Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/9] bitfield: add FIELD_GET_SIGNED()

From: David Laight <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2026 20:43:55 +0100

On Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:36:12 -0400
Yury Norov <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The bitfields are designed in assumption that fields contain unsigned
> integer values, thus extracting the values from the field implies
> zero-extending.
> 
> Some drivers need to sign-extend their fields, and currently do it like:
> 
> 	dc_re += sign_extend32(FIELD_GET(0xfff000, tmp), 11);
> 	dc_im += sign_extend32(FIELD_GET(0xfff, tmp), 11);
> 
> It's error-prone because it relies on user to provide the correct
> index of the most significant bit and proper 32 vs 64 function flavor.
> 
> Thus, introduce a FIELD_GET_SIGNED() macro, which is the more
> convenient and compiles (on x86_64) to just a couple instructions:
> shl and sar.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Yury Norov <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  include/linux/bitfield.h | 16 ++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/include/linux/bitfield.h b/include/linux/bitfield.h
> index 54aeeef1f0ec..35ef63972810 100644
> --- a/include/linux/bitfield.h
> +++ b/include/linux/bitfield.h
> @@ -178,6 +178,22 @@
>  		__FIELD_GET(_mask, _reg, "FIELD_GET: ");		\
>  	})
>  
> +/**
> + * FIELD_GET_SIGNED() - extract a signed bitfield element
> + * @mask: shifted mask defining the field's length and position
> + * @reg:  value of entire bitfield
> + *
> + * Returns the sign-extended field specified by @_mask from the
> + * bitfield passed in as @_reg by masking and shifting it down.
> + */
> +#define FIELD_GET_SIGNED(mask, reg)					\
> +	({								\
> +		__BF_FIELD_CHECK(mask, reg, 0U, "FIELD_GET_SIGNED: ");	\
> +		 ((__signed_scalar_typeof(mask))((long long)(reg) <<	\
> +		 __builtin_clzll(mask) >> (__builtin_clzll(mask) +	\
> +						__builtin_ctzll(mask))));\

Have you looked at what that generates on a typical 32bit architecture?

It really a bad idea to use __signed_scalar_typeof() on anything that isn't
a simple variable.
The bloat from all this when 'mask' is an expansion of GENMASK() is horrid.
Indeed both signed_scalar_typeof() and unsigned_scalar_typeof() should
really not be used - there are generally much better ways.

In this case you can just write:
	({
		auto _mask = mask;
		unsigned int __sl = __builtin_clzll(_mask);
		unsigned int __sr = __sl + __builtin_ctzll(_mask);
		__builtin_chose_expr(sizeof(_mask) <= 4,
			(int)(reg) << __sl - 32 >> __sr - 32,
			((long long)(reg) << __sl >> __sr)
	})
and let the compiler do any more integer promotions (etc).

I'm also not convinced that the checks __BF_FIELD_CHECK() does
on 'reg' are in any sense worth the effort.

I have tried some simpler alternatives, eg:
	!__builtin_constant_p(reg) && statically_true((reg & mask) == 0)
however that throws up some false positives due to some of weird ways
people have used FIELD_GET() where it is nothing like the simplest
(or most obvious) way to do things.
That might have been the code that split a 32bit value into bytes
in a printf with:
	FIELD_GET(GENMASK(7, 0), val), FIELD_GET(GENMASK(15, 8), val),
	FIELD_GET(GENMASK(23, 16), val), FIELD_GET(GENMASK(31, 24), val),

	David

> +	})
> +
>  /**
>   * FIELD_MODIFY() - modify a bitfield element
>   * @_mask: shifted mask defining the field's length and position