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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/arm/mem_alignment')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/arm/mem_alignment | 58 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 58 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/arm/mem_alignment b/Documentation/arm/mem_alignment deleted file mode 100644 index 6335fcacbba9..000000000000 --- a/Documentation/arm/mem_alignment +++ /dev/null @@ -1,58 +0,0 @@ -Too many problems poped up because of unnoticed misaligned memory access in -kernel code lately. Therefore the alignment fixup is now unconditionally -configured in for SA11x0 based targets. According to Alan Cox, this is a -bad idea to configure it out, but Russell King has some good reasons for -doing so on some f***ed up ARM architectures like the EBSA110. However -this is not the case on many design I'm aware of, like all SA11x0 based -ones. - -Of course this is a bad idea to rely on the alignment trap to perform -unaligned memory access in general. If those access are predictable, you -are better to use the macros provided by include/asm/unaligned.h. The -alignment trap can fixup misaligned access for the exception cases, but at -a high performance cost. It better be rare. - -Now for user space applications, it is possible to configure the alignment -trap to SIGBUS any code performing unaligned access (good for debugging bad -code), or even fixup the access by software like for kernel code. The later -mode isn't recommended for performance reasons (just think about the -floating point emulation that works about the same way). Fix your code -instead! - -Please note that randomly changing the behaviour without good thought is -real bad - it changes the behaviour of all unaligned instructions in user -space, and might cause programs to fail unexpectedly. - -To change the alignment trap behavior, simply echo a number into -/proc/cpu/alignment. The number is made up from various bits: - -bit behavior when set ---- ----------------- - -0 A user process performing an unaligned memory access - will cause the kernel to print a message indicating - process name, pid, pc, instruction, address, and the - fault code. - -1 The kernel will attempt to fix up the user process - performing the unaligned access. This is of course - slow (think about the floating point emulator) and - not recommended for production use. - -2 The kernel will send a SIGBUS signal to the user process - performing the unaligned access. - -Note that not all combinations are supported - only values 0 through 5. -(6 and 7 don't make sense). - -For example, the following will turn on the warnings, but without -fixing up or sending SIGBUS signals: - - echo 1 > /proc/cpu/alignment - -You can also read the content of the same file to get statistical -information on unaligned access occurrences plus the current mode of -operation for user space code. - - -Nicolas Pitre, Mar 13, 2001. Modified Russell King, Nov 30, 2001. |