Message-ID: <20130314213209.GA15771@dcvr.yhbt.net>
Date:	Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:32:09 +0000
From:	Eric Wong <normalperson@...t.net>
To:	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>
Cc:	Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@...tta.com>,
	Davide Libenzi <davidel@...ilserver.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] Linux kernel Wait-Free Concurrent Queue
 Implementation

Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com> wrote:
> * Eric Wong (normalperson@...t.net) wrote:
> > Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com> wrote:
> > > The advantage of using splice() over dequeue() is that you will reduce
> > > the amount of interactions between concurrent enqueue and dequeue
> > > operations on the head and tail of the same queue.
> > 
> > I wanted to use splice here originally, but epoll_wait(2) may not
> > consume the entire queue, as it's limited to maxevents specified by the
> > user calling epoll_wait.
> 
> I see,
> 
> > 
> > With unconsumed elements, I need to preserve ordering of the queue to
> > avoid starvation.  So I would either need to:
> > 
> > a) splice the unconsumed portion back to the head of the shared queue.
> >    I'm not sure if this is possible while elements are being enqueued...
> 
> That would be a double-ended queue. I haven't thought this problem
> through yet.
> 
> >    Using a mutex for splicing back to unconsumed elements is OK, and
> >    probably required anyways since we need to keep EPOLLONESHOT
> >    unmasking synced with dequeue.
> > 
> > b) preserve the unconsumed spliced queue across epoll_wait invocations
> >    but that requires checking both queues for event availability...
> 
> I think b) should be preferred over a).
> 
> Basically, instead of having the "unconsumed element" queue on the stack
> as I suggested, you might want to keep it across epoll_wait invocations.
> 
> Before you start digging in the unconsumed element queue, you just start
> by splicing the content of the shared queue into the tail of unconsumed
> queue. Then, you simply dequeue the unconsumed queue elements until you
> either reach the end or the max nr.
> 
> You should note that with this scheme, you'll have to dequeue items from
> the unconsumed queue rather than just iterating over the elements. The
> nice side of consuming all the elements (in the temp queue on the local
> stack) is that you don't care about dequeuing, since the entire queue
> will vanish. However, in this case, since you care about keeping the
> queue after a partial iteration, you need to dequeue from it.
> 
> And yes, this approach involves checking both queues for event
> availability. Hopefully none of this will be too much of an issue
> performance-wise.

Right.  I will try this, I don't think the check will be too expensive.

When dequeuing from the unconsumed queue, perhaps there should be a
"dequeue_local" function which omits the normal barriers required
for the shared queue.

With a splice and without needing barriers for iteration, this sounds good.

> Another approach could be to let you work directly on the shared queue:
> 
> I could possibly implement a
> 
> void __wfcq_snapshot(struct wfcq_head *head,
>                 struct wfcq_tail *tail);
> 
> That would save a tail shapshot that would then be used to stop
> iteration, dequeue and splice at the location of the tail snapshot. And
> 
> void __wfcq_snapshot_reset(struct wfcq_head *head,
>                 struct wfcq_tail *tail);
> 
> would set the tail snapshot pointer back to NULL.
> 
> This would require a few extra checks, but nothing very expensive I
> expect.
> 
> Thoughts ?

I'm not sure I follow, would using it be something like this?

	snapshot
	iterate (read-only, no dequeue)
	splice(discard_head, discard_tail, shared_head, iter_stop_point)
	snapshot_reset

I also use an atomic state variable to prevent an item from being queued
twice, and I unset that while iterating+dequeueing.

I change the state to IDLE while iterating and ep_poll_callback sets
state READY on any item before being spliced out, that would cause the
event to be lost when it's spliced out.

So I think dequeue/state IDLE while iterating is required for epoll_wait,
I'll try the private queue.
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