Message-Id: <DB9J3GBDB2UK.2OHWT5AI5DXFD@kernel.org>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 23:03:24 +0200
From: "Benno Lossin" <lossin@...nel.org>
To: "Boqun Feng" <boqun.feng@...il.com>
Cc: <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <rust-for-linux@...r.kernel.org>,
 <lkmm@...ts.linux.dev>, <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>, "Miguel Ojeda"
 <ojeda@...nel.org>, "Alex Gaynor" <alex.gaynor@...il.com>, "Gary Guo"
 <gary@...yguo.net>, Björn Roy Baron
 <bjorn3_gh@...tonmail.com>, "Andreas Hindborg" <a.hindborg@...nel.org>,
 "Alice Ryhl" <aliceryhl@...gle.com>, "Trevor Gross" <tmgross@...ch.edu>,
 "Danilo Krummrich" <dakr@...nel.org>, "Will Deacon" <will@...nel.org>,
 "Peter Zijlstra" <peterz@...radead.org>, "Mark Rutland"
 <mark.rutland@....com>, "Wedson Almeida Filho" <wedsonaf@...il.com>,
 "Viresh Kumar" <viresh.kumar@...aro.org>, "Lyude Paul" <lyude@...hat.com>,
 "Ingo Molnar" <mingo@...nel.org>, "Mitchell Levy"
 <levymitchell0@...il.com>, "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>, "Greg
 Kroah-Hartman" <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, "Linus Torvalds"
 <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>, "Thomas Gleixner" <tglx@...utronix.de>,
 "Alan Stern" <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 6/9] rust: sync: atomic: Add the framework of
 arithmetic operations

On Fri Jul 11, 2025 at 9:51 PM CEST, Boqun Feng wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 08:55:42PM +0200, Benno Lossin wrote:
> [...]
>> >> The generic allows you to implement it multiple times with different
>> >> meanings, for example:
>> >> 
>> >>     pub struct Nanos(u64);
>> >>     pub struct Micros(u64);
>> >>     pub struct Millis(u64);
>> >> 
>> >>     impl AllowAtomic for Nanos {
>> >>         type Repr = i64;
>> 
>> By the way, I find this a bit unfortunate... I think it would be nice to
>> be able to use `u64` and `u32` as reprs too.
>> 
>
> I don't think that's necessary, because actually a MaybeUninit<i32> and 
> MaybeUninit<i64> would cover all the cases, and even with `u64` and
> `u32` being reprs, you still need to trasmute somewhere for non integer
> types. But I'm also open to support them, let's discuss this later
> separately ;-)

I think it just looks weird for me to build a type that contains a `u64`
and then not being able to choose that as the repr...

>> Maybe we can add an additional trait `AtomicRepr` that gets implemented
>> by all integer types and then we can use that in the `Repr` instead.
>> 
>> This should definitely be a future patch series though.
>> 
>> >>     }
>> >> 
>> >>     impl AtomicAdd<Millis> for Nanos {
>> >>         fn rhs_into_repr(rhs: Millis) -> i64 {
>> >>             transmute(rhs.0 * 1000_000)
>> >
>> > We probably want to use `as` in real code?
>> 
>> I thought that `as` would panic on over/underflow... But it doesn't and
>> indeed just converts between the two same-sized types.
>> 
>> By the way, should we ask for `Repr` to always be of the same size as
>> `Self` when implementing `AllowAtomic`?
>> 
>> That might already be implied from the round-trip transmutability:
>> * `Self` can't have a smaller size, because transmuting `Self` into
>>   `Repr` would result in uninit bytes.
>> * `Repr` can't have a smaller size, because then transmuting a `Repr`
>>   (that was once a `Self`) back into `Self` will result in uninit bytes
>> 
>> We probably should mention this in the docs somewhere?
>> 
>
> We have it already as the first safety requirement of `AllowAtomic`:
>
> /// # Safety
> ///
> /// - [`Self`] must have the same size and alignment as [`Self::Repr`].
>
> Actually at the beginning, I missed the round-trip transmutablity
> (thanks to you and Gary for bring that up), that's only safe requirement
> I thought I needed ;-)

So technically we only need round-trip transmutablity & same alignment
(as size is implied as shown above), but I think it's much more
understandable if we keep it.

