[U-Boot] [PATCH] Add 'sf update' command to do smart SPI flash update

[Mike Frysinger]

On Friday, August 19, 2011 14:07:16 Simon Glass wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > On Friday, August 19, 2011 09:47:04 Simon Glass wrote:
> >> +static int spi_flash_update(struct spi_flash *flash, u32 offset,
> >> +             size_t len, const char *buf)
> >> +{
> >> +     const char *oper;
> > 
> > i wonder if there'd be any code size difference if we had:
> >        static const char * const opers[] = {
> >                "malloc",
> >                "read",
> >                ...
> >        };
> >        const char *oper;
> >        ...
> >                oper = 0;
> >        ...
> >                ++oper;
> >        ...
> >                ++oper;
> >        ...
> >        printf("...%s...", ..., opers[oper]);
> > 
> > i hope it'd be slightly smaller as you would be loading up a small int in
> > the for loop and not an entire pointer ...
> 
> It's exactly the same code/data size on ARM, but perhaps smaller on a
> different architecture. I like that approach anyway so will change it.

i know on Blackfin at least, doing something like:
	i = 0;
will expand into a 16bit insn:
	R0 = 0;
and the follow up:
	++i;
will be another 16bit insn:
	R0 += 1;

while something like:
	void *foo = "foo";
will expand into two 32bit insns:
	P0.L = _some_label_for_string;
	P0.H = _some_label_for_string;
and since there will be no known relationship between the diff strings at the 
C -> asm stage (since string placement is done by the linker), each string 
load will be a sep pointer load.

i imagine that the normal ARM insn set sucks at this kind of code density, but 
i'd think their reworks (like thumb and friends) would be much better.

do we leverage thumb at all in ARM u-boot ?  or am i crazy/stupid for thinking 
this could possibly be a good thing ?
-mike
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