# Fastest way to compute order of magnitude in x86 assembly

The task is simple: write assembly that computes the order of magnitude of an integer using as few clock cycles as possible.

• Order of magnitude is defined as log10, not log2.
• The range of valid input is 0 to 1012, inclusive. Behaviour for input outside that range is undefined.
• Values should be rounded down to the nearest integer, with the exception that given input 0 the output should be 0. (You can consider this to be the best representation of negative infinity that's possible in unsigned integers).
• Must be x86 assembly.
• The integer must be a runtime value, not a static/inline integer. So we don't know what it is at compile time.
• Assume that you have an integer loaded into a register already. (But include setting the value in the register in the answer for clarity).
• Can't call any external libraries or functions.
• Free to use any of the available instructions in the Intel docs.
• No C.
• Any of the ~7 Intel Core architectures are acceptable (listed on page 10). Ideally Nehalem (Intel Core i7).

The winning answer is one that uses the fewest clock cycles possible. That is, it can have the most operations per second. Approximate clock cycle summaries are here: http://www.agner.org/optimize/instruction_tables.pdf. Calculating clock cycles can happen after the answer is posted.

• Are 'FYL2X' and other FPU instructions allowed? – Digital Trauma Mar 3 '15 at 3:54
• Should the result be an integer? If so, how should it be rounded? – Digital Trauma Mar 3 '15 at 5:26
• So the input and output are both integers, yes ? But the input can be as great as 10^12, so it's too big for a 32 bit int. So do we assume 64 bit integer input ? – Paul R Mar 3 '15 at 7:15
• Is the winning criterion based on the maximum or average number of cycles? And if it's average, what is the distribution of inputs? – Runer112 Mar 3 '15 at 14:15
• Which processor is targeted? The linked document lists more than 20 different processes (AMD, Intel, others) and there is considerable variation in the latencies. – Digital Trauma Mar 3 '15 at 17:16

### 7 cycles, constant time

Here's a solution based on my answer to this SO Question. It uses BSR to count how many bits are needed to hold the number. It looks up how many decimal digits needed to represent the largest number that many bits can hold. Then it subtracts 1 if the actual number is less than the nearest power of 10 with that many digits.

    .intel_syntax noprefix
.globl  main
main:
mov rdi, 1000000000000              #;your value here
bsr rax, rdi
movzx   eax, BYTE PTR maxdigits[1+rax]
cmp rdi, QWORD PTR powers[0+eax*8]
sbb al, 0
ret
maxdigits:
.byte   0
.byte   0
.byte   0
.byte   0
.byte   1
.byte   1
.byte   1
.byte   2
.byte   2
.byte   2
.byte   3
.byte   3
.byte   3
.byte   3
.byte   4
.byte   4
.byte   4
.byte   5
.byte   5
.byte   5
.byte   6
.byte   6
.byte   6
.byte   6
.byte   7
.byte   7
.byte   7
.byte   8
.byte   8
.byte   8
.byte   9
.byte   9
.byte   9
.byte   9
.byte   10
.byte   10
.byte   10
.byte   11
.byte   11
.byte   11
.byte   12
powers:


Compiles on GCC 4.6.3 for ubuntu and returns the value in the exit code.

I'm not confident interpreting that cycles table for any modern processor, but using @DigitalTrauma's method, on the Nehalim processor, I get 7?

ins        uOps Latency
---        -    -
BSR r,r  : 1    3
MOVZX r,m: 1    -
CMP m,r/i: 1    1
SBB r,r/i: 2    2

• Oh - saw DigitalTrauma's after I started writing mine. Similar ideas. Using his counting methodology I think get 3,1,1,1=6 for BSR,MOV,CMP,SBB – AShelly Mar 3 '15 at 20:16
• Yep, I think yours beats mine. Just goes to show a) I'm not an assembly programmer and b) assembly is best left alone by us mere mortals ;-) – Digital Trauma Mar 3 '15 at 20:22
• The integer must be a runtime value, not a static/inline integer. So we don't know what it is at compile time. – cat Jun 28 '16 at 1:30
• right, and the next line says: "Assume that you have an integer loaded into a register already. (But include setting the value in the register in the answer for clarity)." Which is what I have done. – AShelly Jun 28 '16 at 1:43
• replace the movzx eax with mov al. The top 24 bits of eax will already be zero, so the zx is redundant (and it's expensive). – peter ferrie Nov 24 '17 at 17:16

# Best case 8 cycles, Worst case 12 cycles

Since it is not clear in the question, I am basing this off the Ivy Bridge latencies.

