[ACTIVITY] Weekly report for week 29

[Thomas Preudhomme]

=== Work done during this 4.5day week ===

* TCWG-1062 (MCF branch prediction overload due to too many
consecutive branches):
+ rework reproduction steps around an existing script that does all
the steps of downloading and installing the benchmark and run it under
perf
+ gather what was observed that triggered the ticket I'm working on
-> narrowed down to 2/3 functions to be on the lookout
+ benchmark GCC and LLVM and compare the profile for these functions
-> bingo, I can see a branch issue
+ try to get assembly files to add nop and test performance again
-> code in assembly file is different from output of perf report,
need to rerun benchmark again to make sure I didn't fail there (sigh)
* TCWG-1379 / GCC PR85434 / CVE-2018-12886: upstream review
+ reply to upstream review comments
+ start to test tightening predicate for new instruction pattern
-> weird build error when trying to bootstrap unrelated to my
changes (missing header issues in stage 1 libgcc build)
* TCWG-1337 / LLVM PR34170:
+ respond to upstream review comments
* Continue work on TCWG-1428 (Support arithmetic on FileCheck regex variable):
+ hammer out syntax based on upstream feedback about what would be
desirable as FileCheck expressions
* Misc:
+ Linaro LLVM buildbot babysitting
+ Arm internal presentation
* Half a day off on Friday



=== Plan for week 30 ===

* TCWG-1428 (Support arithmetic on FileCheck regex variable): address comments
+ rework patch once syntax is agreed
* TCWG-1062 (MCF branch prediction overload due to too many
consecutive branches):
+ find out why assembly file from -save-temps is different from perf
report output
+ check performance when adding padding
+ start to investigate a solution