[Qemu-devel] Redundant repz prefixes in generated amd64 code

[Julian Seward <jseward@acm.org>]

I'm seeing redundant repz (0xF3) prefixes in generated code, typically
just before jumps:

<code_gen_buffer+415>:  repz mov $0xe07f,%eax
<code_gen_buffer+421>:  mov    %eax,0x20(%rbp)
<code_gen_buffer+424>:  lea    -25168302(%rip),%ebx  # 0xaf0420 <tbs+96>
<code_gen_buffer+430>:  retq
<code_gen_buffer+431>:  mov    -25168245(%rip),%eax  # 0xaf0460 <tbs+160>
<code_gen_buffer+437>:  jmpq   *%rax
<code_gen_buffer+439>:  repz mov $0xe092,%eax
<code_gen_buffer+445>:  mov    %eax,0x20(%rbp)
<code_gen_buffer+448>:  lea    -25168325(%rip),%ebx   # 0xaf0421 <tbs+97>
<code_gen_buffer+454>:  retq

I assume these are something to do with translation chaining/unchaining but
have been unable to figure out where they come from.  I know they get executed
are so are not data - valgrind barfs on them.

This is on a 64-bit host (Core 2) with qemu-0.9.0 compiled from source by
gcc-3.4.6, running an x86 (32-bit) guest.

At a guess I'd say the mov $imm,%eax is (created by? to do with?) 
gen_jmp_im in target-i386/translate.c, but I don't see how the F3 
got in on the act.  Grepping the source for 0xF3 turns up nothing 
plausible.  Any ideas where it comes from and how to get rid of it?

J