[PATCH 1/1] ARM: unwind - optimise linked-list searches for modules

[Catalin Marinas]

On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 13:46 +0100, Phil Carmody wrote:
> With several sections per module, and dozens of modules, the
> searches down the linked list would dominate the lookup time,
> dwarfing any savings from the binary search within the section.
> 
> A simple move-to-front optimisation exploits the commonality
> of the code paths taken, and in simple real-world tests reduces
> the number of steps in the search to barely more than 1.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Phil Carmody <ext-phil.2.carmody at nokia.com>
> ---
>  arch/arm/kernel/unwind.c |    2 ++
>  1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/arch/arm/kernel/unwind.c b/arch/arm/kernel/unwind.c
> index dd81a91..2e88abf 100644
> --- a/arch/arm/kernel/unwind.c
> +++ b/arch/arm/kernel/unwind.c
> @@ -146,6 +146,8 @@ static struct unwind_idx *unwind_find_idx(unsigned long addr)
>                             addr < table->end_addr) {
>                                 idx = search_index(addr, table->start,
>                                                    table->stop - 1);
> +                               /* MTF with 50 modules: 80 steps becomes ~1 */
> +                               list_move(&table->list, &unwind_tables);

That's a good optimisation. Could you please expand the "MTF" comment in
the code a bit more? Otherwise,

Acked-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas at arm.com>

-- 
Catalin