Reverse Engineering for Beginners

(avery) #1

CHAPTER 17. FLOATING-POINT UNIT CHAPTER 17. FLOATING-POINT UNIT


.word 1374389535 ; 3.14
.word 1074339512
.LC26:
.word 1717986918 ; 4.1
.word 1074816614


17.5.5 ARM64: Non-optimizing GCC (Linaro) 4.9


Listing 17.5: Non-optimizing GCC (Linaro) 4.9

f:
sub sp, sp, #16
str d0, [sp,8] ; save "a" in Register Save Area
str d1, [sp] ; save "b" in Register Save Area
ldr x1, [sp,8]
; X1 = a
ldr x0, .LC25
; X0 = 3.14
fmov d0, x1
fmov d1, x0
; D0 = a, D1 = 3.14
fdiv d0, d0, d1
; D0 = D0/D1 = a/3.14


fmov x1, d0
; X1 = a/3.14
ldr x2, [sp]
; X2 = b
ldr x0, .LC26
; X0 = 4.1
fmov d0, x2
; D0 = b
fmov d1, x0
; D1 = 4.1
fmul d0, d0, d1
; D0 = D0D1 = b4.1


fmov x0, d0
; X0 = D0 = b4.1
fmov d0, x1
; D0 = a/3.14
fmov d1, x0
; D1 = X0 = b
4.1
fadd d0, d0, d1
; D0 = D0+D1 = a/3.14 + b*4.1


fmov x0, d0 ; \ redundant code
fmov d0, x0 ; /
add sp, sp, 16
ret
.LC25:
.word 1374389535 ; 3.14
.word 1074339512
.LC26:
.word 1717986918 ; 4.1
.word 1074816614


Non-optimizing GCC is more verbose. There is a lot of unnecessary value shuffling, including some clearly redundant code
(the last twoFMOVinstructions). Probably, GCC 4.9 is not yet good in generating ARM64 code. What is worth noting is that
ARM64 has 64-bit registers, and the D-registers are 64-bit ones as well. So the compiler is free to save values of typedouble
inGPRs instead of the local stack. This isn’t possible on 32-bit CPUs.


And again, as an exercise, you can try to optimize this function manually, without introducing new instructions likeFMADD.

Free download pdf