[fpc-devel] The new XMM intrinsics

[Florian Klämpfl]

Am 16.01.20 um 23:22 schrieb J. Gareth Moreton:
> Hey everyone,
> 
> Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic with this, but must we abide by C/C++ 
> standards and go by the name __m128 etc. for the 128-bit data type? 

They can be added additionally. After some thinking, I came to the 
conclusion we should first go with the same naming C uses (as we do in 
every library header meanwhile), on top of this some more pascalish way 
can be added.

> Being as how Pascal tended to go for more readable and BASIC-inspired 
> names like Integer and Single, might it be better to name them TM128 
> instead?  If not that, then is it possible to add a union-like record 
> type to the System unit or the inc files that contain all of the 
> intrinsics?

The point is: only these types enable the compiler to use the right mov 
instructions. Using a record means there is no rule which mov 
instructions (movdqa, movabs, movapd etc.) should be used.
> 
> My vectorcall tests (e.g. tests\test\cg\tvectorcall1.pp) have something 
> like this:
> 
> {$PUSH}
> {$CODEALIGN RECORDMIN=16}
> {$PACKRECORDS C}
> type
>    TM128 = record
>      case Byte of
>        0: (M128_F32: array[0..3] of Single);
>        1: (M128_F64: array[0..1] of Double);
>    end;
> {$POP}
> 
> Granted, given that __m128 will be automatically aligned, all of the 
> codealign directives may not be necessary - for example:
> 
> type
>    TM128 = record
>      case Byte of
>        0: (M128_F32: array[0..3] of Single);
>        2: (M128_F64: array[0..1] of Double);
>        3: (M128_Internal: __m128);
>    end;
> 
> The main thing I'm thinking about is that it's actually rather difficult 
> to modify the elements of a variable of type __m128 directly in C/C++ 
> because of the type being opaque and difficult to typecast sometimes 
> (some compilers will treat it as an array, others will treat it as a 
> record type like the above (Visual C++ does this), while others may not 
> allow access to its elements at all).  Often, I might want to map a 
> 4-component vector with Single-type fields x, y, z and w to an aligned 
> __m128 type, or Double-type fields Re and Im when dealing with complex 
> numbers. That way, I can read from and write to them outside of 
> intrinsic calls.
> 
> I suppose I'm suggesting we introduce something more usable than what C 
> has so people can actually use intrinsics more easily.
> 
> Gareth aka. Kit
> 
> _______________________________________________
> fpc-devel maillist  -  fpc-devel at lists.freepascal.org
> https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel