Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 23.128.96.18 as permitted sender) client-ip=23.128.96.18;
From:   Arvind Sankar <nivedita@alum.mit.edu>
Date:   Tue, 18 Aug 2020 17:41:46 -0400
To:     Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
Cc:     Arvind Sankar <nivedita@alum.mit.edu>,
        =?utf-8?B?RMOhdmlkIEJvbHZhbnNrw70=?= <david.bolvansky@gmail.com>,
        Eli Friedman <efriedma@quicinc.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        Michal Marek <michal.lkml@markovi.net>,
        Linux Kbuild mailing list <linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
        Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>,
        Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>,
        Joel Fernandes <joel@joelfernandes.org>,
        Daniel Axtens <dja@axtens.net>,
        Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>,
        Alexandru Ardelean <alexandru.ardelean@analog.com>,
        Yury Norov <yury.norov@gmail.com>,
        "maintainer:X86 ARCHITECTURE (32-BIT AND 64-BIT)" <x86@kernel.org>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>,
        "Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>,
        Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@oracle.com>,
        Bruce Ashfield <bruce.ashfield@gmail.com>,
        Marco Elver <elver@google.com>,
        Vamshi K Sthambamkadi <vamshi.k.sthambamkadi@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] -ffreestanding/-fno-builtin-* patches
Message-ID: <20200818214146.GA3196105@rani.riverdale.lan>
References: <20200817220212.338670-1-ndesaulniers@google.com>
 <fae91af3-4e08-a929-e5c3-25271ad7324b@zytor.com>
 <CAKwvOdk6A4AqTtOsD34WNwxRjyTvXP8KCNj2xfNWYdPT+sLHwQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <76071c24-ec6f-7f7a-4172-082bd574d581@zytor.com>
 <CAHk-=wiPeRQU_5JXCN0TLoW-xHZHp7dmrhx0wyXUSKxiCxE02Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <20200818202407.GA3143683@rani.riverdale.lan>
 <CAKwvOdnfh9nWwu1xV=WDbETGiabwDxXxQDRCAfpa-+kSZijb9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKwvOdkA4SC==vGZ4e7xqFG3Zo=fnhU=FgnSazmWkkVWhkaSYw@mail.gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <CAKwvOdkA4SC==vGZ4e7xqFG3Zo=fnhU=FgnSazmWkkVWhkaSYw@mail.gmail.com>
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Precedence: bulk

On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 01:58:51PM -0700, Nick Desaulniers wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 1:27 PM Nick Desaulniers
> <ndesaulniers@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 1:24 PM Arvind Sankar <nivedita@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 12:13:22PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 12:03 PM H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm not saying "change the semantics", nor am I saying that playing
> > > > > whack-a-mole *for a limited time* is unreasonable. But I would like to go back
> > > > > to the compiler authors and get them to implement such a #pragma: "this
> > > > > freestanding implementation *does* support *this specific library function*,
> > > > > and you are free to call it."
> > > >
> > > > I'd much rather just see the library functions as builtins that always
> > > > do the right thing (with the fallback being "just call the standard
> > > > function").
> > > >
> > > > IOW, there's nothing wrong with -ffreestanding if you then also have
> > > > __builtin_memcpy() etc, and they do the sane compiler optimizations
> > > > for memcpy().
> > > >
> > > > What we want to avoid is the compiler making *assumptions* based on
> > > > standard names, because we may implement some of those things
> > > > differently.
> > > >
> > >
> > > -ffreestanding as it stands today does have __builtin_memcpy and
> > > friends. But you need to then use #define memcpy __builtin_memcpy etc,
> > > which is messy and also doesn't fully express what you want. #pragma, or
> > > even just allowing -fbuiltin-foo options would be useful.
> 
> I do really like the idea of -fbuiltin-foo.  For example, you'd specify:
> 
> -ffreestanding -fbuiltin-bcmp
> 
> as an example. `-ffreestanding` would opt you out of ALL libcall
> optimizations, `-fbuiltin-bcmp` would then opt you back in to
> transforms that produce bcmp.  That way you're informing the compiler
> more precisely about the environment you'd be targeting.  It feels
> symmetric to existing `-fno-` flags (clang makes -f vs -fno- pretty
> easy when there is such symmetry).  And it's already convention that
> if you specify multiple conflicting compiler flags, then the latter
> one specified "wins."  In that sense, turning back on specific
> libcalls after disabling the rest looks more ergonomic to me.
> 
> Maybe Eli or David have thoughts on why that may or may not be as
> ergonomic or possible to implement as I imagine?
> 

Note that -fno-builtin-foo seems to mean slightly different things in
clang and gcc. From experimentation, clang will neither optimize a call
to foo, nor perform an optimization that introduces a call to foo. gcc
will avoid optimizing calls to foo, but it can still generate new calls
to foo while optimizing something else. Which means that
-fno-builtin-{bcmp,stpcpy} only solves things for clang, not gcc. It's
just that gcc doesn't seem to have implemented those optimizations.