Re: [PATCH] perf test: Compile named_threads workload with -O0

[James Clark <james.clark@linaro.org>]

On 11/06/2026 7:54 pm, David Laight wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:13:46 +0100
> James Clark <james.clark@linaro.org> wrote:
> 
>> The work loop relies on the compiler not optimizing it away, although
>> named_threads_work is not static for that reason, the compiler could
>> still do it.
> 
> Isn't in enough to put barrier() in the loop?
> 
> 	David
> 

Probably, but I don't think it would make a difference for this specific 
test workload, and I don't think that style has ever been used for any 
of the Perf tests.

I think Sashiko's comment leading to this was overly pedantic, neither 
GCC or Clang optimize this away even with -O2. So in this specific case 
it was only fixing a hypothetical which is why I didn't add a fixes tag. 
Although I admit there is some chance it could happen with other changes.

However, I think -O0 is the appropriate fix for a workload because it 
makes the stacks and order of execution predictable, which is what the 
tests look at. And that also has the effect of guaranteeing this isn't 
optimized away, so we probably don't need both.

Thanks
James

>>
>> Fix it by compiling without optimization. Also add -fno-inline for
>> consistency and in case anyone wants to look at callstacks.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: James Clark <james.clark@linaro.org>
>> ---
>> One trailing Sashiko fix from the "perf cs-etm: Queue context packets
>> for frontend" patch series that has been applied already.
>> ---
>>   tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build | 1 +
>>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build b/tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build
>> index 75b377934a0e..7bb4b9829ba2 100644
>> --- a/tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build
>> +++ b/tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build
>> @@ -26,3 +26,4 @@ CFLAGS_datasym.o          = -g -O0 -fno-inline -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE
>>   CFLAGS_traploop.o         = -g -O0 -fno-inline -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE
>>   CFLAGS_inlineloop.o       = -g -O2
>>   CFLAGS_deterministic.o    = -g -O0 -fno-inline -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE
>> +CFLAGS_named_threads.o    = -g -O0 -fno-inline -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE
>>
>> ---
>> base-commit: 7336514f41e75d44782fee7e0990d4195a3d3161
>> change-id: 20260611-james-cs-unformatted-per-thread-fix-followup-babf28a4e640
>>
>> Best regards,
>