Thumb2 code size improvements

[Julian Brown]

On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 12:55:59 +0200
Loïc Minier <loic.minier at linaro.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 07, 2010, Julian Brown wrote:
> >                                                                       Do
> > you still have the code fragment handy (I don't remember exactly how
> > it went)?
> 
>  You can extract it from the wiki history with the "Info" action on
> the page and then diffing revisions:

Oh right, I should have realised that :-).

> 1. stmdb/ldmia registers that are not used
>  * Observations
> {{{
> Dump of assembler code for function history_expand_line_internal:
>    0x00001c1c <+0>: stmdb sp!, {r4, r5, r6, r7, r8, lr}

This could be:

  push {r3, r4, r5, r6, r7, lr}

>    0x00001c20 <+4>: movs r1, #0
>    0x00001c22 <+6>: ldr r5, [pc, #52] ; (0x1c58
> <history_expand_line_internal+60>) 0x00001c24 <+8>: mov r2, r1
>    0x00001c26 <+10>: mov r6, r0
>    0x00001c28 <+12>: ldr r7, [r5, #0]
>    0x00001c2a <+14>: str r1, [r5, #0]
>    0x00001c2c <+16>: bl 0x1c2c <history_expand_line_internal+16>
>    0x00001c30 <+20>: str r7, [r5, #0]
>    0x00001c32 <+22>: cmp r0, r6
>    0x00001c34 <+24>: mov r4, r0
>    0x00001c36 <+26>: bne.n 0x1c52 <history_expand_line_internal+54>
>    0x00001c38 <+28>: bl 0x1c38 <history_expand_line_internal+28>
>    0x00001c3c <+32>: ldr r1, [pc, #28] ; (0x1c5c
> <history_expand_line_internal+64>) 0x00001c3e <+34>: movw r2, #1850 ;
> 0x73a 0x00001c42 <+38>: adds r0, #1
>    0x00001c44 <+40>: bl 0x1c44 <history_expand_line_internal+40>
>    0x00001c48 <+44>: mov r1, r4
>    0x00001c4a <+46>: ldmia.w sp!, {r4, r5, r6, r7, r8, lr}

This must remain a wide instruction...

  ldmia.w sp!, {r3, r4, r5, r6, r7, lr}

>    0x00001c4e <+50>: b.w 0x1c4e <history_expand_line_internal+50>
>    0x00001c52 <+54>: ldmia.w sp!, {r4, r5, r6, r7, r8, pc}

But this could be:

  pop {r3, r4, r5, r6, r7, pc}

>    0x00001c56 <+58>: nop
>    0x00001c58 <+60>: andeq r0, r0, r0
>    0x00001c5c <+64>: andeq r0, r0, r0
> }}}
> Register r8 is not used in this function, so no need to save/restore
> r8.
>  * Possible improvements

So yeah, I think there is indeed a possible improvement here (and we
don't even need to break the EABI, I don't think). Unless I've
overlooked something, anyway...

Julian