[dpdk-dev] [5/5] vhost: remove useless casts to volatile

[Maxime Coquelin]

Hi Ilya,

On 12/5/18 2:52 PM, Ilya Maximets wrote:
> On 05.12.2018 12:49, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
>> Cast to volatile is done when reading avail index and writing
>> the used index. This would not be necessary if proper barriers
>> are used.
> 
> 'volatile' and barriers are not really connected. 'volatile' is
> the disabling of the compiler optimizations, while barriers are
> for runtime CPU level optimizations. In general, casts here made
> to force compiler to actually read the value and not cache it
> somehow. In fact that vhost library never writes to avail index,
> "very smart" compiler could drop it at all. None of modern compilers
> will do that for a single operation within a function, so,
> volatiles are not really necessary in current code, but they could
> save some nerves in case of code/compiler changes.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.
Why don't we do the same in Virtio PMD?

> OTOH, IMHO, the main purpose of the casts in current code is
> the self-documenting. Casts forces to pay special attention to
> these variables and reminds that they could be updated in other
> process. Casts allows to understand which variables are local and
> which are shared. I don't think that we should remove them anyway.

It is not only self-documenting, it has an impact on generated code:

>>
>> Now that the read barrier has been added, we can remove these
>> cast to volatile.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Maxime Coquelin <maxime.coquelin at redhat.com>
>> ---
>>   lib/librte_vhost/virtio_net.c | 7 +++----
>>   1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/lib/librte_vhost/virtio_net.c b/lib/librte_vhost/virtio_net.c
>> index 679ce388b..eab1a5b4c 100644
>> --- a/lib/librte_vhost/virtio_net.c
>> +++ b/lib/librte_vhost/virtio_net.c
>> @@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ flush_shadow_used_ring_split(struct virtio_net *dev, struct vhost_virtqueue *vq)
>>   
>>   	vhost_log_cache_sync(dev, vq);
>>   
>> -	*(volatile uint16_t *)&vq->used->idx += vq->shadow_used_idx;
>> +	vq->used->idx += vq->shadow_used_idx;

With cast to volatile:
	*(volatile uint16_t *)&vq->used->idx += vq->shadow_used_idx;
     35f8:	49 8b 53 10          	mov    0x10(%r11),%rdx
	vq->shadow_used_idx = 0;
     35fc:	31 db                	xor    %ebx,%ebx
	*(volatile uint16_t *)&vq->used->idx += vq->shadow_used_idx;
     35fe:	0f b7 42 02          	movzwl 0x2(%rdx),%eax
     3602:	66 41 03 43 70       	add    0x70(%r11),%ax
     3607:	66 89 42 02          	mov    %ax,0x2(%rdx)
	vq->shadow_used_idx = 0;

Without it:
	vq->used->idx += vq->shadow_used_idx;
     35f8:	49 8b 43 10          	mov    0x10(%r11),%rax
     35fc:	41 0f b7 53 70       	movzwl 0x70(%r11),%edx
	vq->shadow_used_idx = 0;
     3601:	31 db                	xor    %ebx,%ebx
	vq->used->idx += vq->shadow_used_idx;
     3603:	66 01 50 02          	add    %dx,0x2(%rax)
	vq->shadow_used_idx = 0;

If my understanding is correct there is no functional change, but we 
save one instruction by removing the cast to volatile.

Thanks,
Maxime