atomic operations in user space

Hi,

On the PPC platform, can I use the atomic operations
defined in the kernel, e.g. atomic_add(),
atomic_dec(), etc. in the user space programs? 

I compiled the following program:

#include <asm-ppc/atomic.h>

int main()
{
	atomic_t atom;

	atomic_add(1, &atom);
	return (0);
}

I am able to compile it and the atomic_add seems to be
translated into the correct instructions. Can anybody
please confirm? Thanks.

Regards,

Terry Liang

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Am Tuesday 22 August 2006 22:50 schrieb Xupei Liang:

#include <asm-ppc/atomic.h>

int main()
{
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0atomic_t atom;

=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0atomic_add(1, &atom);
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0return (0);
}

I am able to compile it and the atomic_add seems to be
translated into the correct instructions. Can anybody
please confirm? Thanks.

No, you can't do that, the kernel headers are not generally
working in user space, recent kernel versions protect you
from doing this.

If you don't have a library providing you with atomic operations,
you can copy the inline functions from the kernel, which will
work fine, but require that your app is GPL licensed.

	Arnd <><