On 11/19/2009 11:28 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>
> Hehe, scratch register on i686 ;-)
>
> i686 has no extra regs. It just has:
>
> %eax, %ebx, %ecx, %edx - as the general purpose regs
> %esp - stack
> %ebp - frame pointer
> %edi, %esi - counter regs
>
> That's just 8 regs, and half of those are special.
>
For a modern ABI it is better described as:
%eax, %edx, %ecx - argument/return/scratch registers
%ebx, %esi, %edi - saved registers
%esp - stack pointer
%ebp - frame pointer (saved)
> Perhaps we could create another profiler? Instead of calling mcount,
> call a new function: __fentry__ or something. Have it activated with
> another switch. This could make the performance of the function tracer
> even better without all these exceptions.
>
> <function>:
> call __fentry__
> [...]
>
Calling the profiler immediately at the entry point is clearly the more
sane option. It means the ABI is well-defined, stable, and independent
of what the actual function contents are. It means that ABI isn't the
normal C ABI (the __fentry__ function would have to preserve all
registers), but that's fine...
-hpa
--
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel. I don't speak on their behalf.
