Re: APIC, AMD-K6/2 -mcpu=586...

Bill Pringlemeir (bpringle@sympatico.ca)
18 May 2001 14:47:26 -0400


>>>> On 05.18 Bill Pringlemeir wrote:

>> Why don't the build scripts run a dummy file to determine where
>> the floating point registers should be placed?
>>
>> ... const int value = offsetof(struct task_struct,
>> thread.i387.fxsave) & 15; ...

>>>>> "JAM" == J A Magallon <jamagallon@able.es> writes:

JAM> That is not the problem. The problem is that the registers have
JAM> to lay in a defined way, transcribed to a C struct, and that
JAM> pgcc lays badly that struct.

Yes, I understand that. I was showing a way to find the value of padding
needed to align the register store in the structure. Perhaps I should have
shown a mod to asm/processor.h,

...
/* floating point info */
#if PAD_SIZE /* not needed if gcc accepts zero size arrays? */
unsigned char fpAlign[PAD_SIZE];
#endif
union i387_union i387;
...

Before compiling the `real source', the dummy file would be compiled
with PAD_SIZE set to zero. Then objdump (or some other tool) can find
out what the value is. Then when the task_struct is compiled in the
kernel, PAD_SIZE is set to the appropriate value to align the
structure.

I was describing a way to make things independent of the compiler layout
of the structs. However, this complicates the build process, and people
might not like the padding due to cache alignment details.

I am pretty sure what I am saying works... It might not be right though.

regards,
Bill Pringlemeir.

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