This adds a system call on 64-bit platforms for switching between
little-endian and big-endian modes that is much faster than doing a
prctl call. This system call is handled as a special case right at
the start of the system call entry code, and because it is a special
case, it uses a system call number which is out of the range of
normal system calls, namely 0x1ebe.
Measurements with lmbench on a 4.2GHz POWER6 showed no measurable
change in the speed of normal system calls with this patch.
Switching endianness with this new system call takes around 60ns on a
4.2GHz POWER6, compared with around 300ns to switch endian mode with a
prctl. This can provide a significant performance advantage for
emulators for little-endian architectures that want to switch between
big-endian and little-endian mode frequently, e.g. because they are
generating instructions sequences on the fly and they want to run
those sequences in little-endian mode.
The other thing about this system call is that it doesn't clobber as
many registers as a normal system call. It only clobbers r12.
Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
745a14cc26