Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754108AbZF3GNQ (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:13:16 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752231AbZF3GNA (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:13:00 -0400 Received: from cantor.suse.de ([195.135.220.2]:47014 "EHLO mx1.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751613AbZF3GNA (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:13:00 -0400 Subject: Re: [PATCH] Introduce a boolean "single_bit_set" function. From: Petr Tesarik To: "Robert P. J. Day" Cc: Andrew Morton , David Daney , Linux Kernel Mailing List In-Reply-To: References: <49F0C817.8050407@caviumnetworks.com> <20090423165723.16c9f566.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20090424104651.7c751735.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <1246299311.7698.19.camel@nathan.suse.cz> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Organization: SUSE LINUX Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:12:59 +0200 Message-Id: <1246342379.31661.5.camel@nathan.suse.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.24.1.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2179 Lines: 58 Robert P. J. Day píše v Po 29. 06. 2009 v 14:50 -0400: > On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Petr Tesarik wrote: > > > Andrew Morton píše v Pá 24. 04. 2009 v 10:46 -0700: > > > On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:40:39 -0400 (EDT) "Robert P. J. Day" wrote: > > > > > > > so it would be a simple matter to define the bit set boolean in > > > > terms of hweight_long(), yes? so what about, in bitops.h: > > > > > > > > static inline bool > > > > exactly_one_bit_set(unsigned long w) > > > > { > > > > return hweight_long(w) == 1; > > > > } > > > > > > > > static inline bool > > > > more_than_one_bit_set(unsigned long w) > > > > { > > > > return hweight_long(w) > 1; > > > > } > > > > > > > > Andrew, you must be kidding! Are you seriously suggesting to replace > > a simple and instruction with a call to an extern library function > > with 17 instructions (not including the call and ret)? > > > > I'd better check the use of hweight in the kernel to eradicate as > > many calls to it as possible... > > since i originally muttered about this, the rationale behind it was > not for performance (obviously), but for semantic clarification, so > that when you saw the expression "n & (n-1)", it was more obvious > which test you were doing semantically: > > 1) is n a power of 2? > 2) does n represent a single set bit? > > nothing ever came of that, but that was the thinking behind it. Yes, I can remember and I would still appreciate it. It's always better to show _what_ the code does rather than _how_ it does it. IIRC Andrew rejected your patch on the grounds that it is possible to replace the expression "n & (n-1)" with "hweight(n) == 1" if one wants to show that it really tests for a single bit set. But I don't like his proposal quite as much as yours, because of the big overhead. In short, if you re-post your patch, I'll gladly join you in the battle of getting it in. ;-) Petr Tesarik -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/