[ViewVC] Diff of: cvs/libecb/ecb.pod

Comparing libecb/ecb.pod (file contents):
Revision 1.2 by root, Thu May 26 19:49:21 2011 UTC vs.
Revision 1.11 by sf-exg, Thu May 26 21:18:52 2011 UTC

…		…
		1	=head1 LIBECB
		2
		3	You suck, we don't(tm)
		4
		5	=head2 ABOUT THE HEADER
		6
		7	- how to include it
		8	- it includes inttypes.h
		9	- no .a
		10	- whats a bool
		11	- function mean macro or function
		12	- macro means untyped
1		13
2	=head2 GCC ATTRIBUTES	14	=head2 GCC ATTRIBUTES
		15
		16	blabla where to put, what others
3		17
4	=over 4	18	=over 4
5		19
6	=item ecb_attribute ((attrs...))	20	=item ecb_attribute ((attrs...))
7		21
8	A simple wrapper that expands to C<__attribute__((attrs))> on GCC, and	22	A simple wrapper that expands to C<__attribute__((attrs))> on GCC, and
9	to nothing on other compilers, so the effect is that only GCC sees these.	23	to nothing on other compilers, so the effect is that only GCC sees these.
10		24
		25	=item ecb_unused
		26
		27	Marks a function or a variable as "unused", which simply suppresses a
		28	warning by GCC when it detects it as unused. This is useful when you e.g.
		29	declare a variable but do not always use it:
		30
		31	{
		32	int var ecb_unused;
		33
		34	#ifdef SOMECONDITION
		35	var = ...;
		36	return var;
		37	#else
		38	return 0;
		39	#endif
		40	}
		41
11	=item ecb_noinline	42	=item ecb_noinline
12		43
		44	Prevent a function from being inlined - it might be optimised away, but
		45	not inlined into other functions. This is useful if you know your function
		46	is rarely called and large enough for inlining not to be helpful.
		47
13	=item ecb_noreturn	48	=item ecb_noreturn
14		49
15	=item ecb_unused
16
17	=item ecb_const	50	=item ecb_const
18		51
19	=item ecb_pure	52	=item ecb_pure
20		53
21	=item ecb_hot	54	=item ecb_hot
28		61
29	=head2 OPTIMISATION HINTS	62	=head2 OPTIMISATION HINTS
30		63
31	=over 4	64	=over 4
32		65
33	=item bool ecb_is_constant(expr)	66	=item bool ecb_is_constant(expr) [MACRO]
34		67
		68	Returns true iff the expression can be deduced to be a compile-time
		69	constant, and false otherwise.
		70
		71	For example, when you have a C<rndm16> function that returns a 16 bit
		72	random number, and you have a function that maps this to a range from
		73	0..n-1, then you could use this inline function in a header file:
		74
		75	ecb_inline uint32_t
		76	rndm (uint32_t n)
		77	{
		78	return (n * (uint32_t)rndm16 ()) >> 16;
		79	}
		80
		81	However, for powers of two, you could use a normal mask, but that is only
		82	worth it if, at compile time, you can detect this case. This is the case
		83	when the passed number is a constant and also a power of two (C<n & (n -
		84	1) == 0>):
		85
		86	ecb_inline uint32_t
		87	rndm (uint32_t n)
		88	{
		89	return is_constant (n) && !(n & (n - 1))
		90	? rndm16 () & (num - 1)
		91	: (n * (uint32_t)rndm16 ()) >> 16;
		92	}
		93
35	=item bool ecb_expect(expr,value)	94	=item bool ecb_expect (expr, value) [MACRO]
36		95
		96	Evaluates C<expr> and returns it. In addition, it tells the compiler that
		97	the C<expr> evaluates to C<value> a lot, which can be used for static
		98	branch optimisations.
		99
		100	Usually, you want to use the more intuitive C<ecb_likely> and
		101	C<ecb_unlikely> functions instead.
		102
		103	=item bool ecb_likely (bool) [MACRO]
		104
37	=item bool ecb_unlikely(bool)	105	=item bool ecb_unlikely (bool) [MACRO]
38		106
39	=item bool ecb_likely(bool)	107	These two functions expect a expression that is true or false and return
		108	C<1> or C<0>, respectively, so when used in the condition of an C<if> or
		109	other conditional statement, it will not change the program:
40		110
		111	/* these two do the same thing */
		112	if (some_condition) ...;
		113	if (ecb_likely (some_condition)) ...;
		114
		115	However, by using C<ecb_likely>, you tell the compiler that the condition
		116	is likely to be true (and for C<ecb_unlikely>, that it is unlikely to be
		117	true).
		118
		119	For example, when you check for a null pointer and expect this to be a
		120	rare, exceptional, case, then use C<ecb_unlikely>:
		121
		122	void my_free (void *ptr)
		123	{
		124	if (ecb_unlikely (ptr == 0))
		125	return;
		126	}
		127
		128	Consequent use of these functions to mark away exceptional cases or to
		129	tell the compiler what the hot path through a function is can increase
		130	performance considerably.
		131
		132	A very good example is in a function that reserves more space for some
		133	memory block (for example, inside an implementation of a string stream) -
		134	each time something is added, you have to check for a buffer overrun, but
		135	you expect that most checks will turn out to be false:
		136
		137	/* make sure we have "size" extra room in our buffer */
		138	ecb_inline void
		139	reserve (int size)
		140	{
		141	if (ecb_unlikely (current + size > end))
		142	real_reserve_method (size); /* presumably noinline */
		143	}
		144
41	=item bool ecb_assume(cond)	145	=item bool ecb_assume (cond) [MACRO]
42		146
		147	Try to tell the compiler that some condition is true, even if it's not
		148	obvious.
		149
		150	This can be used to teach the compiler about invariants or other
