netdev - Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

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Date:	Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:33:43 +0800
From:	Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
To:	Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>
Cc:	Christoph Lameter <clameter@....com>,
	Satyam Sharma <satyam@...radead.org>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	Chris Snook <csnook@...hat.com>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	ak@...e.de, heiko.carstens@...ibm.com, davem@...emloft.net,
	schwidefsky@...ibm.com, wensong@...ux-vs.org, horms@...ge.net.au,
	wjiang@...ilience.com, cfriesen@...tel.com, zlynx@....org,
	rpjday@...dspring.com, jesper.juhl@...il.com,
	segher@...nel.crashing.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 01:23:06PM +1000, Paul Mackerras wrote:
>
> In particular, atomic_read seems to lend itself to buggy uses.  People
> seem to do things like:
> 
> 	atomic_add(&v, something);
> 	if (atomic_read(&v) > something_else) ...

If you're referring to the code in sk_stream_mem_schedule
then it's working as intended.  The atomicity guarantees
that the atomic_add/atomic_sub won't be seen in parts by
other readers.

We certainly do not need to see other atomic_add/atomic_sub
operations immediately.

If you're referring to another code snippet please cite.

> I'd go so far as to say that anywhere where you want a non-"volatile"
> atomic_read, either your code is buggy, or else an int would work just
> as well.

An int won't work here because += and -= do not have the
atomicity guarantees that atomic_add/atomic_sub do.  In
particular, this may cause an atomic_read on another CPU
to give a bogus reading.

Cheers,
-- 
Visit Openswan at http://www.openswan.org/
Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/
PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt
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