I have a function that I would like to provide an assembly implementation for
on amd64 architecture. For the sake of discussion let's just suppose it's an
Add function, but it's actually more complicated than this. I have the
assembly version working but my question concerns getting the godoc to display
correctly. I have a feeling this is currenty impossible, but I wanted to seek
advice.
Some more details:
- The assembly implementation of this function contains only a few instructions. In particular, the mere cost of calling the function is a significant part of the entire cost.
- It makes use of special instructions (
BMI2) therefore can only be used following aCPUIDcapability check.
The implementation is structured like this gist. At a high level:
- In the generic (non-
amd64case) the function is defined by delegating toaddGeneric. - In the
amd64case the function is actually a variable, initially set toaddGenericbut replaced byaddAsmin theinitfunction if acpuidcheck passes.
This approach works. However the godoc output is crappy because in the
amd64 case the function is actually a variable. Note godoc appears to be
picking up the same build tags as the machine it's running on. I'm not sure
what godoc.org would do.
Alternatives considered:
- The
Addfunction delegates toaddImpl. Then we pull some similar trick to replaceaddImplin theamd64case. The problem with this is (in my experiments) Go doesn't seem to be able to inline the call, and the assembly is now wrapped in two function calls. Since the assembly is so small already this has a noticable impact on performance. - In the
amd64case we define a plain functionAddthat has theuseAsmcheck inside it, and calls one ofaddGenericandaddAsmdepending on the result. This would have an even worse impact on performance.
So I guess the questions are:
- Is there a better way to structure the code to achieve the performance I want, and have it appear properly in documentation.
- If there is no alternative, is there some other way to "trick" godoc?