Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

On 8/15/2007 10:18 AM, Heiko Carstens wrote:

On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 02:49:03PM +0800, Herbert Xu wrote:

quoted

Chris Snook [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Because atomic operations are generally used for synchronization, which requires 
volatile behavior.  Most such codepaths currently use an inefficient barrier(). 
 Some forget to and we get bugs, because people assume that atomic_read() 
actually reads something, and atomic_write() actually writes something.  Worse, 
these are architecture-specific, even compiler version-specific bugs that are 
often difficult to track down.

I'm yet to see a single example from the current tree where
this patch series is the correct solution.  So far the only
example has been a buggy piece of code which has since been
fixed with a cpu_relax.

Btw.: we still have

include/asm-i386/mach-es7000/mach_wakecpu.h:  while (!atomic_read(deassert));
include/asm-i386/mach-default/mach_wakecpu.h: while (!atomic_read(deassert));

Looks like they need to be fixed as well.

I don't know if this here is affected:

/* drivers/ieee1394/ieee1394_core.h */
static inline unsigned int get_hpsb_generation(struct hpsb_host *host)
{
	return atomic_read(&host->generation);
}

/* drivers/ieee1394/nodemgr.c */
static int nodemgr_host_thread(void *__hi)
{
	[...]

	for (;;) {
		[... sleep until bus reset event ...]

		/* Pause for 1/4 second in 1/16 second intervals,
		 * to make sure things settle down. */
		g = get_hpsb_generation(host);
		for (i = 0; i < 4 ; i++) {
			if (msleep_interruptible(63) ||
			    kthread_should_stop())
				goto exit;

	/* Now get the generation in which the node ID's we collect
	 * are valid.  During the bus scan we will use this generation
	 * for the read transactions, so that if another reset occurs
	 * during the scan the transactions will fail instead of
	 * returning bogus data. */

			generation = get_hpsb_generation(host);

	/* If we get a reset before we are done waiting, then
	 * start the waiting over again */

			if (generation != g)
				g = generation, i = 0;
		}

		[... scan bus, using generation ...]

	}
exit:
[...]
}



-- 
Stefan Richter
-=====-=-=== =--- -====
http://arcgraph.de/sr/