Linux kernel ============ This file was moved to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst Please notice that there are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or ``make pdfdocs``. There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory, several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file. Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.
Steven Rostedt (VMware)
authored
When running the likely/unlikely profiler, one of the results did not look
accurate. It noted that the unlikely() in link_path_walk() was 100%
incorrect. When I added a trace_printk() to see what was happening there, it
became 80% correct! Looking deeper into what whas happening, I found that
gcc split that if statement into two paths. One where the if statement
became a constant, the other path a variable. The other path had the if
statement always hit (making the unlikely there, always false), but since
the #define unlikely() has:
#define unlikely() (__builtin_constant_p(x) ? !!(x) : __branch_check__(x, 0))
Where constants are ignored by the branch profiler, the "constant" path
made by the compiler was ignored, even though it was hit 80% of the time.
By just passing the constant value to the __branch_check__() function and
tracing it out of line (as always correct, as likely/unlikely isn't a factor
for constants), then we get back the accurate readings of branches that were
optimized by gcc causing part of the execution to become constant.
Signed-off-by: 
Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>