[fpc-devel] Is there a way to make Register Allocation inside of Interrupt Service Routines more efficient when using inline-assembler?

[Jonas Maebe]

Michael Ring wrote on Sat, 13 Aug 2016:

> I am trying to bring interrupt handling routine size down (and speed  
> up) for mipsel-embedded target.
>
> I need to use inline assembler routines like this one
>
> procedure TSystemCore.setCoreTimerComp(value : longWord); assembler;  
> nostackframe;
> asm
>   mtc0 $a1,$11,0
> end ['a1'];

Mentioning changed registers at the end of a pure assembler routine  
has no effect. The compiler normally prints a warning about this. The  
set of changed registers by a routine always only depends on its  
calling convention. On most platforms we only support the official  
ABI's calling convention, which is also the default.

> inside of the interrupt handler, but as soon as I include the call  
> to this procedure the number of registers that get saved explodes.  
> When I only need to modify some peripheral I usually get away with  
> only $v0 and $v1 registers getting saved, but with asm routine  
> included all registers get saved.

If the ABI default calling convention states that a routine may change  
all registers, that is to be expected.

> Same is true if I put the asm block directly inside of the interrupt handler.

In that case, the list of changed registers should be taken into  
account. OTOH, using an inline assembler blocks disables the use the  
use of register variables for that routine by the compiler, but that  
should result in less registers getting saved rather than more.


Jonas