check if address is 16 byte aligned

This is what libraries like Botan and Crypto++ do for algorithms which use SSE, Altivec and friends. AFAIK, both memalign and posix_memalign are doing their job. This also means that your array is properly aligned on a 16-byte boundary. The conversion foo * -> void * might involve an actual computation, eg adding an offset. Why should code be aligned to even-address boundaries on x86? Not the answer you're looking for? How Intuit democratizes AI development across teams through reusability. rev2023.3.3.43278. In some VERY specific case, you may need to specify it yourself (eg: Cell processor, or your project hardware). This differentiation still exists in current CPUs, and still some have only instructions that perform aligned accesses. For example, the declaration: int x __attribute__ ( (aligned (16))) = 0; causes the compiler to allocate the global variable x on a 16-byte boundary. @caf How does the fact that the external bus to memory is more than one byte wide make aligned access faster? structure C - Every structure will also have alignment requirements The alignment computation would also not work reliably because you only check alignment relative to the segment offset, which might or might not be what you want. Portable code, however, will still look slightly different from most that uses something like __declspec(align or __attribute__(__aligned__, directly. Do new devs get fired if they can't solve a certain bug? On average there will be 15 check bits per address, and the net probability that a randomly generated address if mistyped will accidentally pass a check is 0.0247%. How is Jesus " " (Luke 1:32 NAS28) different from a prophet (, Luke 1:76 NAS28)? Or, indeed, on a 64-bit system, since that structure would not normally need to be more than 32-bit aligned. The cryptic if statement now becomes very clear and intuitive. So the function is doing a right thing. Then you can still use SSE for the 'middle' ones Hm, this is a good point. EDIT: Sorry I misread. This is a sample code I am testing with: It is 4byte aligned everytime, i have used both memalign, posix memalign. I think that was corrected before gcc 4.4.7, which has become outdated . Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? And, you may have from 0 to 15 bytes misaligned address. Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow! Allocate your data on heap, it will be 16-byte aligned. By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. Why is this sentence from The Great Gatsby grammatical? What Is the Difference Between 'Man' And 'Son of Man' in Num 23:19? Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Good solution for defined sets of platforms/compilers. EDIT: casting to long is a cheap way to protect oneself against the most likely possibility of int and pointers being different sizes nowadays. Is there a single-word adjective for "having exceptionally strong moral principles"? Or, you can manually align address like this; Because 16-byte aligned address must be divisible by 16, the least significant digit in hex number should be 0 all the time. Is it possible to rotate a window 90 degrees if it has the same length and width? We first cast the pointer to a intptr_t (the debate is up whether one should use uintptr_t instead). rev2023.3.3.43278. However, I have tried several ways to allocate 16byte memory aligned data but it ends up being 4byte memory aligned. If the address is 16 byte aligned, these must be zero. How can I explain to my manager that a project he wishes to undertake cannot be performed by the team? A Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of users for requests that modify all the settings. This is basically what I'm using. It is something that should be done in some special cases when a profiler shows that it is needed. How to determine if address is word aligned, How Intuit democratizes AI development across teams through reusability. Now, the char variable requires 1 byte but memory will be accessed in word size of 4 bytes so 3 bytes of padding is added again. Note the std::align function in C++. Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Can I tell police to wait and call a lawyer when served with a search warrant? A memory address ais said to be n-bytealignedwhen ais a multiple of n(where nis a power of 2). There may be a maximum alignment in your system. At the moment I wrote that, I thought about arrays and sizes of elements of the array, which is not strictly about alignment. See: Best Answer. Generally your compiler do all the optimization, so you dont have to manage it. Is gcc's __attribute__((packed)) / #pragma pack unsafe? Did any DOS compatibility layers exist for any UNIX-like systems before DOS started to become outmoded? . The application of either attribute to a structure or union is equivalent to applying the attribute to all contained elements that are not explicitly declared ALIGNED or UNALIGNED. If the source pointer is not two-byte aligned, though, the fix-up fails and you get a SIGSEGV. In short, I believe what you have done is exactly what you want. If the address is 16 byte aligned, these must be zero. Does it make any sense to use inline keyword with templates? Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. The speed of the processor is growing faster than the speed of the memory. Page 29 Set the parameters correctly. Why use _mm_malloc? So, a total of 12 bytes of memory is . I will definitely test it. The nature of simulating nature: A Q&A with IBM Quantum researcher Dr. Jamie We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. "X bytes aligned" means that the base address of your data must be a multiple of X. Aligning the memory without telling the compiler is useless. @MarkYisri: yes, I expect that in practice, every implementation that supports SSE2 instructions provides an implementation-specific guarantee that'll work :-), -1 Doesn't answer the question. For instance, if you have a string str at an unaligned address and you want to align it, you just need to malloc() the proper size and to memcpy() data at the new position. Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems. We simply mask the upper portion of the address, and check if the lower 4 bits are zero. For information about how to return a value of type size_t that is the alignment requirement of the type, see alignof. For a time,gcc had situations not shared by icc where stack objects weren't aligned. Certain CPUs have even address modes that make that multiplication by 2, 4 or 8 directly without penalty (x86 and 68020 for example). It is assistant for sampling values. (the question was "How to determine if memory is aligned? Browse other questions tagged, Where developers & technologists share private knowledge with coworkers, Reach developers & technologists worldwide. Short story taking place on a toroidal planet or moon involving flying. How do I set, clear, and toggle a single bit? We simply mask the upper portion of the address, and check if the lower 4 bits are zero. How do I align things in the following tabular environment? However, your x86 Continue reading Data alignment for speed: myth or reality? This difference is getting bigger and bigger over time (to give an example: on the Apple II the CPU was at 1.023 MHz, the memory was at twice that frequency, 1 cycle for the CPU, 1 cycle for the video. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. If you want start address is aligned, you should use aligned_alloc: To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers. 16 . Show 5 more items. Notice the lower 4 bits are always 0. Why are all arrays aligned to 16 bytes on my implementation? Minimising the environmental effects of my dyson brain. Is it suspicious or odd to stand by the gate of a GA airport watching the planes? If you leave it like this, the price of (theoretical/future) portability is probably excessive. While going through one project, I have seen that the memory data is "8 bytes aligned". Aligned access is faster because the external bus to memory is not a single byte wide - it is typically 4 or 8 bytes wide (or even wider). @Benoit: If you need to align a struct on 16, just add 12 bytes of padding at the end @VladLazarenko, Works, but not nice and portable. What happens if the memory address is 16 byte? Does Counterspell prevent from any further spells being cast on a given turn? 1 - 64 . Therefore, the load has to be unaligned which *might* degrade performance. Where does this (supposedly) Gibson quote come from? Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. A multiple of 8. The pointer store a virtual memory address, so linux check the unaligned address in virtual memory? To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers. Since you say you're using GCC and hoping to support Clang, GCC's aligned attribute should do the trick: The following is reasonably portable, in the sense that it will work on a lot of different implementations, but not all: Given that you only need to support 2 compilers though, and clang is fairly gcc-compatible by design, just use the __attribute__ that works. If you access, for example an 8 byte word at address 4, the hardware will have to read the word at address 0, mask the high 4 bytes of that word, then read word at address 8, mask the low part of that word, combine it with the first half and give that to the register. For instance, since CC++11 or C11, you can use alignas() in C++ or in C (by including stdalign.h) to specify alignment of a variable. So what is happening? Alignment means data can never be split across any wider power-of-2 boundary. KVM Archive on lore.kernel.org help / color / mirror / Atom feed * [RFC 0/6] KVM: arm64: implement vcpu_is_preempted check @ 2022-11-02 16:13 Usama Arif 2022-11-02 16:13 ` [RFC 1/6] KVM: arm64: Document PV-lock interface Usama Arif ` (5 more replies) 0 siblings, 6 replies; 12+ messages in thread From: Usama Arif @ 2022-11-02 16:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel, linux-arm-kernel . - Use vector instructions up to the last vector instruction for i = 994, i = 995, i= 996, i = 997, - Treat the loop iterations i = 998, i = 999 sequentially (remainder). When you have identified the loops that might get some speedup with alignement, you need to: - Align the memory: you might use _mm_malloc, - Tell the compiler that the pointer you are going to use is aligned: you might use OpenMP 4 (#pragma omp simd aligned(p : 32)) or the Intel extension special __assume_aligned. For more complete information about compiler optimizations, see our Optimization Notice. Is a collection of years plural