[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <20110827040609.GA5374@thunk.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:06:09 -0400
From: Ted Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
To: Allison Henderson <achender@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/5 v6] ext4: Add new ext4_discard_partial_page_buffers
routines
On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 12:07:18PM -0700, Allison Henderson wrote:
> + while (pos < offset + length) {
> + err = 0;
> +
> + /* The length of space left to zero and unmap */
> + range_to_discard = offset + length - pos;
> +
> + /* The length of space until the end of the block */
> + end_of_block = blocksize - (pos & (blocksize-1));
> +
> + /*
> + * Do not unmap or zero past end of block
> + * for this buffer head
> + */
> + if (range_to_discard > end_of_block)
> + range_to_discard = end_of_block;
> +
> +
> + /*
> + * Skip this buffer head if we are only zeroing unampped
> + * regions of the page
> + */
> + if (flags & EXT4_DSCRD_PARTIAL_PG_ZERO_UNMAPED &&
> + buffer_mapped(bh))
> + goto next;
> +
You should move this bit of code here:
/* If the range is block aligned, unmap */
if (range_to_discard == blocksize) {
clear_buffer_dirty(bh);
bh->b_bdev = NULL;
clear_buffer_mapped(bh);
clear_buffer_req(bh);
clear_buffer_new(bh);
clear_buffer_delay(bh);
clear_buffer_unwritten(bh);
clear_buffer_uptodate(bh);
and add these two lines:
+ zero_user(page, pos, blocksize);
+ goto next;
}
Why? Because if the range is block aligned, all you have to do is
unmap the buffer and call zero_user() just in case the page was
mmap'ed into some process's address space. You don't want to mark the
block dirty --- in fact, if the buffer was already unmapped, you'll
trigger a WARN_ON in fs/buffer.c in mark_buffer_dirty() --- which is
how I noticed the problem and decided to look more closely at this bit
of code.
You also don't want to engage the journaling machinery and journal the
data block in data=journalling mode, or to put the inode on the
data=ordered writeback list just because of this write. That's just
wasted work.
If you do this, then you also don't need the conditional below:
> + /*
> + * If this block is not completely contained in the range
> + * to be discarded, then it is not going to be released. Because
> + * we need to keep this block, we need to make sure this part
> + * of the page is uptodate before we modify it by writeing
> + * partial zeros on it.
> + */
> + if (range_to_discard != blocksize) {
... which will also reduce a level of indentation, in the code, which
is good.
- Ted
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Powered by blists - more mailing lists