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Jisheng Zhang authored
Generally, riscv ISA extensions are fixed for any specific hardware
platform, so a hart's features won't change after booting. This
chacteristic makes it straightforward to use a static branch to check
if a specific ISA extension is supported or not to optimize
performance.

However, some ISA extensions such as SVPBMT and ZICBOM are handled
via. the alternative sequences.

Basically, for ease of maintenance, we prefer to use static branches
in C code, but recently, Samuel found that the static branch usage in
cpu_relax() breaks building with CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE[1]. As
Samuel pointed out, "Having a static branch in cpu_relax() is
problematic because that function is widely inlined, including in some
quite complex functions like in the VDSO. A quick measurement shows
this static branch is responsible by itself for around 40% of the jump
table."

Samuel's findings pointed out one of a few downsides of static branches
usage in C code to handle ISA extensions detected at boot time:
static branch's metadata in the __jump_table section, which is not
discarded after ISA extensions are finalized, wastes some space.

I want to try to solve the issue for all possible dynamic handling of
ISA extensions at boot time. Inspired by Mark[2], this patch introduces
riscv_has_extension_*() helpers, which work like static branches but
are patched using alternatives, thus the metadata can be freed after
patching.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-riscv/20220922060958.44203-1-samuel@sholland.org/ [1]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20220912162210.3626215-8-mark.rutland@arm.com/

 [2]
Signed-off-by: default avatarJisheng Zhang <jszhang@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: default avatarAndrew Jones <ajones@ventanamicro.com>
Acked-by: default avatarConor Dooley <conor.dooley@microchip.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230128172856.3814-6-jszhang@kernel.org


Signed-off-by: default avatarPalmer Dabbelt <palmer@rivosinc.com>
bdda5d55
History
Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.