linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 tip/core/rcu 6/6] srcu: Document polling interfaces for Tree SRCU grace periods

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Date:   Fri, 20 Nov 2020 16:59:19 -0800
From:   paulmck@...nel.org
To:     rcu@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kernel-team@...com, mingo@...nel.org,
        jiangshanlai@...il.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
        mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com, josh@...htriplett.org,
        tglx@...utronix.de, peterz@...radead.org, rostedt@...dmis.org,
        dhowells@...hat.com, edumazet@...gle.com, fweisbec@...il.com,
        oleg@...hat.com, joel@...lfernandes.org, kent.overstreet@...il.com,
        "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>
Subject: [PATCH v2 tip/core/rcu 6/6] srcu: Document polling interfaces for Tree SRCU grace periods

From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>

This commit adds requirements documentation for the
get_state_synchronize_srcu(), start_poll_synchronize_srcu(), and
poll_state_synchronize_srcu() functions.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/rcu/20201112201547.GF3365678@moria.home.lan/
Reported-by: Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@...il.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@...nel.org>
---
 Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
index 1e3df77..2dce79d 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
@@ -2600,6 +2600,24 @@ also includes DEFINE_SRCU(), DEFINE_STATIC_SRCU(), and
 init_srcu_struct() APIs for defining and initializing
 ``srcu_struct`` structures.
 
+More recently, the SRCU API has added polling interfaces:
+
+#. start_poll_synchronize_srcu() returns a cookie identifying
+   the completion of a future SRCU grace period and ensures
+   that this grace period will be started.
+#. poll_state_synchronize_srcu() returns ``true`` iff the
+   specified cookie corresponds to an already-completed
+   SRCU grace period.
+#. get_state_synchronize_srcu() returns a cookie just like
+   start_poll_synchronize_srcu() does, but differs in that
+   it does nothing to ensure that any future SRCU grace period
+   will be started.
+
+These functions are used to avoid unnecessary SRCU grace periods in
+certain types of buffer-cache algorithms having multi-stage age-out
+mechanisms.  The idea is that by the time the block has aged completely
+from the cache, an SRCU grace period will be very likely to have elapsed.
+
 Tasks RCU
 ~~~~~~~~~
 
-- 
2.9.5