or singular? A modern PC works at about 3GHz on the CPU, with a memory at barely 400MHz). there is a memory which can take addresses 0x00 to 0x100 except the reserved memory. Styling contours by colour and by line thickness in QGIS, "We, who've been connected by blood to Prussia's throne and people since Dppel". You may re-send via your If the stack pointer was 16-byte aligned when the function was called, after pushing the (4 byte) return address, the stack pointer would be 4 bytes less, as the stack grows downwards. // and use this pointer to read or write data into array, // dellocate memory original "array", NOT alignedArray. (You can divide it by 2 or 1, but 4 is the highest number that is divisible evenly.) Is a collection of years plural or singular? For instance, Addresses are allocated at compile time and many programming languages have ways to specify alignment. Fastest way to work with unaligned data on a word-aligned processor? Thanks for contributing an answer to Unix & Linux Stack Exchange! Page 28: Advanced Maintenance. random-name, not sure but I think it might be more efficient to simply handle the first few 'unaligned' elements separately like you do with the last few. What is a word for the arcane equivalent of a monastery? By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. Otherwise, if alignment checking is enabled, an alignment exception occurs. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. 0xC000_0005 All rights reserved. *PATCH 1/4] tracing: Add creation of instances at boot command line 2023-01-11 14:56 [PATCH 0/4] tracing: Addition of tracing instances via kernel command line Steven Rostedt @ 2023-01-11 14:56 ` Steven Rostedt 2023-01-11 16:33 ` Randy Dunlap 2023-01-12 23:24 ` Ross Zwisler 2023-01-11 14:56 ` [PATCH 2/4] tracing: Add enabling of events to boot . Know when a memory address is aligned or unaligned, Documentation/unaligned-memory-access.txt, How Intuit democratizes AI development across teams through reusability. How do I set, clear, and toggle a single bit? What sort of strategies would a medieval military use against a fantasy giant? Because I'm planning to use low order bits of pointers as tag bits. A limit involving the quotient of two sums. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. The nature of simulating nature: A Q&A with IBM Quantum researcher Dr. Jamie We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. An object that is "8 bytes aligned" is stored at a memory address that is a multiple of 8. Throughout, though, the hit Amazon Prime Video show has done a remarkable job of making all of its characters feel like real . What's the best (simplest, most reliable and portable) way to specify that it should always be aligned to a 64-bit address, even on a 32-bit build? If a law is new but its interpretation is vague, can the courts directly ask the drafters the intent and official interpretation of their law? If you requested a byte at address "9", the CPU would actually ask the memory for the block of bytes beginning at address 8, and load the second one into your register (discarding the others). For example, if we pass a variable with address 0x0004 as an argument to the function we will end up with aligned access, if the address however is 0x0005 then the access will be unaligned. Seems to me that the most obvious way to do this would be to use Boost's implementation of aligned_storage (or TR1's, if you have that). And if malloc() or C++ new operator allocates a memory space at 1011h, then we need to move 15 bytes forward, which is the next 16-byte aligned address. What video game is Charlie playing in Poker Face S01E07? The nature of simulating nature: A Q&A with IBM Quantum researcher Dr. Jamie We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow! In practice, the compiler probably assigns memory for it, which would be 8-byte aligned. In short an unaligned address is one of a simple type (e.g., integer or floating point variable) that is bigger than (usually) a byte and not evenly divisible by the size of the data type one tries to read. When the address is hexadecimal, it is trivial: just look at the rightmost digit, and see if it is divisible by word size. It does not make sure start address is the multiple. 16/32/64/128b) alignedness is identical for virtual and physical addresses. 2018-01-29. not yet calculated. ARMv5 and earlier For word transfers, you must ensure that addresses are 4-byte aligned. This macro looks really nasty and sophisticated at once. Is the SSE unaligned load intrinsic any slower than the aligned load intrinsic on x64_64 Intel CPUs? It will remove the false positives, but still leave you with some conforming implementations on which the union fails to create the alignment you want, and hence fails to compile. Since memory on most systems is paged with pagesizes from 4K up and alignment is usually matter of orders of magnitude less (typically bus width, i.e. Sorry, forgot that. By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. If they arent, the address isnt 16 byte aligned and we need to pre-heat our SIMD loop. I have an address say hex 0x26FFFF how to check if the given address is 64 bit aligned? This is not accurate when the size is small -- e.g., I have seen malloc(8) return non-16-aligned allocations on a 64bit system. Where does this (supposedly) Gibson quote come from? How can I measure the actual memory usage of an application or process? To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers. The code that you posted had the problem of only allocating 4 floats for each entry of the array. But you have to define the number of bytes per word. