memory access we might as well get the memory barriers right...
From the gcc documentation:
In most cases, these built-in functions are considered a full barrier.
That is, no memory operand is moved across the operation, either forward
or backward. Further, instructions are issued as necessary to prevent the
processor from speculating loads across the operation and from queuing
stores after the operation.
type __sync_lock_test_and_set (type *ptr, type value, ...)
This built-in function is not a full barrier, but rather an acquire
barrier. This means that references after the operation cannot move to
(or be speculated to) before the operation, but previous memory stores
may not be globally visible yet, and previous memory loads may not yet
be satisfied.
void __sync_lock_release (type *ptr, ...)
This built-in function is not a full barrier, but rather a release
barrier. This means that all previous memory stores are globally
visible, and all previous memory loads have been satisfied, but
following memory reads are not prevented from being speculated to
before the barrier.
not needed for correctness.
Add the correct memory barriers to the gcc legacy __sync built-in
functions for atomic memory access. From the gcc documentation:
In most cases, these built-in functions are considered a full barrier.
That is, no memory operand is moved across the operation, either forward
or backward. Further, instructions are issued as necessary to prevent the
processor from speculating loads across the operation and from queuing
stores after the operation.
type __sync_lock_test_and_set (type *ptr, type value, ...)
This built-in function is not a full barrier, but rather an acquire
barrier. This means that references after the operation cannot move to
(or be speculated to) before the operation, but previous memory stores
may not be globally visible yet, and previous memory loads may not yet
be satisfied.
void __sync_lock_release (type *ptr, ...)
This built-in function is not a full barrier, but rather a release
barrier. This means that all previous memory stores are globally
visible, and all previous memory loads have been satisfied, but
following memory reads are not prevented from being speculated to
before the barrier.
indeed quicker, it nonetheless failed to actually fill all the requested
memory with the specified value much of the time if a non-aligned start
address was used.
- Remove memory barriers from the atomic ops. I don't understand why those
are there. Is it some architectural thing, or for a CPU bug, or just
over-caution maybe? They're not needed for correctness.
- Have unlikely conditional branches go forwards to help the static branch
predictor.
andvar