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

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Message-ID: <20070815173326.GF9645@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Date:	Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:33:26 -0700
From:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
To:	Satyam Sharma <satyam@...radead.org>
Cc:	Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>,
	Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	Christoph Lameter <clameter@....com>,
	Chris Snook <csnook@...hat.com>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	ak@...e.de, heiko.carstens@...ibm.com, davem@...emloft.net,
	schwidefsky@...ibm.com, wensong@...ux-vs.org, horms@...ge.net.au,
	wjiang@...ilience.com, cfriesen@...tel.com, zlynx@....org,
	rpjday@...dspring.com, jesper.juhl@...il.com,
	segher@...nel.crashing.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 10:48:28PM +0530, Satyam Sharma wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 11:33:36PM +0800, Herbert Xu wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 07:25:16AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Do we really need another set of APIs?  Can you give even one example
> > > > where the pre-existing volatile semantics are causing enough of a problem
> > > > to justify adding yet more atomic_*() APIs?
> > > 
> > > Let's turn this around.  Can you give a single example where
> > > the volatile semantics is needed in a legitimate way?
> > 
> > Sorry, but you are the one advocating for the change.
> 
> Not for i386 and x86_64 -- those have atomic ops without any "volatile"
> semantics (currently as per existing definitions).

I claim unit volumes with arm, and the majority of the architectures, but
I cannot deny the popularity of i386 and x86_64 with many developers.  ;-)

However, I am not aware of code in the kernel that would benefit
from the compiler coalescing multiple atomic_set() and atomic_read()
invocations, thus I don't see the downside to volatility in this case.
Are there some performance-critical code fragments that I am missing?

						Thanx, Paul
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