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. The struct (or union, class) member variables must be aligned to the highest bytes of the size of any member variables to prevent performance penalties. Shouldn't this be __attribute__((aligned (8))), according to the doc you linked? The compiler "believes" it knows the alignment of the input pointer -- it's two-byte aligned according to that cast -- so it provides fix-up for 2-to-16 byte alignment. Copy. Good one . No, you can't. The nature of simulating nature: A Q&A with IBM Quantum researcher Dr. Jamie We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. how to write a constraint such that it generates 16 byte addresses. Add a comment 1 Answer Sorted by: 17 The short answer is, yes. @Pascal Cuoq, gcc notices this and emits the exact same code for, I upvoted you, but only because you are using unsigned integers :), @jww I'm not sure I understand what you mean. (considering, 1 byte = 8bit). Please provide any examples you know of platforms in which. alignment requirement that objects of a particular type be located on storage boundaries with addresses that are particular multiples of a byte address. Find centralized, trusted content and collaborate around the technologies you use most. What is the point of Thrower's Bandolier? Why are non-Western countries siding with China in the UN? 2022 Philippe M. Groarke. And, you may have from 0 to 15 bytes misaligned address. Of course, address 0x11FE014 is not a multiple of 0x10. For example, a four-byte allocation would be aligned on a boundary that supports any four-byte or smaller object. C++11 adds alignof, which you can test instead of testing the size. Redoing the align environment with a specific formatting, Theoretically Correct vs Practical Notation. Tags C C++ memory programming. You'll get a slight overhead for the loop peeling and the remainder, but with n = 1000, you won't feel anything. Do new devs get fired if they can't solve a certain bug? Of course, the size of struct will be grown as a consequence. Checkweigher user's manual STX: Start byte, 02H State 1: 20H State 2: 20H State 3: 20H Mark: 1 byte When a new value sampled, this byte adds 1, this byte cycles from 31H to 39H. Most of the entries in the NAME column of the output from lsof +D /tmp do not begin with /tmp. rev2023.3.3.43278. Thanks! The recommended value of alignment (the first parameter in memalign () function) depends on the width of the SIMD registers in use. When the compiler can see that alignment is inherited from malloc , it is entitled to assume alignment. When you load data into an XMM register, I believe the processor can only load 4 contiguous float data from main memory with the first one aligned by 16 byte. The memory alignment is important for performance in different ways. Many programmers use a variant of the following line to find out if the array pointer is adequately aligned. When a memory access is not aligned, it is said to be misaligned. @JohnDibling: I know. Where, n is number of bytes. The Intel sign-in experience has changed to support enhanced security controls. rev2023.3.3.43278. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Then operate on the 16-byte aligned buffer without the need to fixup leading or tail elements. What does byte aligned mean? But sizes that are powers of 2, have the advantage of being easily computed. @JonathanLefler: I would assume to allow for certain automatic sse optimizations. With modern CPU, most likely, you won't feel il (maybe a few percent slower, but it will be most likely in the noise of a basic timer measurement). By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Accesses to main memory will be aligned if the address is a multiple of the size of the object being tracked down as given by the formula in the H&P book: @D0SBoots: The second paragraph: "You may also specify any one of these attributes with `, Careful! Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. How to prove that the supernatural or paranormal doesn't exist? For example, the ARM processor in your 2005-era phone might crash if you try to access unaligned data. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Just because you are using the memalign routine, you are putting it into a float type. exactly. For example. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? How do I determine the size of my array in C? constraint addr_in_4k { mtestADDR % 4096 + ( mtestBurstLength + 1 << mtestDataSize) <= 4096;} Dave Rich, Verification Architect, Siemens EDA. How do I set, clear, and toggle a single bit? Those instructions (like MOVDQ) require 16-byte alignment. 2. In this post,I hope to shed some light on areally simple but essential operation to figure out if memory is aligned at a 16 byte boundary. 