linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] atomic: improve atomic_inc_unless_negative/atomic_dec_unless

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Date:	Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:03:10 +0530
From:	anish singh <anish198519851985@...il.com>
To:	paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
Cc:	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	Ming Lei <tom.leiming@...il.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Shaohua Li <shli@...nel.org>,
	Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] atomic: improve atomic_inc_unless_negative/atomic_dec_unless_positive

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:25 PM, Paul E. McKenney
<paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 04:02:47PM +0100, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
>> 2013/3/12 Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>:
>> > On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:03:23PM +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Paul E. McKenney
>> >> <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Atomic operations that return a value are required to act as full
>> >> > memory
>> >> > barriers.  This means that code relying on ordering provided by
>> >> > these
>> >> > atomic operations must also do ordering, either by using an explicit
>> >> > memory barrier or by relying on guarantees from atomic operations.
>> >> >
>> >> > For example:
>> >> >
>> >> >         CPU 0                                   CPU 1
>> >> >
>> >> >         X = 1;                                  r1 = Z;
>> >> >         if (atomic_inc_unless_negative(&Y)      smp_mb();
>> >> >                 do_something();
>> >> >         Z = 1;                                  r2 = X;
>> >> >
>> >> > Assuming X and Z are initially zero, if r1==1, we are guaranteed
>> >> > that r2==1.  However, CPU 1 needs its smp_mb() in order to pair with
>> >> > the barrier implicit in atomic_inc_unless_negative().
>> >> >
>> >> > Make sense?
>> >>
>> >> Yes, it does, and thanks for the explanation.
>> >>
>> >> But looks the above example is not what Frederic described:
>> >>
>> >> "the above atomic_read() might return -1 because there is no
>> >> guarantee it's seeing the recent update on the remote CPU."
>> >>
>> >> Even I am not sure if adding one smp_mb() around atomic_read()
>> >> can guarantee that too.
>> >
>> > Frederic was likely thinking of some other scenario that would be
>> > broken by atomic_inc_unless_negative() failing to act as a full
>> > memory barrier.  Here is another example:
>> >
>> >
>> >         CPU 0                                   CPU 1
>> >
>> >                                                 X = 1;
>> >         if (atomic_inc_unless_negative(&Y)      r1 = atomic_xchg(&Y,
>> > -1);
>> >                 r2 = X;
>> >
>> > If atomic_inc_unless_negative() acts as a full memory barrier, then
>> > if CPU 0 reaches the assignment from X, the results will be guaranteed
>> > to be 1.  Otherwise, there is no guarantee.
>>
>> Your scenarios show an interesting guarantee I did not think about.
>> But my concern was on such a situation:
>>
>>   CPU 0                            CPU 1
>>
>>   atomic_set(&X, -1)
>>                                        atomic_inc(&X)
>>   atomic_add_unless_negative(&X, 5)
>>
>> On the above situation, CPU 0 may still see X == -1 and thus not add
>> the 5. Of course all that only make sense with datas coming along.
>
> That could happen, but you would need CPU 1 to carry out some other
> reference for it to be a bug.  Otherwise, CPU 1's atomic_inc() just

  CPU 0                            CPU 1

  atomic_set(&X, -1)
                                        A =5
                                       &X = A
  atomic_add_unless_negative(&X, 5)

Do you mean this when you referred "carry out some other reference
for it to be a bug"?

> happened after all of CPU 0's code.  But yes, it would be possible
> to misorder with some larger scenario starting with this example.
> Especially given that atomic_inc() does not make any ordering guarantees.
>
>                                                         Thanx, Paul
>
>                                                         Thanx, Paul
>
> --
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