RE: [PATCH] eal: fix alignment of RISCV xmm vector type

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

+CC Thomas, this patch is ready to be applied to 23.11.

> From: Bruce Richardson [mailto:bruce.richardson@intel.com]
> Sent: Friday, 17 November 2023 11.55
> 
> On Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 08:45:35AM +0100, Morten Brørup wrote:
> > > From: Stanisław Kardach [mailto:kda@semihalf.com]
> > > Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2023 00.21
> > >
> > > On Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 10:31 PM Morten Brørup
> > > <mb@smartsharesystems.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > From: Tyler Retzlaff [mailto:roretzla@linux.microsoft.com]
> > > > > Sent: Wednesday, 15 November 2023 22.17
> > > > >
> > > > > Fix the alignment for rte_xmm_t it should be 16 instead of 8
> bytes.
> > > > >
> > > > > Fixes: f22e705ebf12 ("eal/riscv: support RISC-V architecture")
> > > > > Cc: maz@semihalf.com
> > > > > Cc: stable@dpdk.org
> > > > > Signed-off-by: Tyler Retzlaff <roretzla@linux.microsoft.com>
> > > > > ---
> > > >
> > > > Reviewed-by: Morten Brørup <mb@smartsharesystems.com>
> > > >
> > > > As mentioned in the other thread:
> > > >
> > > > We need to urgently decide if this bug should live on in DPDK
> 23.11,
> > > or if the fix should be included although we are very late in the
> > > release process.
> > > >
> > > > Stanislaw, what do you think?
> > > Good catch! As for backporting I'm not sure of the urgency given
> that
> > > our examples still use scalar instructions for handling xmm_t. The
> > > question is whether there is a platform in use which has vector
> > > extensions enabled and that utilizes DPDK. I'm not that sure of it
> > > though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
> >
> > Can we extrapolate this, and also conclude that postponing this
> bugfix until the next ABI/API breaking release, DPDK 24.11, is not
> really going to hurt anyone?
> >
> > Stanislaw, please confirm?
> >
> > Bruce, I don't feel 100 % confident in making this postponement
> recommendation. Could you please provide a second opinion regarding the
> timing of fixing this bug? Or rather: do you have any strong arguments
> *against* postponing it to DPDK 24.11?
> >
> 
> Not sure I'm any better placed to make an argument either way!

Bruce, I picked you because of your experience with vector code.

> However, I
> would very much tend to say that we should include this in 23.11, on
> the
> basis that if it turns out to be important we can't backport it later
> without affecting ABI. Right now, the code looks broken to me, and I'm
> also
> struggling to find circumstances where increasing the alignment will
> actually stop something from working. There could well be performance
> implications of having extra padding, but things should still work,
> AFAIK.
> On the other hand, if we don't include the fix, it is possible that a
> system (possibly a future one) could break and segfault due to
> incorrect
> vector code. I'd take a possible slowdown over a segfault!

The risk of slowdown isn't a factor for me at this stage.

I'm trying to balance the risk of fixing the bug vs. breaking something this late in the 23.11 release cycle.

You have a strong point that we also need to consider the bugfix in the context of the total lifetime of DPDK 23.11 in the wild.
With RISC-V's current traction, that certainly speaks in favor of including it in 23.11.

> 
> Is my assessment correct, or perhaps I'm missing some detail.

Thank you for your valuable feedback, Bruce.

I was just being overly cautious... After all, 23.11 is still at a stage where bug fixes are accepted!

New conclusion: Let's get it into 23.11.