Re: [Lightning] Reducing opcode permutations

[Sandro Magi]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 10:07 AM, Sandro Magi <address@hidden> wrote:
>  I'm looking at a "Synonyms" section now, and it says this:
>
>   For example, adding two unsigned integers is exactly the same as
>   adding two signed integers (assuming a two's complement
>   representation of negative numbers); yet, gnu lightning provides
>   both jit_addr_i and jit_addr_ui macros.
>
>  Two points:
>
>  1. This is the type of duplication I'd like to avoid, as it adds
>  unnecessary bloat to the C library (and to my cramped fingers!). This
>  isn't a problem for Lightning because macros have no runtime footprint
>  for unused instructions. The "Synonyms—don't define them" section is
>  quite long.
>
>  2. Something doesn't seem right about the above description. For
>  instance, a signed 32-bit number overflows at 2^31, not 2^32, so
>  addc_i and addc_ui should have different semantics. Also, 64-bit
>  systems which define a 32-bit int, but a 64-bit long int, similarly
>  overflow at different values for addc. Is this the actual behaviour?

>From my reading, the x86 'add' instruction provides overflow modes for
8/16/32 signed and unsigned integers [1]. Unless I'm reading it wrong,
PowerPC doesn't have the same semantics [2]. Given this instruction
sequence:

// assumptions: 1. we're working on a 32-bit machine, 2. int is 32-bits
#include <limits.h>

jit_movi_i(JIT_R1, INT_MAX)     // R1 = 2^31
jit_addci_i(JIT_R0, JIT_R1, 1)   // R0 = R1 + 1, set carry
jit_addxi_i(JIT_R2, JIT_R0, 0)   // R2 = R0 + 0 + carry

So, does R2=1, or does R2=0? When using _ui, it should be 0. If it
were really signed arithmetic, it should be 1. How does Lightning
behave when this instruction sequence is executed on x86 and PPC?

Sandro

[1] http://flint.cs.yale.edu/cs421/papers/art-of-asm/pdf/CH06.PDF
[2] 
http://www-01.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/852569B20050FF778525699600719DF2/$file/6xx_pem.pdf