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Date:      Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:14:11 -0700
From:      Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com>
To:        Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Cc:        Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com>, Daniel Eischen <eischen@pcnet1.pcnet.com>, Dan Eischen <eischen@vigrid.com>, Peter Wemm <peter@wemm.org>, Archie Cobbs <archie@dellroad.org>, Alfred Perlstein <bright@mu.org>, <arch@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Request for review: getcontext, setcontext, etc
Message-ID:  <15420.34931.201187.449640@caddis.yogotech.com>
In-Reply-To: <20020109192223.H7698-100000@gamplex.bde.org>
References:  <15419.13318.535192.666599@caddis.yogotech.com> <20020109192223.H7698-100000@gamplex.bde.org>

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> > > 	fldz
> > > 	fld1
> > > 	fdiv %st,%st(1)		# 1.0 / 0.0, exception on this instruction
> > > 				# but no trap yet
> > > 	fnstsw %ax		# no trap yet since this is control instruction
> > > 	fnclex			# forget about exception; no trap at all since
> > > 				# we did only control instructions after the
> > > 				# one that cause the exception
> > >
> > > > > It is especially wrong for fnsave in context switches because it
> > > > > causes the signals in the context of the context switcher instead of
> > > > > in the context of the thread that caused the exception.
> > > >
> > > > Which signals are you refering to?
> > >
> > > The SIGFPE that you get for `wait'.
> >
> > So, when is SIGFPE going to be triggered above, since it appears to be
> > masked by using fnstw vs. fstw.
> 
> When the above is interrupted by a signal, and the signal handler wants
> to switch to another thread, and erroneously saves the context using
> fsave instead of fnsave.

Assuming I used followed things up with 'fnsave', will the exception be
triggered by a frstor, and thus the exception will be correctly reported
by the thread triggering the excpetion?

> > In other words, how do I actually make sure that I receive the
> > exception/trapf for FP errors?
> 
> Let the thread (appear to) continue normally by never triggering a trap
> for the exception if you switch its context.  Using fnsave/frstor
> accomplishes this, except on broken (old) systems where fnsave traps anyway.

Is this broken hardware systems, or broken software systems?  (In other
words, does "broken (old)" imply a bug in hardware or software?)

> The kernel has lots of complications to minimise the damage from this.
> It doesn't seem to be possible to prevent the spurious trap as require
> to not break instruction sequences like the above, but it is necessary
> to make the trap appear to occur in user context and not in kernel
> context where it actually occurs.

Great.


Nate

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