Subject: [PATCH 12/17] mips: Add __attribute_const__ to ffs()-family implementations

From: Kees Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2025 09:44:08 -0700

While tracking down a problem where constant expressions used by
BUILD_BUG_ON() suddenly stopped working[1], we found that an added static
initializer was convincing the compiler that it couldn't track the state
of the prior statically initialized value. Tracing this down found that
ffs() was used in the initializer macro, but since it wasn't marked with
__attribute__const__, the compiler had to assume the function might
change variable states as a side-effect (which is not true for ffs(),
which provides deterministic math results).

Add missing __attribute_const__ annotations to MIPS's implementations of
ffs(), __ffs(), fls(), and __fls() functions. These are pure mathematical
functions that always return the same result for the same input with no
side effects, making them eligible for compiler optimization.

Build tested ARCH=mips defconfig with GCC mipsel-linux-gnu 14.2.0.

Link: https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/364 [1]
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <[email-masked]>
---
 arch/mips/include/asm/bitops.h | 8 ++++----
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/mips/include/asm/bitops.h b/arch/mips/include/asm/bitops.h
index 89f73d1a4ea4..42f88452c920 100644
--- a/arch/mips/include/asm/bitops.h
+++ b/arch/mips/include/asm/bitops.h
@@ -327,7 +327,7 @@ static inline void __clear_bit_unlock(unsigned long nr, volatile unsigned long *
  * Return the bit position (0..63) of the most significant 1 bit in a word
  * Returns -1 if no 1 bit exists
  */
-static __always_inline unsigned long __fls(unsigned long word)
+static __always_inline __attribute_const__ unsigned long __fls(unsigned long word)
 {
 	int num;
 
@@ -393,7 +393,7 @@ static __always_inline unsigned long __fls(unsigned long word)
  * Returns 0..SZLONG-1
  * Undefined if no bit exists, so code should check against 0 first.
  */
-static __always_inline unsigned long __ffs(unsigned long word)
+static __always_inline __attribute_const__ unsigned long __ffs(unsigned long word)
 {
 	return __fls(word & -word);
 }
@@ -405,7 +405,7 @@ static __always_inline unsigned long __ffs(unsigned long word)
  * This is defined the same way as ffs.
  * Note fls(0) = 0, fls(1) = 1, fls(0x80000000) = 32.
  */
-static inline int fls(unsigned int x)
+static inline __attribute_const__ int fls(unsigned int x)
 {
 	int r;
 
@@ -458,7 +458,7 @@ static inline int fls(unsigned int x)
  * the libc and compiler builtin ffs routines, therefore
  * differs in spirit from the below ffz (man ffs).
  */
-static inline int ffs(int word)
+static inline __attribute_const__ int ffs(int word)
 {
 	if (!word)
 		return 0;
-- 
2.34.1