16 byte alignment will not be sufficient for full avx optimization. , LZT OS. Therefore, only character fields with odd byte lengths can ever cause padding. The first address of the structure must be an integer multiple of the widest type in the structure; In addition, each member of the structure must start at an integer multiple of its own type size (it is important to note . If the int is allocated immediately, it will start at an odd byte boundary. ncdu: What's going on with this second size column? Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. CPUs with cache fetch memory in whole (aligned) cache-line chunks so the external bus only matters for uncached MMIO accesses. The memory will have these 8 byte units at address 0, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40 etc. Why do small African island nations perform better than African continental nations, considering democracy and human development? For example, if you have 1 char variable (1-byte) and 1 int variable (4-byte) in a struct, the compiler will pads 3 bytes between these two variables. The cryptic if statement now becomes very clear and intuitive. What is data alignment C? However, the story is a little different for member data in struct, union or class objects. For instance, a struct is aligned as its largest field. For STRD and LDRD, the specified address must be word-aligned. Is a collection of years plural or singular? Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Because 16-byte aligned address must be divisible by 16, the least significant digit in hex number should be 0 all the time. Not the answer you're looking for? What remains is the lower 4 bits of our memory address. Some compilers align data structures so that if you read an object using 4 bytes, its memory address is divisible by 4. Then operate on the 16-byte aligned buffer without the need to fixup leading or tail elements. Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow! The CCR.STKALIGN bit indicates whether, as part of an exception entry, the processor aligns the SP to 4 bytes, or to 8 bytes. What is the difference between #include and #include "filename"? Please click the verification link in your email. 7. (Linux kernel uses and operation too fyi). Is there a proper earth ground point in this switch box? 5 Reasons to Update Your Business Operations, Get the Best Sleep Ever in 5 Simple Steps, How to Pack for Your Next Trip Somewhere Cold, Manage Your Money More Efficiently in 5 Steps, Ranking the 5 Most Spectacular NFL Stadiums in 2023. If the address is 16 byte aligned, these must be zero. This is a ~50x improvement over ICAP, but not as good as a 4-byte check code. Why do small African island nations perform better than African continental nations, considering democracy and human development? This example source includes MS VisualStudio project file and source code for printing out the addresses of structure member alignment and data alignment for SSE. I think it is related to the quality of vectorization and I definitely need to make sure the malloc function of icc also supports the alignment. Ok, that seems to work. Yes, I can. It is IMPLEMENTATION DEFINED whether this bit is: - RW, in which case its reset value is IMPLEMENTATION DEFINED. Say you have this memory range and read 4 bytes: More on the matter in Documentation/unaligned-memory-access.txt. Data alignment means that the address of a data can be evenly divisible by 1, 2, 4, or 8. Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. Staging Ground Beta 1 Recap, and Reviewers needed for Beta 2. Im not sure about the meaning of unaligned address. If you don't want that, I'd still think hard about using the standard version in most of your code, and just write a small implementation of it for your own use until you update to a compiler that implements the standard. But you have to define the number of bytes per word. 92 being unaligned. I am aware that address should be multiple of 8 in order for 64 bit aligned, so how to make it 64 bit aligned and what are the different ways possible to do this? What does alignment means in .comm directives? Only think of doing anything else if you want to write code now that will (hopefully) work on compilers you're not testing on. Be aware of using custom struct member alignment. An alignment requirement of 1 would mean essentially no alignment requirement. Sadly it's probably implemented in the, +1 Very nice (without any nasty compiler extensions). Is it plausible for constructed languages to be used to affect thought and control or mold people towards desired outcomes? Proudly powered by WordPress | Before the alignas keyword, people used tricks to finely control alignment. This allows us to use bitwise operations on the pointer itself. The following diagram illustrates how CPU accesses a 4-byte chuck of data with 4-byte memory access granularity. It means the lower three bits to be zero, in order to follow the alignment rule. Why are Suriname, Belize, and Guinea-Bissau classified as "Small Island Developing States"? In a food processor, pulse the graham crackers, white sugar, and melted butter until combined. It would allow you to access it in one memory read instead of two if it is not aligned. Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow! This implies that a misaligned access can require two reads from memory: If you ask for 8 bytes beginning at address 9, the CPU must fetch the 8 bytes beginning at address 8 as well as the 8 bytes beginning at address 16, then mask out the bytes you wanted.