On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 3:50 AM, Mason <slash.tmp@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 13/12/2016 02:36, Mingye Wang (Arthur2e5) wrote:
>
> > GCC 6's __attribute__((target_clones)) feature looks quite exciting to
> > me, but I cannot understand why it is designed to take, say, a single
> > string option like "sse2,avx2" and make it two separate
> > __attribute__((target)) clones. Using commas in single option strings
> > sounds like defeating the whole purpose of allowing multiple options;
> > furthermore, after some inspection on the source, it seems that all the
> > options will be smashed together with a comma and processed as a single
> > string.
> >
> > So take __attribute__((target_clones("sse3,tune=generic,default",
> > "arch=ivybridge"))) as an example. Instead of creating two clones with
> > targets "sse3,tune=generic,default" and "arch=ivybridge" respectively,
> > GCC's target_clones would create three clones with their targets defined
> > as "sse3" "default", "tune=generic", and "arch=ivybridge". This
> > behavior, although documented somehow, is confusing.
> >
> > Could anyone please tell me why GCC decided to go with such "smash the
> > string options together and split later" design? Is it possible to have
> > GCC change this behavior in later releases, if it is indeed a design flaw?
>
> Hello,
>
> Out of curiosity, I took a peak at the source code.
> (1.6 GiB repo, clone requires 15 minutes on fast connection)
> $ git clone git://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git
>
> AFAICT (?) the implementation is in gcc/multiple_target.c
>
> Likely candidates are ab50af2a61a65 (initial) and
> cb6c05f855c41 (update).
>
> https://gcc.gnu.org/viewcvs/gcc?view=revision&revision=229595
> https://gcc.gnu.org/viewcvs/gcc?view=revision&revision=242608
>
> I've CCed the respective authors.
>
> Regards.
>
There is a nice article we wrote about FMV in GCC 6 in LWN:
https://lwn.net/Articles/691932/
Hope it helps to clarify the questions. The articles goes into details
about the reason for the implementation and problems it solves
The FMV in GCC6 helps a lot the developers to just have one line on
the top of the function they want to clone, instead of duplicating the
function code like it was in GCC 4.8 . Also is until GCC6 that FMV is
working on C , before it was working on C++ only.
We also create a script that helps you to generate the proper patches
in order to make your code use FMV:
https://github.com/clearlinux/make-fmv-patch
Regards
Victor Rodriguez
