Re: [PATCH] sched, mm: Optimize current_gfp_context()

[Waiman Long <longman@redhat.com>]

On 6/18/20 12:07 PM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 11:58:47AM -0400, Waiman Long wrote:
>> The current_gfp_context() converts a number of PF_MEMALLOC_* per-process
>> flags into the corresponding GFP_* flags for memory allocation. In
>> that function, current->flags is accessed 3 times. That may lead to
>> duplicated access of the same memory location.
>>
>> This is not usually a problem with minimal debug config options on as the
>> compiler can optimize away the duplicated memory accesses.  With most
>> of the debug config options on, however, that may not be the case.
>> For example, the x86-64 object size of the __need_fs_reclaim() in a
>> debug kernel that calls current_gfp_context() was 309 bytes. With this
>> patch applied, the object size is reduced to 202 bytes. This is a saving
>> of 107 bytes and will probably be slightly faster too.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@redhat.com>
>> ---
>>   include/linux/sched/mm.h | 10 ++++++----
>>   1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/include/linux/sched/mm.h b/include/linux/sched/mm.h
>> index 480a4d1b7dd8..09e01909d192 100644
>> --- a/include/linux/sched/mm.h
>> +++ b/include/linux/sched/mm.h
>> @@ -181,18 +181,20 @@ static inline bool in_vfork(struct task_struct *tsk)
>>    */
>>   static inline gfp_t current_gfp_context(gfp_t flags)
>>   {
>> -	if (unlikely(current->flags &
>> +	unsigned int pflags = current->flags;
> Per the above, I would've expected a READ_ONCE() there, otherwise the
> compiler can still re-load.
>
Right. Will do that.

Thanks,
Longman