Re: [PATCH] Define wc_wmb, a write barrier for PCI write combining

From: Roland Dreier
Date: Tue Feb 28 2006 - 12:49:27 EST


Jesse> I don't think it addresses the flushing issue you seem to
Jesse> be concerned about though. I don't know the exact
Jesse> semantics of sfence, but I think bcrl is likely right that
Jesse> it won't absolutely guarantee that your writes have hit the
Jesse> device before proceeding (though it may do that on some CPU
Jesse> implementations).

Yeah, I think that Bryan just wrote something different than what he
meant: there is no desire for wc_wmb() to make sure that writes via a
write-combining mapping have gone all the way to the device, any more
than a normal wmb() makes sure normal writes have gone all the way to
the device. All that wc_wmb() needs to do is make sure that writes
via a write-combining mapping don't get passed by later writes.

This does speak to the need for precise documentation though :)

- R.
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