Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v4 4/4] eal/atomic: add wrapper for c11 atomics

["Morten Brørup" <mb@smartsharesystems.com>]

+ Added people from the related discussion regarding the ARM roadmap [https://mails.dpdk.org/archives/dev/2020-April/162580.html].

> From: Mattias Rönnblom [mailto:mattias.ronnblom@ericsson.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2020 10:17 PM
> 
> On 2020-05-13 21:40, Honnappa Nagarahalli wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> >>>> Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 4/4] eal/atomic: add wrapper for c11
> atomics
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 4:03 pm, Phil Yang
> <mailto:phil.yang@arm.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> parameter. Signed-off-by: Phil Yang <mailto:phil.yang@arm.com>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> What is the purpose of having rte_atomic at all?
> >>>> Is this level of indirection really helping?
> >>>> [HONNAPPA] (not sure why this email has html format, converted to
> >>>> text
> >>>> format)
> >>>> I believe you meant, why not use the __atomic_xxx built-ins
> directly?
> >>>> The only reason for now is handling of
> >>>> __atomic_thread_fence(__ATOMIC_SEQ_CST) for x86. This is
> equivalent
> >>>> to rte_smp_mb which has an optimized implementation for x86.
> >>>> According to Konstantin, the compiler does not generate optimal
> code.
> >>>> Wrapping that built-in alone is going to be confusing.
> >>>>
> >>>> The wrappers also allow us to have our own implementation using
> >>>> inline assembly for compilers versions that do not support C11
> atomic
> >>>> built- ins. But, I do not know if there is a need to support those
> versions.
> >>> If I recall correctly, someone mentioned that one (or more) of the
> aging
> >> enterprise Linux distributions don't include a compiler with C11
> atomics.
> >>> I think Stephen is onto something here...
> >>>
> >>> It is silly to add wrappers like this, if the only purpose is to
> support
> >> compilers and distributions that don't properly support an official
> C standard
> >> which is nearly a decade old. The quality and quantity of the DPDK
> >> documentation for these functions (including examples, discussions
> on Stack
> >> Overflow, etc.) will be inferior to the documentation of the
> standard C11
> >> atomics, which increases the probability of incorrect use.
> >>
> >>
> >> What's being used in DPDK today, and what's being wrapped here, is
> not
> >> standard C11 atomics - it's a bunch of GCC built-ins. Nothing in the
> __
> >> namespace is in the standard. It's reserved for the implementation
> (e.g.
> >> compiler).
> > I have tried to understand what it mean by 'built-ins', but I have
> not got a good answer. So, does it mean that the built-in function
> (same symbol and API interface) may not be available in another C
> compiler? IMO, this is what matters for DPDK.
> > Currently, the same built-in functions are available in GCC and
> Clang.
> 
> 
>  From what I understand, "built-ins" is GCC terminology for
> non-standard, implementation-specific intrinsic functions, built into
> the compiler. They all reside in the __* namespace.
> 
> 
> Since GCC is the industry standard, other compilers are likely to
> follow, including built-in functions.
> 

Timeline:

December 2011: The C11 standard was published [http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/standards.html].

March 2012: GCC 4.7 was released, introducing the __atomic built-ins [https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.7/changes.html, https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc-4.7/].

March 2013: GCC 4.8 was released [https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc-4.8/].

April 2014: GCC 4.9 was released, introducing C11 atomics (incl. <stdatomic.h>) [https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.9/changes.html, https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc-4.9/].

June 2014: RHEL7 was released [https://access.redhat.com/articles/3078]. (RHEL7 Beta was released in December 2013, which probably explains why the GA release doesn’t include GCC 4.9.)

May 2019 (i.e. one year ago): RHEL8 was released [https://access.redhat.com/articles/3078].


RHEL7 includes GCC 4.8 only [https://access.redhat.com/solutions/19458], and apparently RHEL7 has not been updated to GCC 4.9 with any of its minor releases.

Should the DPDK project be stuck on "industry standard" GCC atomics, unable to use the decade old "official standard" C11 atomics, only because we want to support a six year old enterprise Linux distribution? Red Hat released a new enterprise version a year ago... perhaps it's time for their customers to upgrade, if they want to use the latest and greatest version of DPDK.

Are all the other tools required for building DPDK (in the required versions) included in RHEL7, or do we require developers to install/upgrade any other tools anyway? If so, why not also GCC? DPDK can be used in a cross compilation environment, so we are not requiring RHEL7 users to replace their GCC 4.7 default compiler.


Furthermore, the DPDK Documentation specifies GCC 4.9+ as a system requirement [https://doc.dpdk.org/guides/linux_gsg/sys_reqs.html#compilation-of-the-dpdk]. If we are stuck on GCC 4.8, the documentation should be updated.


> >>
> >>> And if some compiler generates code that is suboptimal for a user,
> then it
> >> should be the choice of the user to either accept it or use a better
> compiler.
> >> Using a suboptimal compiler will not only affect the user's DPDK
> applications,
> >> but all applications developed by the user. And if he accepts it for
> his other
> >> applications, he will also accept it for his DPDK applications.
> >>> We could introduce some sort of marker or standardized comment to
> >> indicate when functions only exist for backwards compatibility with
> ancient
> >> compilers and similar, with a reference to documentation describing
> why. And
> >> when the documented preconditions are no longer relevant, e.g. when
> those
> >> particular enterprise Linux distributions become obsolete, these
> functions
> >> become obsolete too, and should be removed. However, getting rid of
> >> obsolete cruft will break the ABI. In other words: Added cruft will
> never be
> >> removed again, so think twice before adding.