Richard Biener via Gcc-patches <gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org> writes:
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 5:59 PM Richard Sandiford via Gcc-patches
> <gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>> This patch adds a simple class for holding A/B fractions.
>> As the comments in the patch say, the class isn't designed
>> to have nice numerial properties at the extremes.
>>
>> The motivating use case was some aarch64 costing work,
>> where being able to represent fractions was much easier
>> than using single integers and avoided the rounding errors
>> that would come with using floats. (Unlike things like
>> COSTS_N_INSNS, there was no sensible constant base factor
>> that could be used.)
>>
>> Tested on aarch64-linux-gnu and x86_64-linux-gnu. OK to install?
>
> Hmm, we use the sreal type for profiles. I don't see any overflow/underflow
> handling in your class - I suppose you're going to use it on integer types
> given we're not allowed to use native FP?
Yeah, I'm going to use it on integer types. And it's not designed
to have nice properties at extremes, including handling underflow and
overflow.
I want to use it in costing code, where we already happily multiply
and add “int”-sized costs without worrying about overflow. I'll be
using uint64_t for the fractions though, just in case. :-)
sreal doesn't help because it's still significand/exponent. That matters
because…
> I mean, how exactly does
> the class solve the problem of rounding errors?
…I wanted something that represented the results exactly (barring any of
integer ops overflowing). This makes it meaningful to compare costs for
equality. It also means we can use ordered comparisons without having
to introduce a fudge factor to cope with one calculation having different
intermediate rounding from the other.
E.g. aarch64 has code like:
if (scalar_cycles_per_iter < sve_estimate)
{
unsigned int min_cost
= orig_body_cost * estimated_poly_value (BYTES_PER_SVE_VECTOR);
if (body_cost < min_cost)
{
if (dump_enabled_p ())
dump_printf_loc (MSG_NOTE, vect_location,
"Increasing body cost to %d because the"
" scalar code could issue within the limit"
" imposed by predicate operations\n",
min_cost);
body_cost = min_cost;
should_disparage = true;
}
}
I want to be able to keep this while making scalar_cycles_per_iter and
sve_estimate non-integral.
Thanks,
Richard
