This is the mail archive of the
binutils@sourceware.org
mailing list for the binutils project.
Re: Gold linker patch to split unlikely text into a separate segment
- From: "Sriraman Tallam via binutils" <binutils at sourceware dot org>
- To: "H.J. Lu" <hjl dot tools at gmail dot com>
- Cc: Cary Coutant <ccoutant at gmail dot com>, Krzysztof Pszeniczny <kpszeniczny at google dot com>, Chris Kennelly <ckennelly at google dot com>, Xinliang David Li <davidxl at google dot com>, Stephane Eranian <eranian at google dot com>, binutils <binutils at sourceware dot org>
- Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2017 16:41:48 -0700
- Subject: Re: Gold linker patch to split unlikely text into a separate segment
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <CAAs8HmxCpQrbpw8YTLx6zGhTn5XqEp_TBn5_h7v4wTwSHQsQPg@mail.gmail.com> <CAMe9rOpjtiGPQ=zLB4kFgBfamusoYv1ZGkUgnEqt5N+FmiL1_A@mail.gmail.com> <CAAs8Hmx6-TAV5UVjYKzLL70=E=5xWMCb-g6db3EPa=uzMwxF-g@mail.gmail.com> <CAMe9rOoPkLgh6GX=VfBXsfNnVOaz3wr8QQnEzWnBGni3cqZmsQ@mail.gmail.com>
- Reply-to: Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at google dot com>
On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 4:41 PM, H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/5/17, Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram@google.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 5:12 PM, H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 10/4/17, Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram@google.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> This patch adds an option to gold to create a new ELF segment for
>>>> code determined unlikely by the compiler. Currently, this can be done
>>>> with a linker plugin but I was wondering if it is fine to have this
>>>> support in gold with an option for ease of use.
>>>>
>>>> The advantages of doing this are:
>>>>
>>>> * We could only map the hot segment to huge pages to keep iTLB misses
>>>> low
>>>> * We could munlock the unlikely segment
>>>>
>>>> Is this alright?
>>>>
>>>> ChangeLog entry:
>>>>
>>>> * options.h (text_unlikely_segment): New option.
>>>> * layout.cc (Layout::layout): Create new output section
>>>> for .text.unlikely sections with the new option.
>>>> (Layout::segment_precedes): Check for the new option
>>>> when segment flags match.
>>>>
>>>> Patch attached.
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is an interesting approach. Do you have some performace
>>> numbers?
>>
>> With function re-ordering of hot code, segment splitting and mapping
>> only hot code to huge pages, we see a reduction in iTLB misses
>> translating to performance improvements of 0.5 to 1% on some of our
>> benchmarks.
>
> Please include this info in your commit log.
>
>>>
>>> 2 Comments:
>>>
>>> 1. I'd prefer "-z text-unlikely-segment" with '-', instead of '_'.
>>> 2. Need a testcase.
>>
>> Done and patch attached.
>>
>
> LGTM. But I can't approve it.
Np, thanks!
Sri
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> H.J.