		151	conditions that might improve code generation, but which are impossible to
		152	deduce form the code itself.
		153
		154	For example, the example reservation function from the C<ecb_unlikely>
		155	description could be written thus (only C<ecb_assume> was added):
		156
		157	ecb_inline void
		158	reserve (int size)
		159	{
		160	if (ecb_unlikely (current + size > end))
		161	real_reserve_method (size); /* presumably noinline */
		162
		163	ecb_assume (current + size <= end);
		164	}
		165
		166	If you then call this function twice, like this:
		167
		168	reserve (10);
		169	reserve (1);
		170
		171	Then the compiler I<might> be able to optimise out the second call
		172	completely, as it knows that C<< current + 1 > end >> is false and the
		173	call will never be executed.
		174
43	=item bool ecb_unreachable()	175	=item bool ecb_unreachable ()
44		176
		177	This function does nothing itself, except tell the compiler that it will
		178	never be executed. Apart from suppressing a warning in some cases, this
		179	function can be used to implement C<ecb_assume> or similar functions.
		180
45	=item bool ecb_prefetch(addr,rw,locality)	181	=item bool ecb_prefetch (addr, rw, locality) [MACRO]
		182
		183	Tells the compiler to try to prefetch memory at the given C<addr>ess
		184	for either reading (C<rw> = 0) or writing (C<rw> = 1). A C<locality> of
		185	C<0> means that there will only be one access later, C<3> means that
		186	the data will likely be accessed very often, and values in between mean
		187	something... in between. The memory pointed to by the address does not
		188	need to be accessible (it could be a null pointer for example), but C<rw>
		189	and C<locality> must be compile-time constants.
		190
		191	An obvious way to use this is to prefetch some data far away, in a big
		192	array you loop over. This prefetches memory some 128 array elements later,
		193	in the hope that it will be ready when the CPU arrives at that location.
		194
		195	int sum = 0;
		196
		197	for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
		198	{
		199	sum += arr [i]
		200	ecb_prefetch (arr + i + 128, 0, 0);
		201	}
		202
		203	It's hard to predict how far to prefetch, and most CPUs that can prefetch
		204	are often good enough to predict this kind of behaviour themselves. It
		205	gets more interesting with linked lists, especially when you do some fair
		206	processing on each list element:
		207
		208	for (node *n = start; n; n = n->next)
		209	{
		210	ecb_prefetch (n->next, 0, 0);
		211	... do medium amount of work with *n
		212	}
		213
		214	After processing the node, (part of) the next node might already be in
		215	cache.
46		216
47	=back	217	=back
48		218
49	=head2 BIT FIDDLING / BITSTUFFS	219	=head2 BIT FIDDLING / BITSTUFFS
50		220
		221	=over 4
		222
51	bool ecb_big_endian ();	223	=item bool ecb_big_endian ()
		224
52	bool ecb_little_endian ();	225	=item bool ecb_little_endian ()
		226
		227	These two functions return true if the byte order is big endian
		228	(most-significant byte first) or little endian (least-significant byte
		229	first) respectively.
		230
53	int ecb_ctz32 (uint32_t x);	231	=item int ecb_ctz32 (uint32_t x)
		232
		233	Returns the index of the least significant bit set in C<x> (or
		234	equivalently the number of bits set to 0 before the least significant
		235	bit set), starting from 0. If C<x> is 0 the result is undefined. A
		236	common use case is to compute the integer binary logarithm, i.e.,
		237	floor(log2(n)). For example:
		238
		239	ecb_ctz32(3) = 1
		240	ecb_ctz32(6) = 2
		241
54	int ecb_popcount32 (uint32_t x);	242	=item int ecb_popcount32 (uint32_t x)
55	uint32_t ecb_bswap32 (uint32_t x);	243
		244	Returns the number of bits set to 1 in C<x>. For example:
		245
		246	ecb_popcount32(7) = 3
		247	ecb_popcount32(255) = 8
		248
56	uint32_t ecb_bswap16 (uint32_t x);	249	=item uint32_t ecb_bswap16 (uint32_t x)
		250
		251	=item uint32_t ecb_bswap32 (uint32_t x)
		252
57	uint32_t ecb_rotr32 (uint32_t x, unsigned int count);	253	=item uint32_t ecb_rotr32 (uint32_t x, unsigned int count)
		254
58	uint32_t ecb_rotl32 (uint32_t x, unsigned int count);	255	=item uint32_t ecb_rotl32 (uint32_t x, unsigned int count)
		256
		257	These two functions return the value of C<x> after shifting all the bits
		258	by C<count> positions to the right or left respectively.
		259
		260	=back
59		261
60	=head2 ARITHMETIC	262	=head2 ARITHMETIC
61		263
62	x = ecb_mod (m, n)	264	=over 4
		265
		266	=item x = ecb_mod (m, n) [MACRO]
		267
		268	Returns the positive remainder of the modulo operation between C<m>
		269	and C<n>.
		270
		271	=back
63		272
64	=head2 UTILITY	273	=head2 UTILITY
65		274
66	ecb_array_length (name)	275	=over 4
67		276
		277	=item element_count = ecb_array_length (name) [MACRO]
68		278
		279	=back
		280
		281

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Comparing libecb/ecb.pod (file contents): Revision 1.2 by root, Thu May 26 19:49:21 2011 UTC vs. Revision 1.11 by sf-exg, Thu May 26 21:18:52 2011 UTC

Diff Legend

Comparing libecb/ecb.pod (file contents):
Revision 1.2 by root, Thu May 26 19:49:21 2011 UTC vs.
Revision 1.11 by sf-exg, Thu May 26 21:18:52 2011 UTC