Transaction abort processing

• US 9,811,337 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2016
• Issued: 11/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Greiner, Dan F., Jacobi, Christian, Slegel, Timothy J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Sisley
• Application Number:
  US15/086,473
• Publication Number:
  US 20160216968A1
• Time in Patent Office: 586 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3004 to perform operations on memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30087 Synchronisation or serialisation instructions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30098 Register arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30145 Instruction analysis, e.g. decoding, instruction word fields
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3834 Maintaining memory consistency
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3842 Speculative instruction execution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3858 Result writeback, i.e. updating the architectural state or memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3861 Recovery, e.g. branch miss-prediction, exception handling error detection or correction G06F11/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/466 Transaction processing

Abstract

A transaction executing within a computing environment ends prior to completion; i.e., execution is aborted. Pursuant to aborting execution, a hardware transactional execution CPU mode is exited, and one or more of the following is performed: restoring selected registers; committing nontransactional stores on abort; branching to a transaction abort program status word specified location; setting a condition code and/or abort code; and/or preserving diagnostic information.

Claims

1. A computer program product for facilitating processing in a computing environment, said computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising;

initiating, by a processor, execution of an outermost transaction via a transaction begin instruction, the outermost transaction causing the processor to enter transactional execution mode, the transaction begin instruction having a field that includes a general register save mask, the general register save mask including one or more indicators to specify which individually selected registers, if any, are to be saved at a beginning of transactional execution mode and restored on an abort;

aborting execution of a transaction of the transactional execution mode, the aborting terminating execution of the transaction prior to completion; and

based on aborting execution of the transaction, identifying one or more selected registers to be restored, the one or more selected registers being less than all of the registers used in transactional processing associated with the transaction, and the one or more selected registers being pre-specified by the general register save mask that is included in the field of the transaction begin instruction, wherein the general register save mask includes at least one indicator corresponding to at least one register, and wherein an indicator of the at least one indicator set to a first value indicates that one or more registers corresponding to that indicator are to be saved during the beginning of transactional execution mode and restored based on the abort of the transaction.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises restoring the one or more selected registers.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the one or more selected registers are indicated by an instruction initiating the transaction, or in an instruction initiating another transaction, the other transaction and the transaction being nested transactions.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises committing nontransactional stores based on the aborting.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises proceeding to a transaction abort program status word specified location to perform an action, based on the aborting.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the transaction comprises a constrained transaction, and wherein the transaction abort program status word specified location comprises a beginning of the constrained transaction.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the transaction comprises a nonconstrained transaction, and wherein the transaction abort program status word specified location comprises an instruction following a beginning of the nonconstrained transaction.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises setting a condition code based on aborting execution, the condition code to indicate whether re-execution of the transaction is recommended.

9. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein based on aborting execution providing an abort code, the abort code to indicate a cause for aborting execution.

10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises storing diagnostic information, based on aborting execution.

11. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the aborting is based on detection of a transactional conflict.

12. A computer system for facilitating processing in a computing environment, said computer system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor in communication with the memory, wherein the computer system is configured to perform a method, said method comprising;

initiating, by the processor, execution of an outermost transaction via a transaction begin instruction, the outermost transaction causing the processor to enter transactional execution mode, the transaction begin instruction having a field that includes a general register save mask, the general register save mask including one or more indicators to specify which individually selected registers, if any, are to be saved at a beginning of transactional execution mode and restored on an abort;

aborting execution of a transaction of the transactional execution mode, the aborting terminating execution of the transaction prior to completion; and

based on aborting execution of the transaction, identifying one or more selected registers to be restored, the one or more selected registers being less than all of the registers used in transactional processing associated with the transaction, and the one or more selected registers being pre-specified by the general register save mask that is included in the field of the transaction begin instruction, wherein the general register save mask includes at least one indicator corresponding to at least one register, and wherein an indicator of the at least one indicator set to a first value indicates that one or more registers corresponding to that indicator are to be saved during the beginning of transactional execution mode and restored based on the abort of the transaction.

13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises restoring the one or more selected registers.

14. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the one or more selected registers are indicated by an instruction initiating the transaction, or in an instruction initiating another transaction, the other transaction and the transaction being nested transactions.

15. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises setting a condition code based on aborting execution, the condition code to indicate whether re-execution of the transaction is recommended.

16. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises storing diagnostic information, based on aborting execution.

17. A computer-implemented method of facilitating processing in a computing environment, said computer-implemented method comprising:

initiating, by a processor, execution of an outermost transaction via a transaction begin instruction, the outermost transaction causing the processor to enter transactional execution mode, the transaction begin instruction having a field that includes a general register save mask, the general register save mask including one or more indicators to specify which individually selected registers, if any, are to be saved at a beginning of transactional execution mode and restored on an abort;

aborting execution of a transaction of the transactional execution mode, the aborting terminating execution of the transaction prior to completion; and

based on aborting execution of the transaction, identifying one or more selected registers to be restored, the one or more selected registers being less than all of the registers used in transactional processing associated with the transaction, and the one or more selected registers being pre-specified by the general register save mask that is included in the field of the transaction begin instruction, wherein the general register save mask includes at least one indicator corresponding to at least one register, and wherein an indicator of the at least one indicator set to a first value indicates that one or more registers corresponding to that indicator are to be saved during the beginning of transactional execution mode and restored based on the abort of the transaction.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising restoring the one or more selected registers.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein the one or more selected registers are indicated by an instruction initiating the transaction, or in an instruction initiating another transaction, the other transaction and the transaction being nested transactions.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising setting a condition code based on aborting execution, the condition code to indicate whether re-execution of the transaction is recommended.