[webkit-dev] Data Memory Barrier ARMv6 question

JF Bastien jfbastien at apple.com
Wed Jul 5 21:04:17 PDT 2017



> On Jul 5, 2017, at 19:19, Caio Lima <ticaiolima at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 2017-07-05 12:41 GMT-03:00 JF Bastien <jfbastien at apple.com>:
>> On Linux you can do the following:
>> 
>> ((void(*)())0xffff0fa0)();
>> 
>> 
>> That address contains a helper which does the “right” barrier, including if
>> you’re not on an SMP system it’ll do nothing.
>> 
>> Details:
>> https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/arm/kernel_user_helpers.txt
>> That file also lists other Linux helpers.
>> 
>> I think for ARMv6 it makes sense to use these helpers. AFAIK the mcr barrier
>> instruction ins’t supported by all ARMv6 CPUs.
> 
> Hi JF. Do you mind point me where the mcr isn't supported by all ARMv6
> CPU? I've found in ARMv6-M manual
> (http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.ddi0419d/DDI0419D_armv6m_arm.pdf)
> that it doesn't support coprocessor operations, but this architecture
> is used by microcontroller chips.

I unfortunately don’t have a reference for this, but yes IIUC it’s either UP systems or non-A profile CPUs.

> Regards,
> Caio.
> 
>> For ARMv7 and later, DMB ish is the right thing.
>> 
>> 
>> On Jul 3, 2017, at 17:19, Caio Lima <ticaiolima at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi all.
>> 
>> I'm working in this patch
>> (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=172767) and Mark Lam raised
>> some questions about the data memory barrier (DMB for short) in ARMv6
>> using "mcr 15 ...". The point is that we are having divergences in ARM
>> official reference manual about the semantics of this instruction. We
>> have it discussed in the bug above and I would like to know if there
>> is somebody with stronger ARM background that could help us there and
>> then approve the patch to be committed.
>> 
>> I thanks in advance and best regards,
>> Caio Lima.
>> _______________________________________________
>> webkit-dev mailing list
>> webkit-dev at lists.webkit.org
>> https://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo/webkit-dev
>> 
>> 



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