[PATCH v2 1/3] riscv: word-at-a-time: improve find_zero() for !RISCV_ISA_ZBB

Jisheng Zhang jszhang at kernel.org
Mon Sep 7 08:11:06 PDT 2026


Current find_zero() heavily depends on fls64() for calculation. This
bring non-optimal code when !RISCV_ISA_ZBB.

But in word-at-a-time case, we don't have to go with fls64() code path,
instead, we can fallback to the generic word-at-a-time implementaion.

What's more, the fls64() brings non-necessary zero bits couting for
RV32. In fact, fls() is enough.

Before the patch:

0000000000000000 <find_zero>:
   0:	c529                	beqz	a0,4a <.L1>
   2:	577d                	li	a4,-1
   4:	9301                	srli	a4,a4,0x20
   6:	03f00793          	li	a5,63
   a:	00a76463          	bltu	a4,a0,12 <.L3>
   e:	1502                	slli	a0,a0,0x20
  10:	47fd                	li	a5,31

0000000000000012 <.L3>:
  12:	577d                	li	a4,-1
  14:	8341                	srli	a4,a4,0x10
  16:	00a76463          	bltu	a4,a0,1e <.L4>
  1a:	37c1                	addiw	a5,a5,-16
  1c:	0542                	slli	a0,a0,0x10

000000000000001e <.L4>:
  1e:	577d                	li	a4,-1
  20:	8321                	srli	a4,a4,0x8
  22:	00a76463          	bltu	a4,a0,2a <.L5>
  26:	37e1                	addiw	a5,a5,-8
  28:	0522                	slli	a0,a0,0x8

000000000000002a <.L5>:
  2a:	577d                	li	a4,-1
  2c:	8311                	srli	a4,a4,0x4
  2e:	00a76463          	bltu	a4,a0,36 <.L6>
  32:	37f1                	addiw	a5,a5,-4
  34:	0512                	slli	a0,a0,0x4

0000000000000036 <.L6>:
  36:	577d                	li	a4,-1
  38:	8309                	srli	a4,a4,0x2
  3a:	00a76463          	bltu	a4,a0,42 <.L7>
  3e:	37f9                	addiw	a5,a5,-2
  40:	050a                	slli	a0,a0,0x2

0000000000000042 <.L7>:
  42:	00054563          	bltz	a0,4c <.L12>
  46:	4037d51b          	sraiw	a0,a5,0x3

000000000000004a <.L1>:
  4a:	8082                	ret

000000000000004c <.L12>:
  4c:	2785                	addiw	a5,a5,1
  4e:	4037d51b          	sraiw	a0,a5,0x3
  52:	8082                	ret

After the patch:

0000000000000000 <find_zero>:
   0:	102037b7          	lui	a5,0x10203
   4:	0792                	slli	a5,a5,0x4
   6:	40578793          	addi	a5,a5,1029 # 10203405 <.L4+0x102033c5>
   a:	07c2                	slli	a5,a5,0x10
   c:	60878793          	addi	a5,a5,1544
  10:	02f50533          	mul	a0,a0,a5
  14:	9161                	srli	a0,a0,0x38
  16:	8082                	ret

33 instructions vs 8 instructions!

And this kind of instructions reducing dramatically improves the
performance of below micro-benchmark:

 $ cat tt.c
 #inlcude <stdio.h>
 #inlcude "word-at-a-time.h" // copy and modify, eg. remove other headers
 int main()
 {
 	int i;
 	unsigned long ret = 0;

	for (i = 0; i < 100000000; i++)
		ret |= find_zero(0xabcd123 + i);

	printf("%ld\n", ret);
 }
 $ gcc -O tt.c
 $ time ./a.out

Per my test, the above micro-benchmark is improved by about 1150%!

Signed-off-by: Jisheng Zhang <jszhang at kernel.org>
---
 arch/riscv/include/asm/word-at-a-time.h | 29 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 28 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/arch/riscv/include/asm/word-at-a-time.h b/arch/riscv/include/asm/word-at-a-time.h
index 3802cda71ab7..1dcac57a73dd 100644
--- a/arch/riscv/include/asm/word-at-a-time.h
+++ b/arch/riscv/include/asm/word-at-a-time.h
@@ -39,9 +39,36 @@ static inline unsigned long create_zero_mask(unsigned long bits)
 	return bits >> 7;
 }
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_64BIT
+/*
+ * Jan Achrenius on G+: microoptimized version of
+ * the simpler "(mask & ONEBYTES) * ONEBYTES >> 56"
+ * that works for the bytemasks without having to
+ * mask them first.
+ */
+static inline long count_masked_bytes(unsigned long mask)
+{
+	return mask*0x0001020304050608ul >> 56;
+}
+
+#else	/* 32-bit case */
+
+/* Carl Chatfield / Jan Achrenius G+ version for 32-bit */
+static inline long count_masked_bytes(long mask)
+{
+	/* (000000 0000ff 00ffff ffffff) -> ( 1 1 2 3 ) */
+	long a = (0x0ff0001+mask) >> 23;
+	/* Fix the 1 for 00 case */
+	return a & mask;
+}
+#endif
+
 static inline unsigned long find_zero(unsigned long mask)
 {
-	return fls64(mask) >> 3;
+	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_RISCV_ISA_ZBB) && IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_ZBB))
+		return fls64(mask) >> 3;
+
+	return count_masked_bytes(mask);
 }
 
 /* The mask we created is directly usable as a bytemask */
-- 
2.53.0




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