linux-kernel - Re: why is it called "asm-generic/atomic.h"?

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Message-ID: <466824C6.60100@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
Date:	Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:31:18 +0200
From:	Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>
To:	"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@...dspring.com>
CC:	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: why is it called "asm-generic/atomic.h"?

Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   i'm just curious -- why does that particular header file have that
> name?  its opening comment reads:
> 
>  * Allows to provide arch independent atomic definitions without the need to
>  * edit all arch specific atomic.h files.
> 
> but that's *not* what that header file does.

The file name is correct, and the comment is correct too.  It indeed
_allows_ to define architecture-independent operations on atomic types,
and it currently does so for atomic_long_t.  There is no need to do so
for atomic_t, because all architectures already had their own set of
atomic_t operations when asm-generic/atomic.h was added.  (And I presume
they varied too much to justify an additional generic implementation
plus #ifndef HAVE_ARCH_SOMETHING games.)

PS:  The atomic_long_t operations currently don't need to be protected
by #ifndef HAVE_ARCH_SOMETHING and won't need to be in foreseeable
future, therefore they don't have this protection.
-- 
Stefan Richter
-=====-=-=== -==- --===
http://arcgraph.de/sr/
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