>> >>         }
>> >>     }
>> >> 
>> >>     impl AtomicAdd<Micros> for Nanos {
>> >>         fn rhs_into_repr(rhs: Micros) -> i64 {
>> >>             transmute(rhs.0 * 1000)
>> >>         }
>> >>     }
>> >> 
>> >>     impl AtomicAdd<Nanos> for Nanos {
>> >>         fn rhs_into_repr(rhs: Nanos) -> i64 {
>> >>             transmute(rhs.0)
>> >>         }
>> >>     }
>> >> 
>> >> For the safety requirement on the `AtomicAdd` trait, we might just
>> >> require bi-directional transmutability... Or can you imagine a case
>> >> where that is not guaranteed, but a weaker form is?
>> >
>> > I have a case that I don't think it's that useful, but it's similar to
>> > the `Micros` and `Millis` above, an `Even<T>` where `Even<i32>` is a
>> > `i32` but it's always an even number ;-) So transmute<i32, Even<i32>>()
>> > is not always sound. Maybe we could add a "TODO" in the safety section
>> > of `AtomicAdd`, and revisit this later? Like:
>> >
>> > /// (in # Safety)
>> > /// TODO: The safety requirement may be tightened to bi-directional
>> > /// transmutability. 
>> >
>> > And maybe also add the `Even` example there?
>> 
>> Ahh that's interesting... I don't think the comment in the tightening
>> direction makes sense, either we start out with bi-directional
>> transmutability, or we don't do it at all.
>> 
>> I think an `Even` example is motivation enough to have it. So let's not
>> tighten it. But I think we should improve the safety requirement:
>> 
>>     /// The valid bit patterns of `Self` must be a superset of the bit patterns reachable through
>>     /// addition on any values of type [`Self::Repr`] obtained by transmuting values of type `Self`.
>> 
>> or
>>     
>>     /// Adding any two values of type [`Self::Repr`] obtained through transmuting values of type `Self`
>>     /// must yield a value with a bit pattern also valid for `Self`.
>> 
>> I feel like the second one sounds better.
>> 
>
> Me too! Let's use it then. Combining with your `AtomicAdd<Rhs>`
> proposal:
>
>     /// # Safety
>     ///
>     /// Adding any:
>     /// - one being the value of [`Self::Repr`] obtained through transmuting value of type `Self`,
>     /// - the other being the value of [`Self::Delta`] obtained through conversion of `rhs_into_delta()`,
>     /// must yield a value with a bit pattern also valid for `Self`.

I think this will render wrongly in markdown & we shouldn't use a list,
so how about:

    /// Adding any value of type [`Self::Delta`] obtained by [`Self::rhs_into_delta`] to any value of
    /// type [`Self::Repr`] obtained through transmuting a value of type `Self` to must yield a value
    /// with a bit pattern also valid for `Self`.

My only gripe with this is that "Adding" isn't really well-defined...

>     pub unsafe trait AtomicAdd<Rhs>: AllowAtomic {
>         type Delta = Self::Repr;
>         fn rhs_into_delta(rhs: Rhs) -> Delta;
>     }
>
> Note that I have to provide a `Delta` (or better named as `ReprDelta`?)
> because of when pointer support is added, atomic addition is between
> a `*mut ()` and a `isize`, not two `*mut()`.

Makes sense, but we don't have default associated types yet :(

>> Also is overflowing an atomic variable UB in LKMM? Because if it is,
>
> No, all atomic arithmetic operations are wrapping, I did add a comment
> in Atomic::add() and Atomic::fetch_add() saying that. This also aligns
> with Rust std atomic behaviors.

Apparently I didn't read your docs very well :)

>> then `struct MultipleOf<const M: u64>(u64)` is also something that would
>> be supported. Otherwise only powers of two would be supported.
>
> Yeah, seems we can only support PowerOfTwo<integer>.
>
> (but technically you can detect overflow for those value-returning
> atomics, but let's think about that later if there is a user)

Yeah, I doubt that a real use-case will pop up soon.

---
Cheers,
Benno

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