[RFC patch 3/5] RISC-V: Save and restore VCSR when doing user context switch

[Vincent Chen]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 8:13 AM Andrew Waterman <andrew@sifive.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 4:48 PM Joseph Myers <joseph@codesourcery.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 13 Sep 2021, Vincent Chen wrote:
> >
> > > According to the RISC-V V extension specification, all vector registers
> > > except VCSR are caller-saved registers. The VCSR (vxrm + vxsat) has thread
> > > storage duration. Therefore, only VCSR needs to be added to the user
> > > context operation.
> >
> > What is the intended programming model for using vxrm and vxsat?
> >
> > The expectation for the floating-point rounding modes and flags is that
> > they work just like user-defined _Thread_local variables - that is, they
> > are *not* saved or restored by setjmp/longjmp or *context functions.  It
> > would be natural to expect fixed-point rounding modes and flags to work
> > similarly.
>
> Indeed, Joseph, vxsat and vxrm should be treated analogously to the FP
> flags and rounding mode, respectively.
>

OK, I understood. As Andrew mentioned, the vxsat and vxrm should be
treated analogously to the FP flags and rounding mode. Therefore, the
VCSR should not be saved and restored in *context functions. I think
this patch can be dropped in the next version patch. Thank Joseph and
Andrew for the kind reply.

Thanks,
Vincent
> >
> > --
> > Joseph S. Myers
> > joseph@codesourcery.com