RE: [PATCH v2 4/8] minmax: Simplify signedness check

[David Laight <David.Laight@ACULAB.COM>]

From: Linus Torvalds
> Sent: 28 July 2024 17:57
> 
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 at 07:21, David Laight <David.Laight@aculab.com> wrote:
> >
> > +/* Allow if both x and y are valid for either signed or unsigned compares. */
> > +#define __types_ok(x, y)                               \
> > +       ((__is_ok_signed(x) && __is_ok_signed(y)) ||    \
> > +        (__is_ok_unsigned(x) && __is_ok_unsigned(y)))
> 
> This seems horrendous, exactly because it expands both x and y twice.
> And the "expand multiple times" was really the fundamental problem.

This version is better than the previous one ;-)

> Why not just change the model to say it's a bitmask of "signedness
> bits", the bits are "signed ok" and "unsigned ok", and turn it into
> 
>   /* Signedness matches? */
>   #define __types_ok(x, y) \
>      (__signedness_bits(x) & __signedness_bits(y))

Something like that might work, but it would take some effort to get right.

It would be better to remove the 'low hanging fruit' of min(pointer_type)
and the places where a constant is needed first.
Both those require extra expansions and tend to make it all that much harder.

> and __signedness_ok() simply does something like "1 if unsigned type,
> 2 if signed type, 3 if signed positive integer".
> 
> Something like (very very handwavy, very very untested):
> 
>    __builtin_choose_expr(is_signed_type(typeof(x)),
>         2+__if_constexpr(x,(x)>0,0),
>         1)

You'd want to test '(x) >= 0' and the compiler is going to bleat
(with -Wall) if (x) is an unsigned type - even though the code isn't used.
Neither __builtin_choose_expr() or _Generic() help with that.
Unless you need the types to differ ?: is just as good.

> Actually, I think that "__if_constexpr()" could very well be "if known
> positive value", ie 'x' itself doesn't have to be constant, but "x>0"
> has to be a constant (the difference being that the compiler may be
> able to tell that some variable is always positive, even if it's a
> variable):
> 
>   #define statically_true(x) __builtin_constant_p((x),(x),0)
>   #define is_positive_value(x) statically_true((x)>=0)

I think that test could be done on __x (ie the local copy).
But then you can't use static_assert() and get a sane error message.
(But don't look at what clang outputs...)

> and then use
> 
>    __builtin_choose_expr(is_signed_type(typeof(x)),
>         2+is_positive_value(x), 1)
> 
> and yes, I realize I count zero as a positive value, but writing out
> "nonnegative()" is annoying and we never care.

I got annoyed earlier :-)
> 
> I guess we could say "is_unsigned_value()"?

	David

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