The approach here is to use the bsr (bit scan reverse) instruction as a poor-man's log2(). The result is used as an index into a jump table which contains entries for bits 0 to 42. I am assuming that given that operation on 64bit data is implicitly required, then use of the bsr instruction is OK.

In the best case inputs, the jumptable entry can map the bsr result directly to the magnitude. e.g. For inputs in the range 32-63, the bsr result will be 5, which is mapped to a magnitude of 1. In this case, the instruction path is:

Instruction    Latency

bsrq                 3
jmp                  2
movl                 1
jmp                  2

total                8


In the worst case inputs, the bsr result will map to two possible magnitudes, so the jumptable entry does one additional cmp to check if the input is > 10n. E.g. for inputs in the range 64-127, the bsr result will be 6. The corresponding jumptable entry then checks if the input > 100 and sets the output magnitude accordingly.

In addition for the worst case path, we have an additional mov instruction to load a 64bit immediate value for use in the cmp, so the worst case instruction path is:

Instruction    Latency

bsrq                 3
jmp                  2
movabsq              1
cmpq                 1
ja                   2
movl                 1
jmp                  2

total               12


Here is the code:

    /* Input is loaded in %rdi */
bsrq    %rdi, %rax
jmp *jumptable(,%rax,8)
.m0:
movl    $0, %ecx jmp .end .m0_1: cmpq$9, %rdi
ja  .m1
movl    $0, %ecx jmp .end .m1: movl$1, %ecx
jmp .end
.m1_2:
cmpq    $99, %rdi ja .m2 movl$1, %ecx
jmp .end
.m2:
movl    $2, %ecx jmp .end .m2_3: cmpq$999, %rdi
ja  .m3
movl    $2, %ecx jmp .end .m3: movl$3, %ecx
jmp .end
.m3_4:
cmpq    $9999, %rdi ja .m4 movl$3, %ecx
jmp .end
.m4:
movl    $4, %ecx jmp .end .m4_5: cmpq$99999, %rdi
ja  .m5
movl    $4, %ecx jmp .end .m5: movl$5, %ecx
jmp .end
.m5_6:
cmpq    $999999, %rdi ja .m6 movl$5, %ecx
jmp .end
.m6:
movl    $6, %ecx jmp .end .m6_7: cmpq$9999999, %rdi
ja  .m7
movl    $6, %ecx jmp .end .m7: movl$7, %ecx
jmp .end
.m7_8:
cmpq    $99999999, %rdi ja .m8 movl$7, %ecx
jmp .end
.m8:
movl    $8, %ecx jmp .end .m8_9: cmpq$999999999, %rdi
ja  .m9
movl    $8, %ecx jmp .end .m9: movl$9, %ecx
jmp .end
.m9_10:
movabsq $9999999999, %rax cmpq %rax, %rdi ja .m10 movl$9, %ecx
jmp .end
.m10:
movl    $10, %ecx jmp .end .m10_11: movabsq$99999999999, %rax
cmpq    %rax, %rdi
ja  .m11
movl    $10, %ecx jmp .end .m11: movl$11, %ecx
jmp .end
.m11_12:
movabsq $999999999999, %rax cmpq %rax, %rdi ja .m12 movl$11, %ecx
jmp .end
.m12:
movl    \$12, %ecx
jmp .end

jumptable:

.end:
/* output is given in %ecx */


This was mostly generated from gcc assembler output for proof-of-concept C code I wrote. Note the C code uses a computable goto to implement the jump table. It also uses the __builtin_clzll() gcc builtin, which compiles to the bsr instruction (plus an xor).

I considered several solutions before arriving at this one:

• FYL2X to calculate the natural log, then FMUL by the necessary constant. This would presumably win this if it was an [tag:instruction:golf] contest. But FYL2X has as latency of 90-106 for Ivy bridge.

• Hard-coded binary search. This may actually be competitive - I'll leave it to someone else to implement :).

• Complete lookup table of results. This I'm sure is theoretically fastest, but would require a 1TB lookup table - not practical yet - maybe in a few years if Moore's Law continues to hold.

• If necessary I can calculate an average latency for all allowed input. – Digital Trauma Mar 3 '15 at 19:54
• jmp and jcc don't have latency, only throughput costs. Branch-prediction + speculative execution mean control dependencies aren't part of data dependency chains. – Peter Cordes Mar 6 '19 at 22:37