[PATCH V2 0/6] pipeline: make the hash function configurable per table

[Morten Brørup]

> From: Stephen Hemminger [mailto:stephen at networkplumber.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, 31 August 2022 18.23
> Subject: Re: [PATCH V2 0/6] pipeline: make the hash function
> configurable per table
> 
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2022 19:52:19 +0000
> Cristian Dumitrescu <cristian.dumitrescu at intel.com> wrote:
> 
> > Also, since this flexibility has some performance cost, this patch
> set
> > also introduces key comparison functions specialized for each key
> size
> > value. Since the key size is fixed for each table, the key comparison
> > function can be selected at initialization as opposed to using a
> > generic function that can handle any key size. This strategy result
> in
> > a performance improvement for the table lookup operation of around
> 5%.
> 
> I wonder if DPDK should start to adopt the Linux kernel optimizations
> around indirect calls. For most all cases, the function pointer will be
> a certain value and the cpu can do direct rather than indirect call.
> 
> As in:
> 
>      if (likely(hash_func == crc32_hash))
>             crc32_hash(x, y)
>      else
>             (*hash_func)(x, y)
> 
> This was done in Linux kernel because of the overhead of the
> Spectre/Meltdown
> mitigation's, but could apply more generally in DPDK.

+1 to that!

Along the very same lines, I remember reading on LWN about the Linux kernel using some magic to avoid function pointers, or to install optimized functions: At locations in the code where multiple variants of a function could be used, the address of the correct/optimized function is written directly into those locations in the code at startup. I didn't read the article in depth back then, and I can't find it now. Perhaps you know what I'm referring to, Stephen? I wonder if that also might be relevant for DPDK.