[Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH 00/12] Enhance debugging support - 4th take

[Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@web.de>]

Fabrice Bellard wrote:
> I had a quick look at the patch serie (I don't have the time to look at
> it carefully). I find the patch globally acceptable, but I have two remarks:
> 
> - Patch 01/12 may introduce a performance regression due to the change
> in tb_find_fast(). If gcc does not optimizes the code correctly, your
> change will introduce many unneeded memory accesses and a call to
> memcmp() in the fast path, which is not acceptable.

OK, will remove the memcmp to play safe. Beyond that, there is only a
static inline cpu_get_tb_cpu_state involved in the fast path which
dereferences addresses. If that gets blown up to a real function, the
compiler is not configured for performance anyway. But I can check the
results again with older and current compilers, comparing object sizes.

> - Patch 12/12 needs improvements (load/save VM)

Good point, will check and add missing bits.

> and possibly more
> analysis to see if it complies with the x86 spec, so it could be applied
> later.

No problem (as long as "later" doesn't mean another 5 months ;) ),

Please keep in mind that this patch allows to run a lot of
debug-register-using guest code that broke so far. So, unless you or
someone else with deep x86 knowledge find issues during that code
inspection, hunting them via concrete test cases may be helpful as well.

Thanks for having a look!
Jan