Hi Reinette,
On Tue, 2020-03-10 at 14:59 -0700, Reinette Chatre wrote:
> Hi Sai,
>
> On 3/6/2020 7:40 PM, Sai Praneeth Prakhya wrote:
> > Currently fill_buf (in-built benchmark) runs as a separate process and it
> > runs indefinitely looping around given buffer either reading it or writing
> > to it. But, some future test cases might want to start and stop looping
> > around the buffer as they see fit. So, modularize fill_buf to support this
> > use case.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Sai Praneeth Prakhya <sai.praneeth.prakhya@xxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> > tools/testing/selftests/resctrl/fill_buf.c | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++-----
> > -----
> > 1 file changed, 44 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/resctrl/fill_buf.c
> > b/tools/testing/selftests/resctrl/fill_buf.c
> > index 9ede7b63f059..204ae8870a32 100644
> > --- a/tools/testing/selftests/resctrl/fill_buf.c
> > +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/resctrl/fill_buf.c
> > @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
> > #define PAGE_SIZE (4 * 1024)
> > #define MB (1024 * 1024)
> >
> > -static unsigned char *startptr;
> > +static unsigned char *startptr, *endptr;
[Snipped.. assuming code over here might not be needed for discussion]
> > +static int use_buffer_forever(int op, char *resctrl_val)
> > +{
> > + int ret;
> > +
> > if (op == 0)
> > - ret = fill_cache_read(start_ptr, end_ptr, resctrl_val);
> > + ret = fill_cache_read(resctrl_val);
> > else
> > - ret = fill_cache_write(start_ptr, end_ptr, resctrl_val);
> > + ret = fill_cache_write(resctrl_val);
> >
> > if (ret) {
> > printf("\n Errror in fill cache read/write...\n");
> > return -1;
> > }
> >
> > + return 0;
> > +}
> > +
> > +static int
> > +fill_cache(unsigned long long buf_size, int malloc_and_init, int
> > memflush,
> > + int op, char *resctrl_val)
> > +{
> > + int ret;
> > +
> > + ret = init_buffer(buf_size, malloc_and_init, memflush);
> > + if (ret)
> > + return ret;
> > +
> > + ret = use_buffer_forever(op, resctrl_val);
> > + if (ret)
> > + return ret;
>
> Should buffer be freed on this error path?
Yes, that's right.. my bad. Will fix it. But the right fix is,
use_buffer_forever() should not return at all. It's meant to loop around the
buffer _forever_.
> I think the asymmetrical nature of the memory allocation and release
> creates traps like this.
>
> It may be less error prone to have the pointer returned by init_buffer
> and the acted on and released within fill_cache(), passed to
> "use_buffer_forever()" as a parameter. The buffer size is known here,
> there is no need to keep an "end pointer" around.
The main reason for having "startptr" as a global variable is to free memory
when fill_buf is killed. fill_buf runs as a separate process (for test cases
like MBM, MBA and CQM) and when user issues Ctrl_c or when the test kills
benchmark_pid (i.e. fill_buf), the buffer is freed (please see
ctrl_handler()).
So, I thought, as "startptr" is anyways global, why pass it around as an
argument? While making this change I thought it's natural to make "endptr"
global as well because the function didn't really look good to just take
endptr as an argument without startptr.
I do agree that asymmetrical nature of the memory allocation and release might
create traps, I will try to overcome this for CAT test case (other test cases
will not need it).
Regards,
Sai
