[PATCH v1] stdlib: Add more room for reuse of random bits in arc4random_uniform
Noah Goldstein
goldstein.w.n@gmail.com
Tue Aug 2 13:28:25 GMT 2022
The shift optimization doesn't need to clear all `z` bits. Bias is
only introduced if shift count is less than the number of leading 1s.
I.e for n = 6, for `value & mask` to be greater than `n` the bits in
position 1/2 must be set so they must be set. But the bit in
position 0 can be 0/1 (is completely unrelated to the comparison)
so we can keep it for the next comparison only use a shift of 2.
This patch reduces the number of expected syscalls if `n` is not a
power_of_two - 1
---
stdlib/arc4random_uniform.c | 8 +++++++-
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/stdlib/arc4random_uniform.c b/stdlib/arc4random_uniform.c
index 5aa98d1c13..e5c9dd04cf 100644
--- a/stdlib/arc4random_uniform.c
+++ b/stdlib/arc4random_uniform.c
@@ -45,7 +45,13 @@ __arc4random_uniform (uint32_t n)
/* mask is the smallest power of 2 minus 1 number larger than n. */
int z = __builtin_clz (n);
uint32_t mask = ~UINT32_C(0) >> z;
- int bits = CHAR_BIT * sizeof (uint32_t) - z;
+ /* Amount of bits to shift out of value before retesting if `(value
+ & mask) < n`. We want this to be as small as possible to avoid
+ calling __arc4random (which has a syscall). The minimal value
+ without adding bias to the result is the number of leading 1s in `n`
+ starting at position `z`. popcount(n) is guaranteed to be as least
+ that large and is relatively fast. */
+ int bits = __builtin_popcount (n);
while (1)
{
--
2.34.1
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