sched_submit_work() is considered to be a hot path. The preempt_disable() instruction is a compiler barrier and forces the compiler to load task_struct::flags for the second comparison. By using a local variable, the compiler can load the value once and keep it in a register for the second comparison.
Verified on x86-64 with gcc-10. Signed-off-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <[email protected]> --- Optimisation at molecule level, part two. Drop this in case this branch isn't consider *that* hot and the cache hot value can be loaded again. But then the value is around and be speculated early on :) kernel/sched/core.c | 7 +++++-- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/kernel/sched/core.c b/kernel/sched/core.c index 8471a0f7eb322..c36dc1ae58beb 100644 --- a/kernel/sched/core.c +++ b/kernel/sched/core.c @@ -4551,9 +4551,12 @@ void __noreturn do_task_dead(void) static inline void sched_submit_work(struct task_struct *tsk) { + unsigned int task_flags; + if (!tsk->state) return; + task_flags = tsk->flags; /* * If a worker went to sleep, notify and ask workqueue whether * it wants to wake up a task to maintain concurrency. @@ -4562,9 +4565,9 @@ static inline void sched_submit_work(struct task_struct *tsk) * in the possible wakeup of a kworker and because wq_worker_sleeping() * requires it. */ - if (tsk->flags & (PF_WQ_WORKER | PF_IO_WORKER)) { + if (task_flags & (PF_WQ_WORKER | PF_IO_WORKER)) { preempt_disable(); - if (tsk->flags & PF_WQ_WORKER) + if (task_flags & PF_WQ_WORKER) wq_worker_sleeping(tsk); else io_wq_worker_sleeping(tsk); -- 2.28.0
