incorrectly rounded square root

Jeff Johnston jjohnstn@redhat.com
Fri Jun 4 18:44:24 GMT 2021


Ok, I now know exactly what is happening.

The compiler is optimizing out the rounding check in ef_sqrt.c, probably
due to the operation using two constants.

86 ix += (m <<23);
(gdb) list
81 else
82    q += (q&1);

When I debug, it always does the else at line 81 without performing the
one-tiny operation.  The difference in the mxcsr
register is the PE bit which I believe gets set when you do the one-tiny
operation.  Since we aren't doing it, it never gets
set on and the difference of 0x20 in the mxcsr register is explained.

By making the constants volatile, I am able to get the code working as it
should.  I have pushed a patch for this.

-- Jeff J.

On Fri, Jun 4, 2021 at 3:14 AM Paul Zimmermann <Paul.Zimmermann@inria.fr>
wrote:

>        Hi Jeff,
>
> > I figured the values were off when I had to hard-code them in my own
> > test_sqrt.c but forgot to include that info in my note.
> >
> > Now, that said, using the code I attached earlier, I am seeing the exact
> > values you are quoting above for glibc for the mxcsr register and the
> round
> > is working.  Have your
> > tried running that code?
>
> yes it works as expected, but it doesn't work with Newlib's fenv.h and
> libm.a
> (see below).
>
> > The mxcsr values you are seeing that are different are not due to the
> > fesetround code.  The code is shifting the round value 13 bits
> > and for 3, that ends up being 0x6000.  It is masking mxcsr with
> 0xffff9fff
> > first so when you start with 0x1fxx and end up with 0x7fxx, the code is
> > doing what is supposed to do.
> > The difference in values above is 0x20 (e.g. 0x7fa0 vs 0x7f80) which is a
> > bit in the last 2 hex digits which isn't touched by the code logic.
>
> here is how to reproduce the issue:
>
> tar xf newlib-4.1.0.tar.gz
> cd newlib-4.1.0
> mkdir build
> cd build
> ../configure --prefix=/tmp --disable-multilib --target=x86_64
> make -j4
> make install
>
> $ cat test_sqrt_2.c
> #include <stdio.h>
> #include <math.h>
> #include <fenv.h>
>
> #ifdef NEWLIB
> /* RedHat's libm claims:
>    undefined reference to `__errno' in j1f/y1f */
> int errno;
> int* __errno () { return &errno; }
> #endif
>
> int main()
> {
>   int rnd[4] = { FE_TONEAREST, FE_TOWARDZERO, FE_UPWARD, FE_DOWNWARD };
>   char Rnd[4] = "NZUD";
>   float x = 0x1.ff07fep+127f;
>   float y;
>   for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
>   {
>     unsigned short cw;
>     unsigned int mxcsr = 0;
>     fesetround (rnd[i]);
>     __asm__ volatile ("fnstcw %0" : "=m" (cw) : );
>     __asm__ volatile ("stmxcsr %0" : "=m" (mxcsr) : );
>     y = sqrtf (x);
>     printf ("RND%c: %a cw=%u mxcsr=%u\n", Rnd[i], y, cw, mxcsr);
>   }
> }
>
> With GNU libc:
> $ gcc -fno-builtin test_sqrt_2.c -lm
> $ ./a.out
> RNDN: 0x1.ff83fp+63 cw=895 mxcsr=8064
> RNDZ: 0x1.ff83eep+63 cw=3967 mxcsr=32672
> RNDU: 0x1.ff83fp+63 cw=2943 mxcsr=24480
> RNDD: 0x1.ff83eep+63 cw=1919 mxcsr=16288
>
> With Newlib:
> $ gcc -I/tmp/x86_64/include -DNEWLIB -fno-builtin test_sqrt_2.c /tmp/libm.a
> $ ./a.out
> RNDN: 0x1.ff83fp+63 cw=895 mxcsr=8064
> RNDZ: 0x1.ff83fp+63 cw=3967 mxcsr=32640
> RNDU: 0x1.ff83fp+63 cw=2943 mxcsr=24448
> RNDD: 0x1.ff83fp+63 cw=1919 mxcsr=16256
>
> Can you reproduce that on x86_64 Linux?
>
> Paul
>
>


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