linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 21/21] drivers/vhost: Remove now-redundant read_barrier

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Date:   Wed, 6 Dec 2017 00:09:36 +0200
From:   "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>
To:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc:     "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, mingo@...nel.org,
        jiangshanlai@...il.com, dipankar@...ibm.com,
        akpm@...ux-foundation.org, mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com,
        josh@...htriplett.org, tglx@...utronix.de, rostedt@...dmis.org,
        dhowells@...hat.com, edumazet@...gle.com, fweisbec@...il.com,
        oleg@...hat.com, Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>,
        kvm@...r.kernel.org, virtualization@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
        netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 21/21] drivers/vhost: Remove now-redundant
 read_barrier_depends()

On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 10:57:00PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 11:24:49PM +0200, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > READ_ONCE is really all over the place (some code literally replaced all
> > memory accesses with READ/WRITE ONCE).
> 
> Yeah, so?

Oh my point was I can't just look for READ_ONCE and go
*that's the pair*. there are too many of these.
At Paul's suggestion I will document the pairing *this read once has a
barrier that is paired with that barrier*.

> Complain to the compiler people for forcing us into that.

In some cases when you end up with all accesses
going through read/write once volatile just might better.

> > Would an API like WRITE_POINTER()/smp_store_pointer make sense,
> > and READ_POINTER for symmetry?
> 
> No, the whole point of the exercise was to get away from the fact that
> dependent loads are special.

It's a pity that dependent stores are still special.

-- 
MST