Chancellor <natechancellor@gmail.com>
Reported-by: Adhemerval Zanella <adhemerval.zanella@linaro.org>
Suggested-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Suggested-by: James Y Knight <jyknight@google.com>
Suggested-by: Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@socionext.com>
Suggested-by: Nathan Chancellor <natechancellor@gmail.com>
Suggested-by: Rasmus Villemoes <linux@rasmusvillemoes.dk>
Signed-off-by: Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
Acked-by: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
---
Changes V2 -> V3:
* Adjust comment as per Steven to Rasmus' sugguestion.
* Pick up Steven's Ack.
Changes V1 -> V2:
* Add declaration to include/linux/string.h.
* Reword comment above bcmp.

include/linux/string.h | 3 +++
lib/string.c | 15 +++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 18 insertions(+)

diff --git a/include/linux/string.h b/include/linux/string.h
index 7927b875f80c..6ab0a6fa512e 100644
--- a/include/linux/string.h
+++ b/include/linux/string.h
@@ -150,6 +150,9 @@ extern void * memscan(void *,int,__kernel_size_t);
#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_MEMCMP
extern int memcmp(const void *,const void *,__kernel_size_t);
#endif
+#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_BCMP
+extern int bcmp(const void *,const void *,__kernel_size_t);
+#endif
#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_MEMCHR
extern void * memchr(const void *,int,__kernel_size_t);
#endif
diff --git a/lib/string.c b/lib/string.c
index 38e4ca08e757..48a43a42d3f2 100644
--- a/lib/string.c
+++ b/lib/string.c
@@ -866,6 +866,21 @@ __visible int memcmp(const void *cs, const void *ct, size_t count)
EXPORT_SYMBOL(memcmp);
#endif

+#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_BCMP
+/**
+ * bcmp - returns 0 if and only if the buffers have identical contents.
+ * @cs: One area of memory.
+ * @ct: Another area of memory.
+ * @count: The size of the areas.
+ */
+#undef bcmp
+int bcmp(const void *cs, const void *ct, size_t count)
+{
+ return memcmp(cs, ct, count);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(bcmp);
+#endif
+
#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_MEMSCAN
/**
* memscan - Find a character in an area of memory.
--
2.21.0.360.g471c308f928-goog