linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] rbtree: use READ_ONCE in RB_EMPTY

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Message-ID: <20160112090629.GO6344@twins.programming.kicks-ass.net>
Date:	Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:06:29 +0100
From:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:	Davidlohr Bueso <dave@...olabs.net>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Davidlohr Bueso <dbueso@...e.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] rbtree: use READ_ONCE in RB_EMPTY_ROOT

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 10:22:43AM -0800, Davidlohr Bueso wrote:
> With d72da4a4d97 (rbtree: Make lockless searches non-fatal) our rbtrees
> provide weak guarantees that allows us to do lockless (and very speculative)
> reads of the tree. Such readers cannot see partial stores on nodes, ie
> left/right as well as root. As such, similar to the WRITE_ONCE semantics when
> doing rotations, use READ_ONCE when checking the root node in RB_EMPTY_ROOT.

No objection, but is this actually used anywhere?

Or is this a just-in-case completeness thing?