[fpc-devel] threadvar implementation

[Michael Schnell]

  On 08/04/2010 09:19 PM, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
> Michael Schnell schrieb:
>
>> Look at the document I mentioned: a "linear address" is 48 bits, 
>> while a pointer is only 32 bits (the "Offset") .
>
> Read section 3.3 ff. and 3.8.
>
> Linear addresses are always 32 bit, and only a few server-type CPUs 
> had *physical* addresses of 36 bits, using PAE or PSE.
>
> DoDi
>
Figure 3-5 in the document ( 
http://flint.cs.yale.edu/cs422/doc/24547212.pdf ) clearly states that 
the "Logical Address" is 48 Bits. This is what the "Linear address" is 
calculated from.

During each instruction execution first a 48 Bit "Logical Address" is 
calculated and the hardware constructs a 32 bit logical address from same.

So to understand (or define) what an ASM instruction actually does, it's 
necessary to look at the "Logical Address" it deals with. Same is always 
constructed using segment registers and therefor influenced by the flags 
that might be set by a preceding "segment prefix" instruction.

An exception seems to be the the "LEA" instruction that just ignores the 
"Seg. Selector" part (upper 16 bits) of the Logical Address and just 
works with the "Offset" part  (lower 32 bits) of the Logical Address, 
thus assuming the same "Seg. Selector" (whichever !) as well for the 
target as for the source.

The "Physical Address" is independent of segment registers and comes 
into play later in the process, introduced by the MMU, which in fact is 
"outside" of the CPU core.

-Michael