frlock and barrier discussion

From: Stephen Hemminger (shemminger@osdl.org)
Date: Wed Jan 29 2003 - 20:15:55 EST


On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 23:06, Richard Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 03:42:21PM -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > +static inline void fr_write_begin(frlock_t *rw)
> > +{
> > + preempt_disable();
> > + rw->pre_sequence++;
> > + wmb();
> > +}
> > +
> > +static inline void fr_write_end(frlock_t *rw)
> > +{
> > + wmb();
> > + rw->post_sequence++;
>
> These need to be mb(), not wmb(), if you want the bits in between
> to actually happen in between, as with your xtime example. At
> present there's nothing stoping xtime from being *read* before
> your read from pre_sequence happens.

First, write_begin/end can only be safely used when there is separate
writer synchronization such as a spin_lock or semaphore.
As far as I know, semaphore or spin_lock guarantees a barrier.
So xtime or anything else can not be read before the spin_lock.

Using mb() is more paranoid than necessary.

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