incorrectly rounded square root

Brian Inglis Brian.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca
Sat Jun 5 13:25:27 GMT 2021


Great catch, analysis, and fix!
Now sqrtf rounds correctly on Cygwin!

$ ./test-sqrtf-round
  Direction    CW   MX          Input Hex
                           Input Decimal         Sqrt Hex
         Sqrt Decimal
RNDN   0   0 37f 1f80: 0x1.ff07fe00p+127 
339638501828070541185766401939693633536 0x1.ff83f000p+63 
18429283829060468736
RNDD   1   1 77f 3f80: 0x1.ff07fe00p+127 
339638501828070541185766401939693633536 0x1.ff83ee00p+63 
18429282729548840960
RNDU   2   2 b7f 5f80: 0x1.ff07fe00p+127 
339638501828070541185766401939693633536 0x1.ff83f000p+63 
18429283829060468736
RNDZ   3   3 f7f 7f80: 0x1.ff07fe00p+127 
339638501828070541185766401939693633536 0x1.ff83ee00p+63 
18429282729548840960

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.


On 2021-06-04 12:44, Jeff Johnston wrote:
> 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.

> On Fri, Jun 4, 2021 at 3:14 AM Paul Zimmermann wrote:

>>> 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?


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