linux-kernel - Re: Uses for memory barriers

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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0609191634480.4631-100000@iolanthe.rowland.org>
Date:	Tue, 19 Sep 2006 16:38:19 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
To:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ibm.com>
cc:	Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@...oo.com.au>,
	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
	Kernel development list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Uses for memory barriers

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Paul E. McKenney wrote:

> > Maybe I'm missing something. But if the same CPU loads the value
> > before the store becomes visible to cache coherency, it might see
> > the value out of any order any of the other CPUs sees.
> 
> Agreed.  But the CPUs would have to refer to a fine-grained synchronized
> timebase or to some other variable in order to detect the fact that there
> were in fact multiple different values for the same variable at the same
> time (held in the different store queues).

Even that wouldn't be illegal.  No one ever said that any particular write 
becomes visible to all CPUs at the same time.

> If the CPUs looked only at that one single variable being stored to,
> could they have inconsistent opinions about the order of values that
> this single variable took on?  My belief is that they could not.

Yes, I think this must be right.  If a store is hung up in a CPU's store 
buffer, it will mask later stores by other CPUs (i.e., prevent them from 
becoming visible to the CPU that owns the store buffer).  Hence all stores 
that _do_ become visible will appear in a consistent order.

But my knowledge of outlandish hardware is extremely limited, so don't 
take my word as gospel.

Alan

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